The CIO Assistant's Blog

This is the third post in the recent series on Business-IT Alignment where the issue is examined from both sides of the coin so to speak. The objective is to demonstrate that Business-IT Alignment is possible if there is a level playing field where both Business and IT are accountable for their action, not just one (IT) performing for the other (Business) to judge. This post will show how the CIO can use a simple approach to keep tab of the progress of the Alignment effort. But before getting there, let’s review quickly the first 2 posts.

In Part 1, entitled “What Business Would IT Align To?”, the readers were shown that “Business” is an elusive term, used by different groups in different contexts and possibly for different agendas. Rarely that Business is meant the overarching entity which encompasses an organization, its people, products, processes, facilities, customer base, etc. In practice, Business sometimes means the executives or heads of business units who deal with IT on a variety of subjects, ranging from specific initiatives to ongoing support operations. In other times, Business also means the more abstract notions of Culture, Strategy, or Money. To say IT should align to Business means that IT organization should spend wisely (no upgrades this year), that IT processes should be in sync with corporate culture, that IT plans should be supportive of corporate strategies, that IT leaders should be true partners with other corporate executives, that IT people should speak the same language as other business functions … a tall order for any human being or group. A misstep happens, Bang … IT is not aligned. Is it fair?

In Part 2, entitled “Which IT Needs Business Alignment”, it was further explained that IT is also evolving itself as a group, similar to the way that species evolve in a darwinian fashion. It means that there are parts of acknowledged and entrenched IT functions that are no longer valuable because they bring no significant perceived values, either because Business can get them elsewhere at competitive costs or because they are taken for granted similar to the air that we breathe. It also means that some parts of IT have managed to acquire new skills and capabilities that could serve Business well. By focusing the spotlight on the low-value areas and ignoring the potentially high-value contribution of others, Business (or whoever says to represent it – including the IT trade press) tends to look at IT in a partial and somewhat unfair way.

How do we redress the situation and view Business-IT Alignment in a more balanced way? How can we weight in the positive versus negative contributions of IT? Should we measure the Alignment over an extended time frame or take a snap shot at a certain time? This post will attempt to answer these questions.

Alignment is in the eyes of the beholders

Despite all the focus, trade press coverage and surveys about Business-IT Alignment, there is so far no evidence of scientific measurements of such alignment. Not even a semi-scientific one. This subject of Alignment is not unlike any other complex and abstract notions such as Success or Happiness. We will know Alignment when we meet one, but we cannot define it in terms that are unequivocal and measurable. For example: Does a successful implementation of a (fill-in-the-blank)-backed initiative counts as an instance of Alignment? How many such instances need to happen during a year to gain the accolade of “truly aligned” IT? Three? Ten? It’s all relative.

So the first step in making Alignment happen is to engage the Business side and jointly define the Terms of Alignment. Since there are multiple representatives of Business, the CIO needs to seek all of them out, not just the obvious or visible ones. Find the opportunity to engage them and start the dialogue. Ask your business partners what do they feel about the business of IT Alignment. You need to show the Business side that you are serious about getting aligned. You need to overcome the fear of confirmation (Fred, you’re damn right. Where was IT when I need them last month?) or the risk of denial (What alignment? Sorry Fred, I have nothing to discuss and no time for philosophizing now!) That’s would be a big first step.

But what can you do next?

Alignment in Action

Here are a few pointers that you may consider, going forward:

1. No Dashboard - By all means, have all kinds of appropriate dashboards ready: the CEO Dashboard, the CIO Dashboard, the Enterprise Dashboard …, but please, NO Alignment Dashboard. Alignment is NOT a Performance. You just cannot effectively measure Alignment as you do with Quality, Productivity, Resource Utilization, etc. Attempting to build a formal one opens the door for critique on dashboard in general, and by extension, all the other legitimate ones. It doesn’t mean that you, as the CIO, cannot have one (or many). Just make it (them) informal, a one-to-one covenant with each representative of the business side (e.g. one with the CEO, one with the CFO, one with each Division Head, so on and so forth).

2. The “WOW” factor - Many years ago, I put up outside of my office a “WOW” board. On it, I had my people posting all kinds of thing, from ISO-9001 Certificate to News Release about the latest Win. The only condition for posting was that the piece must elicit a “Wow” by others. Any piece which received a “So What?” reaction was unceremoniously removed. It was a very competitive, dog-eats-dog type of action by groups vying for a piece of estate on that board. One funny thing happened after a while: all self-served pieces disappeared, to be replaced by Thank You notes from satisfied clients, cover pages of awarded contracts signed by both Sales and IT teams, … Well, you get the idea. IT people, at least those who worked for me in the past, are proud of their work but they are even prouder if that work is recognized, either explicitly by a Thank You note or implicitly by sharing the spotlight with another team. Find your “WOW” examples. Carefully select those that scream Alignment. Make they hugely visible.

3. Make Alignment your Guiding Principle - Or at least consider it your Critical Success Factor (CSF). Find the way to weave Alignment into your IT shop. Sprinkle your talks, your plans, your reports, your blogs and tweets (if you are the social media-savvy type) with Alignment terminology. Meeting of the mind. Have all ducks in a row. Stay in sync. March in lockstep. Sooner rather than later, you will see your staff picking them up (provided that what you say is authentic) in their behavior, then their partners on the business side, then … the IT press, I hope.

One last thing. Business keeps changing. So does IT. In order to stay aligned, you need to adapt and adjust constantly, from both sides. The glorious outcomes recorded last month or last week are now things of the past. Are you still aligned today? This is the only thing that counts.

          alignment, business, CIO, IT, leadership

In a previous post, I asked the question: “What Business Would IT Align To?” to highlight the fact that Business is a generic term used indiscriminately for different entities in different contexts. So when a divisional head was not happy with the services provided by the central IT group, it could be called a Business-IT mis-alignment. In this post, I like to ask the reverse question: “Which IT Needs Business Alignment?” for a similar reason. There are many services provided by a typical IT organization and not all business persons or groups received all of them. By understanding the multiple facets of Business and IT, we would be a step closer to the elusive goal of Alignment between them.

A Quick View of IT Evolution

IT, or Information Technology, has also become a generic term lately. It started over half a century ago, in the 50’s or even earlier, as EDP (Electronic Data Processing), evolved to IS (Information Systems) then expanded into MIS (Management Information Systems) in the 70’s, added the Technology part in the 80’s to become IS/IT, then dropped the IS part to become simply IT in the 90’s (1). Many great data and information-related technologies and concepts have been introduced during these decades. Some reinforced the value of IT, others threatened its existence. Remember End-User Computing or Office Automation? They were not much different than today’s Business Intelligence or Social Media. Each new technology arrived on the scene with a promise of transforming the way IT deliver its services to support Business. Many purportedly putting the power of processing in the hand of the business users and making IT obsolete in the process: no more mainframe, no more COBOL programmers, no more legacy systems. Yet the enterprise still needs great processing power to run mission-critical applications, huge and reliable repositories of data to feed a variety of business needs and smart programmers to build new applications and interfaces to old ones.

If we consider the evolution of IT as a Darwinian process, we would see that IT has a remarkable survival instinct. But just like the homo sapiens in nature, IT life in business is a constant display of adaptability. To survive and grow, it needs to develop new capabilities while shedding obsolete ones. It needs to leverage certain capabilities that are better developed than those of other corporate species. Finally, it needs to create a safe and nurturing habitat, hence the need for business alignment.

The Many Faces of IT

Without going into a detailed list of all potential IT services, I would classify them into 3 categories: those that IT is traditionally good at delivering but have no distinct value today; those that IT is not so good at but hold promise; and those that are new to IT but of high value to business.

1. IT Services with no distinct value - It may vary from organization to organization, but in general, these IT services include infrastructure management, application maintenance, or any services that a third-party service provider can do just as well. A highly aligned IT organization would not fight to retain these capabilities in-house, but rather proactively find the way to keep the cost of their provision to a minimum. It would act as a general contractor on behalf of corporate business users for common IT needs (e.g. desktop support). If not already existed, it would start developing new capabilities in vendor relationship management, contract management, or related skills to ensure that the organization will get “value for money”.

2. IT Services with promising value - These IT services include security management, service management, support of regulatory compliance, or any services that are “Must-Have” by business but sensitive enough to be controlled by a third-party service provider. A highly aligned IT organization would step up to the plate, assuming full responsibility (even if the accountability rests elsewhere) and providing assurance that no unpleasant surprises or negative press would ever occur under its watch. A good example is the assurance of fully implemented and auditable IT Controls for Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. It (IT) would need to put in place strong IT governance and management frameworks such as COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and related Technology). It would start developing new capabilities in process engineering, risk management, or portfolio management, to name a few.

3. IT Services with high value - These IT services include business strategy planning, business intelligence, transition management, or any services that have a big and long-lasting impact on business, where corporate management cannot afford to make mistake. A highly aligned IT organization would “be there” all the time, in “top of the mind” of corporate executives the very moment that a major decision is entertained in the boardroom: merger and acquisition, divestiture, diversification, major organization restructuring. Just like the U.S. Marine Corps presence  for any newly developed situation of conflict. In order to get there (i.e. to reach that trusted position), IT needs to develop new capabilities in leading changes, effectively working in a coalition of both friends and foes, achieving results with speed and efficiency, etc. In fact, the list is rather long and it may take years to get there.

As you can see, different types of IT service have different perceived values. And for different perceived values, there are different levels of expectation from Business. Understanding them, sharing them with key players on the business side and reaching a mutual agreement with them about how to keep score of the IT performance will guarantee a better Business-IT Alignment.

In the next post, I will elaborate on the types of metrics that reflect better the goal of Business-IT Alignment.

[Update: I added a link to the phrase "be there" after coming across a wonderful post from Mike Schaffner on Guiding IT Principles. Go there and see what I mean.]

          alignment, business, CIO, IT, leadership

 “It’s more a Zen state of mind that you have to constantly be changing and morphing along with the business.”

Holly Morris, CIO at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a faith-based, non-profit insurance provider (1).

I like this quote very much because it demonstrates the willingness and the capability of IT to serve different business interests with a quiet determination, a Zen state of mind so to speak. Yet I keep hearing from time to time a one-sided argument that it’s the fault of IT for not being aligned with “Business”. If I were a CIO, I would be very wary in participating in such debate. Why? Because in such debate, “Business” is portrayed as a monolithic entity that can be either aligned to or not; while in reality, Business can be different things to different people at different times and in different contexts.

I know that people mean well when they talk about the issue of Business-IT Alignment, but I can’t help but wondering aloud: What “Business” are we talking about here? Is it the entire organization? A divisional unit? A functional department such as Marketing? A financial analyst in the Accounting department? A C-level executive? All of the above?

If you were an IT Leader, you may encounter in the course of the same day conflicting requests for IT services. Some are straight forward, others less so because they may have a profound impact on the organization. Some are easily accepted, others may be rejected after due consideration. Some would be promptly addressed, others would take longer time. At the end of the day, it’s inevitable that some are pleased and others not.

Smart CIO’s have all established an IT Governance structure with membership from all key players and a transparent prioritization process. It helps mitigate the decision-making process, but never manages to shut down the grumbles from disappointed parties. Maybe it’s time for the CIO’s to create Alignment metrics with some definable targets so that the notion of Alignment is reflected by a range of acceptable Gray shades instead of the current Black or White perception. By then, we may say with some quiet satisfaction that IT is 100% aligned here and 70% there, in various aspects of Business.

By the way, when you read the next time about yet another case of IT failing to align with Business, take it with a grain of salt and ask yourself: What Business are we talking here?

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(1) Quote extracted from an interview with CIO Insight, May 2009 issue.

          alignment, business, CIO, governance, IT, metrics