|
Show
Them How
Even perfect execution won't lead to perfect IT. You must
encourage business users to develop some IT smarts of their
own.
BY
SUSAN CRAMM
You
have probably noticed the recent research and magazine articles
about "the agile IT organization." Agile is a
great word for IT because it speaks to the core IT issues
of "too little, too late, for too much." To be
agile is to have the ability to move quickly, with suppleness,
skill and control. It's a noble ambition for CIOs, but it's
unachievable as long as IT's role is unchanged.The research
on agile IT organizations boils down to a recommendation
that IT be transformed to operate like a business, much
like an external service provider. This advice implicitly
assumes that if IT's execution is perfected, then the outcome
will be agility, and the core complaints of your business
partners will be addressed.
But
let's face facts: Nobody really likes external service providers,
and even the most agile IT organization—featuring
perfect governance, resource management, processes, infrastructure,
cost transparency and organizational structure—probably
will not be enough to satisfy the business's expectations
on time, quality and cost.
The
role of IT has to change. Your business partners will be
satisfied only when they directly control IT service delivery
and, therefore, feel accountable for the results. Over time,
IT has assumed "surrogate user" roles that the
business has been unable or unwilling to assume. The business
partners of tomorrow (currently in their late 20s and early
30s) will not take such a passive role with IT.
CIOs
can increase IT agility by getting out of the way. They
should strive to enable their business partners' ability
to satisfy their day-to-day IT needs on their own, without
having to wait in lengthy governance lines for project approval,
funding and staffing. In short, IT should attempt to disintermediate
itself from its own supply chain. In case you think I have
lost my mind, be assured that while CIOs are enabling their
partners' self-sufficiency, they must also ensure that IT
is done right. (See my previous column, "Give Away
Authority to Gain Control Over IT's Purpose," on the
fiduciary role of IT.) They should establish the IT principles,
decision rights and processes that govern strategy, investments,
architecture, infrastructure development, delivery, assets
protection and compliance.
The
IT-Enabled User
The only way that the "enabling IT" vision will
become a reality is through an enabling infrastructure—specifically,
a development and delivery environment that allows business
partners to add or modify capabilities while ensuring integration,
compliance and operational performance. The good news is
that environments such as this are currently under development;
the bad news is that they are being designed for programmers
rather than for hands-on use by the business. Take the example
of a large financial services company wherein the CIO is
focused on improving programmer productivity by 15 percent:
He is missing the opportunity to increase his "virtual
programmer" ranks at least tenfold by failing to draft
business partners to work closely with IT and its products
and services.
Realistically,
most IT organizations are far from possessing the capabilities
necessary to enable their business partners. The key to
moving toward the "enabling IT" vision is to ensure
that business partner self-sufficiency is a goal of every
change that is made—to governance, processes, applications,
maintenance, service, staffing, education and so on. For
example, an entertainment company CIO has created a document
management capability that allows the majority of "instances"
to be implemented by the end users who work directly with
the records retention organization.
By
enabling their business partners' IT capabilities, CIOs
and their organizations can free themselves from the futile
pursuit of trying to become business experts. Effective
use of IT requires intense, senior-level focus on critical
issues such as encouraging innovation and managing change,
facilitating effective business processes and knowledge-sharing
across the enterprise, building quality technical infrastructures
that support rather than stymie change, protecting information
assets and ensuring legal compliance, and ensuring that
benefits are real and the costs are reasonable.
For
me, enabling IT makes sense. It addresses IT's time-to-market
issue by exploiting the fact that business users have always
wanted more control (remember end user computing?), and
it unleashes the resources of the enterprise toward this
end.
If
you disagree with my view of the future of IT, that's fine.
But my challenge to you is: What's yours?
Susan
Cramm, former CIO and vice president of IT at Taco Bell
and CFO and executive vice president at Chevys, a Taco Bell
subsidiary, is president of Valuedance, an executive coaching
firm based in San Clemente, Calif. You can contact Susan
at susan@valuedance.com and learn more about Valuedance
at www.valuedance.com. |
