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BUSINESS-IT COLLABORATION GAP
The role of the IT department is to design, build, implement and maintain an environment capable of accepting, processing, storing and dissiminating information in a way that it maximally supports the business objectives. They design and build a part of the company.
Knowledge transfer from the business to the IT community and an optimal collaboration between both communities are essential.
Unfortunately, business and IT professionals are unable to bridge the gap between themselves.
There are a few reasons:
- Different objectives and priorities
- Different type of work: Building a system versus using a system
- Different time perspectives
- Mutual ignorance of each others domain of knowledge and activities
- Different incentives
- Different culture
The position and role of both communities in their relationship are often in an unnaturally structured relation fighting for power and avoiding to be blamed
These aspects, together with some others, create distrust. As the collaboration is weakened by distrust, more issues are created leading to more dissatisfaction. This will confirm the distrust and further weakening the collaboration.
The development and implementation of the company's IT solution is an activity of the IT department and requires the collaboration between the business community and the IT community. The company created an oranisational context in which these activities can take place.
It defines, among others, the position, the responsibilities, the authority, the relation, the activities, the communication, the working methods, services and the outcomes or products.
The Agile comunity provide an alternative relation and organisational context.
Although, it solves one problem, it also creates some new ones.
Alignment is about getting a deeper understanding of the underlying concepts and principles and using them to implement fundamental improvements in the organisation. It is about restructuring, integrating and optimising the organisation, increasing its capabilities and its functioning and improve the exploitation of resources. It's about introducing harmony and balance.
Can the Gap be Bridge ?
Absolutely! At least, the alignment gap can be greatly reduced and kept to an acceptable minimum.
- The view on Business/IT Alignment shouldn't be limited to the business and IT professionals.
A more inclusive and integrated view is needed. For example, it must be linked to organisation development.
- The alignment is not a matter of aligning business and IT strategies. It isn't an issue among managers.
It isn't an operational issue either. It won't suffice to rethink the requirements management, the role of the architects and analysts or the software development methodology. These are only parts of the future solution.
The solution includes much more aspects and is much more profound.
- It isn't a matter of setting up an initative or to do some deploy some efforts at regular basis to reach the alignment. This would lead to a very temporary alignment in the best case.
Achieving alignment requires the rethinking of the organisation and its functioning. This should
make a continuous alignment possible.
The following aspects are likely to to be adapted. We may have to deal with it in a different way or getting more out of it.
- Underlying Beliefs
- Objectives and Plans
- Organisational
- Relational
- Competencies
- Evaluation and Incentives
- Process (Methodology)
The alignment requires the company to organise and to function in a way that is more in line with natural principles and relations.
This will bring more balance and harmony in the company. It will strengthen the company and improve the work environment.
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