Published: October 28 2009, 08:17 PM | 4 Comment(s)
by Steve Romero

Is your IT Organization aligned with the Business? IT-Business Alignment is the first and foremost f the five principles of IT Governance. The remaining principles: Value Delivery, Risk Management, Resource Management, and Performance Management are impossible to realize if IT is not aligned with the business. Despite this absolute prerequisite to the success of any IT organization, the term "IT-Business Alignment" is often ridiculed if not dismissed outright. I keep hearing it is so "last year."

A number of pundits whom I respect suggest the phrase "IT-Business Alignment" should be banished from our lexicon. They contend the term is meaningless, pointing out that talking about "aligning" IT with the business implies they are separate enterprises.

It might "imply" this, but only when people don't understand the spirit of the term. Yes, all IT organizations are part of the overall enterprise, but few of them are purposely designed and optimized (through business-driven reason and rationale) in their construct (IT Archetype) to serve the Enterprises in which they are contained. I say consciously because many IT organizations are the correct construct, but appropriate expectations are not established and managed because the business did not drive or at least participate in the establishment of that construct. And though the IT Archetype is likely correct (what I call "archetype by accident") the decision-making (governance) and associated processes are seldom designed and optimized for the enterprise strategies they are intended to support.

I think the lack of IT-Business Alignment is epidemic. I refuse to stop focusing on the need to address this pervasive problem simply because many people can find fault in the literal interpretation of the words being used. Many propose we use different terminology. Earlier this year, I participated in a blog-inspired conversation calling for IT-Business "Integration." I recently heard the suggestion that IT-Business Alignment should be replaced by "Business-IT Fusion." To either my response is the same, "YES!" (Though I think I am being generous in accepting the fusion term. Fusing many IT organizations in their current construct is the LAST thing I want to do because so many of these existing constructs are not "aligned with the biz.")

I have also encountered the argument that in most organizations today, IT is the business. This is based on the fact that IT is the way most businesses interact with suppliers, partners, and customers. I agree that IT is the way most businesses interact with suppliers, partners and customers, but that does necessarily mean that IT is the business. I use Forrester's 3-tiered IT Archetype model to make this point. (I should mention that the 3-tiered Forrester Model is not necessarily my favorite. I like the 5-tiered models because I can be more granular and precise as to the appropriate IT archetype to serve a specific enterprise. I use the Forrester model because it provides a simple example to expose folks to the idea of IT archetypes.)

 Forrester contends there are 3 IT Archetypes:

• Solid Utility - IT organizations expected to provide cost-effective, dial-tone reliability with transparent, constantly declining costs.
• Trusted Supplier - IT organizations expected to deliver application projects on time and on budget, based on operating units' requirements and priorities - plus, being a Solid Utility
• Partner Player - IT organizations expected to create unique and competitive solutions with customers, suppliers, and internal users - plus, being a Trusted Supplier.

I propose it is possible to interact with suppliers, partners and customers with commoditized infrastructure applications - focusing solely on speed, availability, accuracy, integrity and low-cost (Solid Utility). Forrester completed a study late last year showing North American and European enterprises fell equally into each of their 3 IT Archetypes. Using the Forrester model, the organizations where "IT is the business" require the "Partner Player" archetype. Their research showed 1 out of 3 organizations fell in this category - not "most."

Even though the term is getting old, I will continue to be a passionate advocate of IT-Business Alignment. So how do you align IT with the Business? My answer to this will always be the same, IT Governance. This is because sound IT Governance provides a systematic approach to ensure IT is aligned with the business, in addition to delivering appropriate value, managing risk, managing resources and managing performance. IT Governance provides the framework for organizations to:

• Define the appropriate IT Principles and choose the correct IT Archetype
• Define, establish and manage the appropriate IT Architecture
• Define and manage the appropriate IT Infrastructure strategies
• Understand and respond to Business application needs
• Choose and prioritize IT Investments and ensure the realization of value

From an IT Governance perspective, there are two dimensions to ensuring the above decisions align IT with the business:

• IT must support the Enterprise Strategy - this includes positioning IT to support future Enterprise Strategy
• IT Operations must be aligned with Enterprise Operations

Though they sound simple enough, these two IT-Business Alignment goals require sophisticated governance constructs and supporting processes. (Join our PPM Community at http://successfulppm.ning.com/  to access a recorded webcast of an abbreviated version of my IT Governance Presentation.) The effectiveness of these governance mechanisms to align IT with the business is determined by IT's ability to meet the following "easier said than done" objectives:

• Establishing a direct correlation between Business Strategy and IT Strategy
• Balancing IT investments between systems that support the enterprise as is, and transform the enterprise to create an infrastructure that enables the business to grow
• IT investments add appropriate value to Enterprise products and services
• IT investments improve customer satisfaction and customer retention
• IT assists in competitive positioning
• IT increases managerial effectiveness
• IT contains costs and improves administrative efficiency

Of all the bullets listed above, the last in the list is the only one I see consistently targeted and measured by IT organizations. Most IT organizations insist it is very difficult if not impossible to measure its ability to meet the other objectives.

I agree. The only time it is easy to prove these objectives are being met, is when IT is aligned with the Business.

Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist

Share this post:  Email

Share

Published: October 16 2009, 08:04 AM | no comments
by Steve Romero

I recently received a tweet from @threew that said, "The forces of change are constant. Helping make it happen is a choice." Some may consider it to be a simple if not obvious observation, but I found that it succinctly and subtly captured the complexity of the greatest challenge to change - resistance.

Overcoming this challenge is essential when it comes to business process change. Anyone who has ever tried to introduce business process change can attest to the overwhelming prospect of overcoming resistance to the change. They find this resistance to be unreasonable and exacerbating and many seek the authority to force the change. This authority is seldom obtained and even when it is, rarely triumphs over the resistance.

Instead of combating resistance to business process change, expecting, accepting and managing resistance to change is the recipe for success.

EXPECT RESISTANCE

I like the late and great Michael Hammer's change resistance formula, which I have found to be true in almost every case of business process change. As the tweet implied, all of us has a choice when faced with change. We can choose to embrace change, ignore it, or resist it. Michael consistently found that a group of 100 people faced with a new business process would result in the following:

• 20 Process Cheerleaders - 20% of the people faced with process change will embrace if not outright celebrate it. They will be completely onboard from the start and ready to pick up the banner for the new process and run with it. They are ready to go and hard to stop.
• 60 Fence-sitters - 60% of the people faced with process change will be "on the fence." They won't necessarily have a strong opinion in one direction or the other. They may not outright ignore the winds of change, but it will be difficult to measure any emotion one way or the other.
• 20 Naysayers - 20% of the people faced with process change will be dead-set against it. They think it is a terrible idea because "we have never done it that way before." They know it won't work. They will likely do whatever they can to stop it, either blatantly or covertly. They can't wait to say, "We told you it would never work here."

ACCEPT RESISTANCE

When faced with the 20% of very unhappy and very vocal naysayers, those responsible for the business process change frequently respond emotionally and sometimes defensively. They consider the resistance to be a personal attack on their effort and they subsequently spend much of their time and energy trying to persuade the Naysayers. They do everything they can to convince them the business process change is necessary, reasoned and rational. They almost never succeed. I contend that even if they do succeed, the benefit of altering the perceptions and beliefs of Naysayers is rarely commensurate to the time and energy invested in changing their minds.

Instead, I try to convince new process proponents that they should accept resistance to business process change. Instead of trying to change the minds of Naysayers they should simply separate them from the fence-sitters. Don't fire them...yet. Just don't let them influence those folks who have not yet made up their minds. Accept the fact that some people are inherently against business process changes and there will be little that can be done about it. Don't respond emotionally to this certainty.

MANAGE RESISTANCE

Successful business process change is realized when resistance to the change is managed. The most critical aspects of managing change are:

• Fence-sitters...meet the Cheerleaders - Remember how we separated the fence-sitters from the naysayers? Well, we hooked them all up with the Cheerleaders so we can turn our 20 Cheerleaders into 80 Cheerleaders.
• Executive Sponsorship - Business process change is rarely successful without the sponsorship of Senior Leadership. This leadership is required to establish and consistently reinforce the vision for the business process change, and for overcoming the countless challenges and obstacles to change. Senior Leadership is also critical to overcome the urge to abandon business process changes when mistakes occur - and they will occur. This leadership is critical to instill the audacity, courage, resilience and perseverance to realize the change.
• Select an Organizational Change Management Methodology - My favorite Change Management Methodology is General Electric's Change Acceleration Process (CAP). There are many more. I don't care which one you choose, as long as you find one conducive to your culture and your specific effort and follow it religiously. The methodologies provide all of the tools and tricks to seeing the change to fruition.
• Assign Change Management Accountability - Change rarely takes place on its own. All change needs to managed which means we need somebody assigned accountability for ensuring the change takes place. This person is accountable for ensuring the success of the Change Management Methodology and subsequent approach.
• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate - I realize this will be inherent to any Change Management Methodology, but it bears repeating. NOTHING replaces communication when it comes to business process change. There will be countless items to communicate to countless people in the organization and this too must be managed thoroughly and relentlessly.
• WIFM (What's in it for me.) - If you don't tell people what is in it for them, they will rarely (if ever) understand, accept and commit to business process change. People are going to ask why and the response must be immediate, succinct, reasonable and rational. All business process change must result in at least one of the following:
• Benefits the person participating in the business process
• Benefits the customer of the business process (improved product or service)
• Benefits the enterprise using the business process
• Benefits other members of the business process team

When somebody asks "Why?" at least one of the above answers should apply and be at the ready. If the answer does not motivate the person to commit to the change, then I argue they don't have the values required to participate in the change. It is time for them to go.

The very last point does a good job of bringing us back to @threew's tweet, ""The forces of change are constant. Helping make it happen is a choice." Some people will simply choose not only to not make it happen. Instead, they resist and sometimes even sabotage the change. This is unfortunate and it underscores something else I learned from Michael Hammer - not everyone will come along. Michael insisted that an organization will always lose some number of folks simply because they refuse to accept the business process change. This must also be acknowledged and accepted by those sponsoring and fostering the change.

Are you responsible for business process changes in your organization? How do you manage business process change? How do you respond to changes? I would love to hear your thoughts.

 Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist

Share this post:  Email

Share

Published: October 06 2009, 10:20 AM | no comments
by Steve Romero

If you are a leader in your organization, have you "empowered your employees?" Has your leader "empowered" you?

As I travel the world evangelizing the power and promise of IT Governance, I talk about employee empowerment with great regularity. I have mixed feelings about utilizing the term because I have found it to be widely misunderstood and consistently misused. I have encountered plenty of organizations that say they empower employees, but I have seen few do what is necessary to actually empower employees.

I joke with my audiences about what exactly takes place when employees are "empowered." Is it a ceremony analogous to Knighting someone? Does the employee kneel before leadership as a sword is tapped lightly on each of their shoulders as the words "You are empowered" are spoken?

This is always good for a little laugh and it provides a lighthearted segue into my formula for empowering employees. I insist there are three critical dimensions of employee empowerment:

• Defining and designing work that is possible and practical
• Providing employees with the knowledge, skills and competencies required to do the work
• Assigning accountability and giving employees the authority to make decisions and take risks to successfully complete the work

Defining and designing work that is possible and practical

This is accomplished by designing, implementing and actively managing reasoned and rational processes. Few organizations do this well because I contend Process Management is one of the most misunderstood and neglected disciplines today. Few Enterprises have invested in mastering the art and science of this critical field.

Providing employees with the knowledge, skills and competencies required to do the work

This is accomplished by providing the education, training, practical experience and mentoring required to function in the processes that make the work possible and practical.

Assigning accountability and giving employees the authority to make decisions and take risks to successfully complete the work

This is the act of recognizing and accepting the fact that the people performing in the process have the greatest understanding of Customer needs and the work required to serve those needs while meeting Enterprise objectives. This accountability eliminates non-value-added work (work that does not serve the customer) i.e. checking, supervising, controlling, etc.

It is my contention that each of these dimensions is absolutely necessary to truly empower employees. Many of the organizations I have visited empower their employees by "allowing" them to make decisions. To their credit, this is usually a quantum leap from the "do only what you are told" model, but it is not enough. Their employees are free to make decisions, but they often lack the competency, skills and confidence to do so. Couple this with the near universal lack of sound work processes, and the result is accountability that leads to blame as opposed to empowerment.

I believe the greatest deficiency in the Employee Empowerment effort is process and process management. Without reasoned and rational processes that make the work possible, all the accountability and training in the world will fall short of empowering employees to succeed in their efforts. Sure, some will rise above these chronic process problems and manage to accomplish something. But work models that require individual heroics are tenuous at best and patently unfair at worst. So I will end this post with the last paragraph from my contribution to Mark Perry's recently released book, "Business Driven PMO Setup"  http://www.jrosspub.com/Engine/Shopping/catalog.asp?store=12&category=182&item=14196&itempage=1. Mark had encountered my passion for process and he asked me to anchor the section on building high-performance PMO teams. The title of my chapter was "Better Process Means Better Performance." Here is the closing summary:

The benefits of good process have been studied and well documented by renowned industry leaders such as Michael Hammer, Geary Rummler with Alan Brache, and Jack Welch of General Electric. Companies have seen significant performance improvements through Six Sigma and LEAN process frameworks. There is a mountain of evidence and numerous examples of the power and promise of good process. But what excites me the most is what good process means to people - to the workers in an enterprise. Processes bring meaning to all work, no matter how small the task. People are no longer vague cogs in the machine. They are critical members of a process team. They are the ones with the accountability and authority to delight the customer. They know they are essential to the success of the enterprise. They matter and they know they matter. Place them in this situation and just watch how they perform.

Do you feel empowered? Have you empowered others? How do you define the term and how do you empower others? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist

Share this post:  Email

Share