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Who are IT's most effective advocates at your business?
IT investments require both "sign-off from above" -- executive leadership -- and "buy-in from below" -- broad support from business decision-makers and users -- for maximum business benefit. But who are the most effective advocates at getting the support necessary for successful IT investments and deployments?
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3 Answers
I would say Architects, as it is their duty. But sadly that is not true.
The most effective advocates are actual "believers". Those are the ones that are truly impressed by the IT benefits, simply because they had experienced themselves, or do know other people that do.
You also have the other side of the coin: disappointed people. They had suffered a bad IT decision, and are the hardest to convince.
So, you can build believers at different levels. If you are an architect, with direct communication with executives and daily users, you can use one of those believers to do some of your talking. Find executives that, maybe in other jobs, did great with an IT project. Same for users and decision makers. Then make them part of the project, and they will talk in corridors, at lunch, in meetings, about how good would it be to have such solution. Then you came and reinforce the idea.
If you have people with no past IT experiences, or bad ones, try easy projects first. That is, low risk, sure fire success projects that will step forward in convincing these guys the IT is a good thing. Good projects are the ones that reduce tedious jobs, cut time, or make things simpler to do
In other words, trying to sell high risk, complex projects to dissapointed people or unexperienced one will give you negative karma.
I find that anyone who already embraces technology will generally be an IT advocate. It can be an age / generation issue with the people pushing back, or simply a poor past experience issue (as mentioned by William).
I find the best approach is to actually introduce something into the IT department first, and then show the business how it can be applied and modified to work for them.
Getting involvement from the business early on also helps with larger projects and listening to there needs will give them a sense of participation.
In my experience those that refuse change are those that leave first.
Well, it certainly depends on whether the investment in question will primarily benefit the IT department or a business unit. If it's an IT sponsored investment, then obviously the CIO is ultimately going to be the best advocate since he will have to justify the investment to the officer committee. If it's a business use investment then the business head should be the advocate.
For every client we work with, we sell the CEO on not having the CIO present and justify an enterprise support project. The CIO's role at the presentation is just to answer questions about cost related to implementing the requested project. The business head at the top of the organization requesting the investment must be the one to sell the investment based on its merits, the CIO is just there to represent the IT costs. Think of it like building a building, would the general contractor sell the investment, or just be a supporting player at the presentation?
I have consulted on over $200 million in projects that were under performing and most were failing because the business abdicated their responsibility and let IT run with it. I teach my CEO clients to view all capital projects the same way. The sponsor is ultimately responsible for the cost and follow on benefits, everyone else is just a member of the supporting cast.
Jim Smith
CEO Enterprise Management Group
www.emgc.com
Blog: Ouchsourcing@blogspot.com
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