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Business Alignment

Business Alignment – Current Thinking for IT Leaders

Following is a curated list of resources that reflect current thinking on a topic of interest to IT leaders. You can assist this effort by contributing insight from your own real-world experiences, and are invited to suggest changes or additions here. Current Thinking Includes: Business-IT Alignment has been a perennial item on surveys and “complaint lists” by business leaders for several years. The majority of posts on the topic begin with an acknowledgment that much has already been written and [...]

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Is the Role of CIO Ascending or Descending?

Reading through the abundant content on the topics of “partnership” and “alignment” between IT and business units, it’s easy to get a little dispirited.  In survey after survey: From the Business perspective, we hear that there is a large communication divide between IT and business units, that IT doesn’t understand the business, that IT staff don’t have the necessary skills to think beyond simple black and white (as proven by their Myers-Briggs scores), that they are still thinking in bits [...]

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The Influence Game for New CIOs

The real impact that a new CIO will have after joining an organization is largely driven by that individuals leadership skills and ability to deliver, but is also framed by other factors, including: The perceived role of the CIO as held by the reporting point. Is it the CEOs expectation that the CIO will be primarily a technical manager that can hold their own at an occasional staff meeting, or a polished leader who is as comfortable in the Boardroom [...]

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Infrastructure vs Development

The majority of IT leaders will at some point find themselves in the midst of a conflict between the needs of their business partners and development teams, and the real-world requirements of managing a large systems infrastructure.  The conflicting goals of these groups may have caused simmering frustration just below the surface for some time, then bubbling up with new pressures on software development timelines (go faster!), budget pressures or even the recognition that there is now real competition for [...]

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Inter-Department Liaisons?

The quality of partnership between IT and other organization departments can often make the difference between success and failure, both for specific technology implementations as well as the perceived success of the IT department (and CIO) in general. What were once (incorrectly) viewed as secondary connections between certain departments are becoming more critical to the successful operation of the business. One example is the partnership between IT and Legal departments in companies of any size.  This is especially true with [...]

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IT Engagement Models

What is your “engagement model” with your internal business partners?  Take a look at the graphic below.  Where do you fall on this spectrum?  Does it vary by the business unit you partner with, or even project/initiative? I have found that there is tremendous variation in engagement models across companies, both large and small.  If the engagement model is even discussed within your organization, you may find that it is viewed as a win/lose equation, rather than as a real [...]

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