Pick up any issue of the CIO magazine, or glance at any IT Strategy related blog postings and you'll hear the constant refrains - "Must have better Business/IT alignment", "Must make sure that IT objectives are in line with business strategy", "Must make sure that IT and business work together as a team" and so on. All good stuff, for sure. And very noble. But it's one thing to announce business/IT alignment at the CxO level, and another to make sure it gets translated to action at the ground level.
Take an average company. Chances are that the users of technology - customer service advisors, production managers, marketing personnel etc. - hate IT. Yes, hate. And not just the abstract concept of hating IT (e.g. hating Microsoft for Outlook), but hating IT people. Why is this so? Is it because IT personnel are in general social misfits and like dealing with machines instead of humans? Is it because IT people can't explain concepts simply? Is it because IT people regard business folk as dumb and incapable of understanding technology? While I think there may be an element of truth in each of these gross generalizations, I think the core of the problem has to do with control and trust. Users of technology resent the control that the IT people have over their professional lives and resent IT's lack of trust. And with good reason.
Continue reading "Death by a thousand cuts" »
