Let's Not Bring IT into this

Jeffrey Phillips recently raised an interesting topic about his customers who want to implement his software applications but say "Let's not bring IT into this".  As he notes:

What stuns me is the number of times I'll hear "can we do this without IT" or "let's not involve IT if we don't have to".

I left a comment on his blog, but in thinking about it some more I thought it warranted further discussion.  Many thanks to Kent Blumberg for bringing this posting to my attention.

Make no mistake, this is a common problem.  In looking at it, two questions come to mind:

1. What causes this?
2. What can a CIO / IT department do to change this attitude?

Jeffrey believes this is caused by both the business user and the IT guys.  On the business side he voices frustration with the IT guys saying it wasn't in the budget or we don't have the resources therefore you can't do it.  To me that is a symptom of the business not adequately explaining the situation.  In these situations IT is just the front man for the CFO.  What IT has been told is to work on the things that matter which evidence to the contrary are the items in the budget.  If the project truly has a better return than the competing projects it will get funding and staffing regardless of its budget status.  No self-respecting CFO would fund a lower return project instead of a higher return project just because it was in the budget.

From the IT side the problem is, I believe, a lack of understanding.  Isolated in our cubicles we have no idea of what the business is doing, why they are doing, or how we can help.  IT is more than providing PC and routine maintenance of applications.  We tend to view our role as merely technical and don't want to get involved.  It's more "tell me what you want" rather than "how can we use technology to improve the situation".

OK, so what do we do about it?  Here are some of my suggestions:

Business guys -

• Make your case!  Make sure you have you a strong justification of why your project needs funding.  Kent Blumberg has laid out some guidelines for making sensible capital investments.  A strong factual case goes along way in getting support from both IT and the CFO.
• Involve the IT guys early in the process.  Drag them kicking and screaming if you have to but force them to get involved even if they don't want to.  Let them know you need their help and support and don't let them go without getting it.

IT folks -

• Get involved!  Don't wait for an invitation.  Go out and learn the business, talk to the people, learn what their issues are and how you can help.
• Change the rhetoric.  Instead of talking about what we can't do let's talk about what we can do.  There is always a different approach.  If one won't work, what will?

If both the business guys and the IT folks make a concerted effort to communicate and get involved in issues together maybe we can get everyone saying "let's run this by IT" instead.

What are your suggestions?

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

• Creating Customer Loyalty
• Why It's Time to Lose the Snide IT Attitude
• ITBWA - IT By Walking Around
• Or the posts in the "Customer Service" category