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Nodding about nodding dog alignment
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By: Neil Macehiter, Research Director, Macehiter Ward-Dutton Published: 28th November 2007 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License |
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I just came across Steve Jones' post, Nodding dog alignment - the perils of aligning to people not business, in which he points out the sad reality that many IT organisations, which believe they are aligned with the business, aren't actually delivering value. Why? Because they are aligning with the wrong things. Instead of focusing on business goals they focus on the individuals who have those goals with the result that:
the IT department just turns into a nodding dog and says yes to all requests made by anyone who can claim to be a business person. This is what leads to hideously configured packages because "the business said so" and to a fragmented IT estate and ever increasing IT spend for ever decreasing business value.
This issue is something that came out strongly in the research for our book (the perfect Christmas gift ;-)) and is reflected in two of our principles for effective IT-business alignment.
First, the IT organisation must establish a peer relationship with the business, rather than a supplier-customer relationship which Steve flags. It's about shared accountability and responsibility and, in much the same way as a P2P network, involves dynamic interactions controlled through a set of protocols (or governance policies and procedures) in accordance with objectives and constraints (business goals, budgets, people in the IT-business alignment case; file downloads, network bandwidth and latency in the P2P case).
Second, it's not about working on the basis of "he who shouts loudest". Rather it's about working towards a set of goals and objectives that are coordinated and agreed by the combined business and IT team.
As Steve so aptly puts it:
Business alignment isn't about people alignment.
Reader Comments
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30th November 2007: 'Michael Gentle' said:
Steve is spot on. IT needs to work to a new business model, one which replaces the "nodding dog" customer/supplier relationship and its sterile on-time, on-budget success criteria (of whatever was nodded to, regardless of actual business value) with a shared risk/reward partnership with success criteria of business value.
This theme is extensively covered in a new book, "IT Success - towards a new model for Information Technology" by Yours Truly (another ideal Xmas gift -:)...), which also refers to passages in Steve's ideal Xmas gift about the perils of the customer/supplier relationship.
Michael Gentle
30th November 2007: 'Michael Gentle' said:
Hi,
A correction to my post of a few minutes ago: that should read Neil's book, not Steve's book.
Thanks
Michael Gentle
6th December 2007: 'Andreas Pinterits' said:
Hits the nail on the head. However, the important thing to watch out for is that IT governance groups can also cause the same problem just in the disguise of a group decision. I call it squeeky wheel by proxy. Those same savvy inidividual business stakeholders who try to push their agenda by demanding it the loudest, often learn quickly to use committees to that same end. Too many organizations let IT governance then be dominated by those same squeeky wheels, with similar results. What's really needed is that IT sees itself as a business owner, rather than just as the 'tech unit' that receives orders. It requires business savvy IT people with the ability to develop their own vision of how IT can best support overall business goals across the entire enterprise.
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