What Business Doesn’t Know CAN Hurt It

David Scott — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 17:36:09 +0000

It’s said that what you don’t know can’t hurt you. But today, increasingly, what business doesn’t know most certainly can hurt business.

In many IT folks’ view, one of the most puzzling phenomena in the Business-Technology Weave is the sustained posture of ignorance to technology by some in business. Conversely, many business staff regard their IT folks as aloof, uncaring, or simply too overburdened to provide an appropriate level of support. In some cases they may even be perceived as under-qualified – true or not. Let’s examine things from the Business side first.

Business needs to demystify the technology they own. Therefore, we need to make a sale to our top-most management, and it is this: Business leaders and staff must now have enough real knowledge to contribute in crafting the Business-Technology Weave – through a Business-driven IT strategy. We must explain to top management the necessities so that you’ll have this top management sponsoring and sanctioning this obligation for Business – they must endorse and enforce a savvy business-technology culture.

Business leaders at all levels of the organization often don’t know what their obligation is in this modern business-technology arena. Some who do understand it none-the-less deliberately avoid engaging themselves for various reasons. For example, only 2 in 5 business responders believe that their data management strategies have board approval. Only just over half believe that senior management of their company places sufficient importance on data management. Insufficient importance placed on data management. Data is our business intelligence. This posture of avoidance will get people in deep trouble as time goes by, and indeed is creating trouble for many organizations today. It may sound obvious, but ignorance is a posture business can no longer afford – and increasingly even small measures of ignorance are becoming unaffordable.

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts – both business and IT people – regarding your organization’s posture. In the next day or two, I’ll continue this thread…

July 31^st: On this day in 1809, the 1^st practical railroad track went into operation (wooden, for horse-drawn cars) in Philadelphia.

IT Governance – Time to Pedal Faster

David Scott — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:31:59 +0000

I remember riding my bike with friends when I was about ten years old. My brother, three years younger, was trying to keep up with us bigger boys. I was laughing, and urged my group on faster. We left my brother behind – he was much smaller. Later, I was in trouble because my father saw me leaving my brother behind, and I got a lecture to never do that again.

But that episode reminds me of IT governance’s lag; the seeming inability of many in the CXO class – that is, the CEOs, CFOs, and COOs – to simply pedal faster in today’s business-technology climate in maintaining optimal alignment. They don’t have the excuse of age, or size particularly, in explaining their inability to keep up – we’re all adults. It’s not that we expect a CFO, for example, to have the exact knowledge of a CTO or CIO – but we should expect that person to be qualified for the discussion and to bring valid ideas to the table.

Too many CXOs to whom IT reports are poorly qualified in making decisions regarding major IT directions and purchases – this can only have a negative impact on business-technology alignment. In seeking efficiency and cost savings, many a CXO blinks not only in the face of potential solutions, but also in their sizing and overall applicability to the specific environment; just because a system exists elsewhere and serves another situation, even a similar one, it doesn’t mean it will serve yours.

The CIO or CTO who entertains thoughts of Enterprise Resource Planning, Content Management, Configuration Management, the Cloud, social media, and all manner of other enterprise and business management solutions, needs qualified senior executives with whom to partner. This qualified group has to assess potential returns on investment vis-à-vis impacts to business: any specific large-scale change and corresponding enterprise impact may have little or no payoff in a particular environment – worse, it may simply be a negative.

It is certain that CIOs and CTOs are best protected by knowing business, and in the specific environment, knowing the business. By extension, they then best protect business and its interests: the CXO of IT is able to take a systems and enterprise view of business, and is able to speak to senior business execs in their language.

However, if you’re a part of IT governance – a senior executive; CEO, CFO, COO – and you’re taking the attitude that you don’t really need a corresponding understanding of technical resources and solutions, then it is definitely time to pedal faster. You need to keep up; you must qualify in understanding and progressing your business enablements to the best possible degree.

Your IT leadership can only go so far in discovering, assessing, and recommending solutions in delivering best business-IT alignment. You wouldn’t expect IT to know your business better than business itself, would you?

Start pedaling – hard.

July 27^th: On this day in 1909, Orville Wright tests the first U.S. Army airplane; he flies for one hour and 12 minutes.

The Business-Technology Weave » CTO

What Business Doesn’t Know CAN Hurt It

IT Governance – Time to Pedal Faster