Why do IT and lines of business have so much tension?

To me, the core issue is one of company culture, and the symptoms stem from the organization and hierarchy of the company itself, the org chart. Even after all we've learned about the makeup of successful companies having the flexibility and adaptability to thrive in an era of networked, speed-of-light change, businesses still embrace old, outdated models that in my mind encourage this kind of divisiveness.

Whether it's business vs. IT or marketing vs. operations or any other scenario, it's because opposing sides are in a predefined position on the playing field, already set up to treat what they do as a sacred cow and defend it to the death -- thinking that the other cannot possibly grasp the complexity of their world. The following joke, to me, is sadly illustrative:

. . . .

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"

The man below says: "yes you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

"You must work in Information Technology" says the balloonist.

"I do" replies the man. "How did you know."

"Well" says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone."

The man below says "you must work in business."

"I do" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well", says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

. . . .

This is an old stereotype, but the organizational models most companies embrace encourage the division. How? Projects are usually tagged as either a "business" project or an "IT" project, and that's a mistake to begin with. The "or" should be replaced with an "and". When companies set up this kind of us vs. them environment where one side is in a position to overrule the other, the results will never serve either side properly.

The typical line of thinking in business seems to be that those with the money make the rules. I think that should be changed to "those with the most knowledge and experience across all related subject areas make the rules." And I will bet you my paycheck that that team is comprised of people across BOTH the business and IT disciplines.

Organizational change is damn hard and it takes time. Progress comes in inches. But these walls must be torn down. Any company that does not learn to collaborate across these bullshit boundaries will eventually go the way of the dinosaur. If you're paying attention you'll see the evidence.

Do what you've always done and you'll get what you've always gotten. It isn't any more difficult than that.

I have wondered for more than three decades now how it can be that IT-business alignment, the issue at the heart of Michael Krigsman's great question, ever got to be an issue. I guess I've been naive all this time, assuming that IT would not ever get a chance to spend company money in ways that did not produce measurable, sustainable business benefit. It turns out that the accountability and oversight I assumed was in place at every business is not. When this is combined with the differing and often conflicting political, personal and economic agendas of some business and IT decision makers, conflict and misalignment are all but guaranteed.

As I see it, the solution has three major components. One is agreement upon the ultimate customers, internally and externally, and how best to swerve them, as Fidel Davila mentioned. Another is agreement upon the vocabulary, taxonomy and metrics used to assess the efforts to serve those customers and to decide which efforts are working well and which are not. The third, and perhaps the most important, elusive and difficult to achieve, is leadership. It's effective leadership that gets and keeps business and IT decision makers focused on the goals of serving those intrernal and external customers in ways that delight and empower them.

IT-business misalignment is both a problem and a symptom of larger challenges. If not addressed strategically by corporate leadership, IT investments will never deliver maximum business value, and the business will always be under threat from more agile and aligned competitors.

Having fixed this problem over several years with several companies, there’s a reoccurring theme; the CEO would rather not be involved. I have never taken an assignment unless and until I was able to convince the CEO that the CIO had to report directly to the CEO, or, if in a shared services environment, the shared services person reported to the CEO.

I submit that the Dilbert analogy can apply to the relationship between sales and marketing (and frequently does), between finance and manufacturing, and Human Resources and the entire company. When these relationships work, it’s because there’s a leader involved, the CEO. When the CIO relies on the business leaders for his tenure, then he’s been put in an impossible situation, does the CIO accommodate the investors, who will never know whether he did or not, or does he protect his job by accommodating the business executives whose interests may not tie to the investors.

The most frequent question I get from the CEO in the sales call is, “you’ve been doing this so long, you must see a somewhat common cause”. My answer after several engagements is “it’s highly unlikely that IT will be the cause of the problem, it will be the business groups who are allowed to misuse the IT resources, and that gets fixed in this office.”

Here’s the overall theory, if the CIO is able to document beyond anyone’s ability to debate the numbers, the complete utilization of the IT budget, then the CEO and the officers can set the priorities any why they’d like. It is then the CIO’s job to execute. All the individuals complaining about whose getting what and when are invited to the Officers Staff meeting where they can tell the CEO where he’s made the mistake. No one ever does!

So many of these discussions assume that the responsibility for the problem between IT and the business, rests with IT. After I install the process described above, the Dilbert situation may show up from time to time, but the focus will be on the business.
It’s actually quite simple, if the business has a legitimate business case for a portion of the finite IT budget, the debate should center on priority based on the competing business cases. There won’t ever be a time where a company has unlimited funds for IT, so shouldn’t the officers duke it out with the CEO to make sure the CIO is leveraging his spend for the company rather than worrying about serving the squeaky wheel.

The CIO should outline the entire budget, what it costs to keep the lights on, costs of security and regulatory mandates, and then the projects, arranged by priority and showing the executive sponsor, the dollars and the schedule. When the officers are presented with the complete list in a peer group, all of a sudden the priorities change. Then, the only source of Dilbert comments will be from those who really don’t matter.

Good question Michael.
Here's my take on this topic. The Business Unit (BU) Objectives and IT Directives are in direct contrast with each other.

BUs need technology that will help them deliver products/services to their customers. Each BU has specific technology needs that differ from other BUs in the same company.

IT's directive is to provide technology to it's clients (BUs) at a low cost. Low costs are achieved by managing standardized infrastructure that are leveraged across all BUs. Anything a BU needs that falls outside of standards requires speciallized support which increases IT costs. Consequently, for IT to deliver on thier "low cost" directives, they must deny "specialized" technology that may be required by BUs.

Consequently, animosity develops between the organizations causing all open dialogue between the groups to break down.

The root cause of this division comes from Corporate Leadership. They give conflicting directives to these groups. Corporate Leadership must refocus IT away from cost reductions to IT helping BU's generate revenue. I recognize that a balanced IT organization must keep a pulse on their cost structure but the emphasis on helping BUs grow revenues should be equally important.

If BUs and IT are going to bridge the gap, they have to identify common objectives. Ideally this would be driven by Corpoarte Leadership, but even if Corporate Leadership doesn't act, I highly encourage IT Leadership and BU Leadership meet together on a regular basis to identify common objectives. If there are multiple BUs then a Technology Steering Committee should be formed where IT Leadership and BU Leadership come together and define requirements and develop priorities.

Ultimately this requires paradigm shifts away from the legacy IT model of cutting costs to the new IT model where IT helps drive growth.

Unfortunately change doesn't come easily and the assistance of a thrid party Advisor can often help drive this type of Organizational change.

Loved reading the thread here. From where I sit and what I see inside Intel IT, there are three critical things required to bring IT and Business leaders. They are listed.

Culture is 1st. A culture of partnership, understanding, active listening and collaboration must exist. Recently I debated how to adress the Silo of Biz/IT. I hold that you must realize that they (silos) exist naturally and work to tear them down - you can't ignore them, you must address them.

Trust is 2nd. I coach soccer outside of work and I constantly preach trusting your team mates. In soccer, one player can't win the game and likewise IT and Business can't be successful independently.

Joint Goals is a close 3rd . If the busines and IT aren't aligned on the business priorities .. or even talking about them ... you can forget success because your following different path. How can you expect to end up in the same place.

To achieve these "Top 3", change starts with Senior Leadership of the organiazion (both business leaders and CIO). Each side can't expect the other to lead. Recently, Intel's CEO and CIO sat and discussed partnerships at a CIO Executive Summit.

http://ipip.intel.com/go/10527/cio-executive-summit-keynote-by-intels-cio-and...

Let me know if you find it interesting. Chris

It's very simple, really : Any IT system or network would work best without any users to mess things up. The Sysadmins (and their staff) know that, and tend to take the side of the system against the users. The users, of course, want to get work done, and don't really care if that interferes with system performance, so they push back, which creates tension. I have seen this on all levels from a small office to large, multi-room mainframes.

The problem is one of confusion over who is the customer. Generally you would think that the line of business is the customer and IT is providing a service, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Actually, IT practices hegemony based on FUD over the whole enterprise. They prevent their lines of business (i.e., "customers") from getting what they need because of the fear of unknown consequences. "If you never leave the house you will not get in a car accident" philosophy is used by IT in varying degrees.

So, instead of doing their job of making a safe environment for the line of business to do what they want and need, IT dictates restrictions and then they have the gall to make the line of business pay for IT's unwanted decisions!!! Nothing annoys Americans more than being told what they can't do when they know they should be able to do and usually it do at home.

Make sense??

FD

IT has always been seen as a money pit by the executive table. So much of a company budget is put into IT with very little visual money coming out of IT. Because of poor reporting of metrics and ROI by most IT leaders the executive table has nothing to develop positive attitudes towards. When cost reduction strategies are the key focus the past few years, the obvious choice is usually IT. The executive table wants IT to produce more with less etc.

Over worked and understaffed is a motto used in IT routinely and until IT has their seat at the executive table then the gap will never be bridged. I have worked in the IT consulting industry for over 5 years and see this challenge on a daily basis.

Cheers

I think it's a matter of senior management leadership and communication. It is not just a line-of-business vs. IT matter.

In a well-lead enterprise, all parts are provided consistent and complementary objectives. Each part has no doubt about who their customers are, what the business as a whole requires, and that they are to work together to achieve it. Senior leadership must also set the expectation that all part of the business will jointly resolve any differences promptly so as to continuing meeting the requirements. And there must be clear consequences, positive and negative, for exceeding or missing those requirements.

A good line-of-business or IT leader must already know, and be adept at, such cooperation. They should not depend on senior leadership to set the tone. It is up to them to lead their respective employees to cooperate with each other. It is also up to them to provide constructive advice to senior leadership.

Unfortunately, such qualities are not always found in leaders. But that's another question for another day.

The fault lies in the company's culture. And the buck for that stops at the desk of the CEO. If I can group the several types of operations into two groups (admittedly over-simplified): every business consists of people who love to solve problems, and people who love to discover new problems to be solved. The first group generally consist of IT and Admin. The second group are the C level and the sales/marketing force.
Neither is wrong - or entirely right, and in too many cases, both have been encouraged to pursue their departmental goals without ever having been shown the larger picture of where the business is headed.
In a well-run organization the first step is to get all the C-level to understand and agree on company goals, visions, and processes. Most companies get this done one way or another. The ones who don't are destined to fail.
But the inculcation of this "agreement" seems to stop at this level while people are hired on to do specific jobs, and are literally never taught what the company's "agreement" is all about. Sales has no idea what types of challenges are faced by IT and Admin, and are never encouraged to learn.
By the same token, IT tends to think of all other departments as the source of problems without ever realizing: 1- though they're correct in this assumption, they are never taught to look at the "whys" of the origination of the problems. Without training it's impossible for IT to understand that a salesperson wants to have a new program/process installed so she can land a big sale.
2-Most never realize that this irritating, continuous source of problems is, in fact, job security for IT! Without problems, continuously new problems, they would rapidly become unnecessary.
The cause of all this is lack of acculturation. In order to obviate this, the C-level MUST communicate the company's direction, vision, goals, and explain that new processes will always need to be concocted and installed in order for the company to thrive. IT must be trained to see this as necessary for the company's -and their - survival.
Sales must be taught about the priorities that are faced every day by IT.
This is admittedly an over-simplification. Bottom line is that every CEO must ensure that ALL people are pointed in the same direction, and that they all understand what all have to do.

I think, in just a few lines, Steve accurately described the situation; For a series of reasons (sometimes valid and others not), the IT is perceived as a cost center trying to grab a lion's share of the budget, just to bring off long established, routine line-of-business tasks of the organization. This is the reason why in rough economic times, IT is usually amongst the first to suffer "cost savings" - meaning "having to do more with less". Is there solid ground under this?

Well, it's true that in a typical business environment practically any business process is running on, or supported by an IT system. A day in the office with IT systems down and a day with no electric power, are very much alike in terms of employee productivity!

On the other hand though, when companies are trying to keep pace with rapid changes, (eg. trying to introduce new products, put in place or change processes, get educated decisions real fast, etc), they often realize that IT instead of offering the competitive advantage, is yet another obstacle to overlap.

Either way, since "perception IS reality", perhaps it's time for IT to seriously reconsider their role, and focus on a strategic repositioning regarding the value they add to the organization - esp. when things get tough!

This is an issue that goes back to the growth of the organized use of electronic processing in the management/administration function (early 'late '60's - 70's). I think it began with the Hard Iron(IBM 360) vs.Mini(DEC) battle in the development of the business enterprise. Then it was centralized vs. distributed processing with a "high priest" of Hard Iron reporting to mid/upper management, choking communication. Using calculations instead of "judgement" in those days was a direct threat to the historical power structure and computer experts were, for the most part, alien to the executive suite (not to mention, there is a reason they were called "geeks!"). As the role of computation and computerized business functions became more prevalent, tensions rose between the "techies (distributed won, for the most part)" and the "regular guys (management)". Scaleable ($5bil+ companies) have embraced the value proposition of the IT function-this includes ALL business processes now. C level execs now include CIO, CKO, etc. However, there are still some that resist the value of the IT function. Also, you will have individuals who go against the grain, even within a technology embracing organization. On the other hand, again, this is a gross generalization, many mid level IT staff still feel uncomfortable in the management arena and may not have a good understanding of what their role is to be a productive member of the group.
More communication always helps and a strong corporate level strategic plan regarding technology smooths the way. But, losing the pocket protector and cell holster doesn't hurt either ;)

All of the comments that I have seen thus far are thought-provoking and relevant. You started me thinking about organizational structures in corporations of all sizes. In the past, the road to the CEO mantle went through the finance or marketing organizations for the most part. Depending on the firm, it is possible that someone from R&D or legal may become CEO, but more likely finance and Sales and Marketing. That was the past. Today, most businesses cannot survive with a carefully architected electronic commerce plan, web presence, and an emerging cloud communications plan. The people who demonstrate their foresight and acumen in these areas and help to guide their organizations into the Twenty-First century economy will be very much in line to become the next generation of CEOs.

This means that the dynamic that we have been discussing is bound to change. If the person leading the company was the one who created the web campaign that vaulted revenues through the roof, it will be difficult for the CIO or other IT people to assert that person's technical ignorance.

As previously mentioned, IT and business objectives are and must continue to be inextricably linked. Without an acceptable level of information systems efficiency and security, the house of cards can be brought down by an amateur on the other side of the world. Business savvy and technical savvy are not opposites. They are part of the same ultimate goal - to leverage technology as a way of achieving corporate goals and objectives.

The lack of ITIL processes and procedures leaves the IT department suspect in most companies. I have walked the line for over 30 years between IT, financial, and business management. IT most often is reactive with a you-broke-it we-fix-it attitude. IT is fixing problems, caused by its own staff or other employees most of the time. When IT shifts its focus to preventing problems rather than causing them (why else would everyone know what "Patch Tuesday" means), it homegenizes itself with the remainder of the business.

IT is synonymous with the body's central nervous system. Either it works near perfectly or you die.

Business management may want the body to perform in ways that the body was not designed to perform in or in which performance would be considered risky and possibly interrupt the CNS function and thus compromise the integrity and dependability of the CNS.

Therefore, anything that might modify the CNS is, by definition, risky. It would violate the prime directive of IT, which is similar to the oath doctors take: do no harm to the patient.

The solution is to do what humans do. They get another person's CNS to handle the problem, such as SaaS does.

Yes, there certainly is a lot of conflict, and it's going to continue to be a problem - until everybody in the enterprise understands how they share the job of achieving corporate objectives. A lot of conflict stems from past habits, where business looked at IT as an expense, a bunch of people that don't understand the urgency of business, and who speak a different language. However today, the CIO and directors of IT are now being invited to board rooms and business strategy meetings. Today’s CEO/Owner understands how IT can help the business to reduce costs, improve employee productivity and leverage technology to improve customer service.

Lots of the old truisms of 'business as usual' are dissolving in the current economy. More corporate leaders have begun to aprpeciate the value of defining their business processes and practices clearly. These processes, and the metrics that manage them, have to be productive, and they have to use technology to implement and sustain them. Once implemented, then IT helps with visibility to upstream and downstream managers to know what the enterprise is doing to sell its products and how they service there customer.

So, the divide between business and IT is far more visible, and becomes even more so when Business aligns with IT. Creating this alignment means that IT executives - and line people - have to understand the business needs, urgencies and priorities first - while Business comes to appreciate the realistic costs, staffing and other constraints within which IT must operate.

IT and Ops are, as Michael Dortch identified, at odds with each other for nearly 3 decades. During that time the separation of the two is increasing. Perhaps not without coincidence during this same time the growth and influence of commercial software applications has occurred. As the influence increased from Custom-Off-The-Shelf applications based upon 1980 and 1990 architectures the divide between IT and Ops has grown. Even the newest ERP and Best of Breed applications that you could purchase today are contributing to the problem.

These solutions, and IT as their protector/keeper/guardian, make Ops impotent. Ops is a dynamic environment where things need to move quickly. IT, because of their responsibility to maintain this 800 pound gorilla, is all about stabilizing/stopping/minimizing. It isn't because the IT people are incapable of understanding the needs of Ops it is because they are incapable of doing anything about it.

Back in the first generation of enterprise systems, call them 0.1, IT worked hand in glove with Ops because together they were building custom solutions effectively from scratch. This was a painstaking approach to building systems but you got exactly what you wanted. Then along came the modern day packaged applications, call the 1.0, and they offered a panacea of sorts. IT didn't have to hand build every single line of code for every element of a business and Ops was enticed by new features that their current system didn't offer. The fact the Enterprise 1.0 required the rip and replacement of Enterprise 0.1 systems was almost ignored.

So together everyone advanced, none more than the software vendors and systems integrators performing the open heart surgery on the company. After undergoing the painful, expensive, disruptive operation of implementing an Enteprise 1.0 solution IT realized they had just inherited a beast. Ops was frustrated by the insertion of E1.0 but initially happy with the outcome.

Then Ops got restless. Their need to change didn't diminish and now it was frustrated by the E1.0 solution. So everyone thought, okay, let's buy special applications for specific functionality to keeps Ops happy. We'll just "integrate" that to our E1.0 solution and everyone will be happy. Again, none more than the software vendors and the systems integrators who get to return to the operating room for the next surgery.

Only this time not only is IT frustrated by the increased support and cost and complexity of their systems but Ops is frustrated because after the honeymoon was over with their new toy they realized they had just shifted from one E1.0 solution to another. IT takes over support for the product that was intended to be the cure all, after it was heavily modified to actually fit Ops requirements. Upgrades to any of the E1.0 solutions are effectively impossible because no one wants to return to the operating table again, in spite of what the software vendors and systems integrators would like to see.

And so, in 2010, IT and Ops are at odds with each other. Both departments feel impotent to satisfy what they both understand is their goal: increasing the revenue and margin of the company that employs them. Unable to resolve the discrepancy that they both share, they both blame the other and the C-Suite is looking to break the log jam, reduce costs and focus on revenue and profit. The millions and millions of dollars spent on systems doesn't seem to be effective with the exception of all the financial reporting is consolidated and they can see the results they don't want to see.

Business systems need Viagra. IT needs to be able to protect the companies existing investments in E1.0 solutions without any more surgery while helping Ops satisfy market requirements for increased revenue, margin and customer satisfaction. By eliminating the underlying source of frustration for both departments they should be able to return to their collaborative ways. The new systems used are agile, responsive and leverage the existing systems. There is no longer a need to modify, replace or integrate those applications to keep pace with the need to satisfy the dynamic requirements of business.

Having worked on both sides...besides the budgetary issues, it is all about company politics and perceived value. If the market is going down, blame the IT for spending and everybody gets fired, if the market is going up, the business lines get bonuses and IT is doing overtime.

Either way, the business people have more to win as they sign the budgets. IT IS JUST NORMAL.

Why do siblings fight? Why do men and women have trouble communicating? The reality is that the IT department and the business unit have different takes on what is important. Also usually, they do not fully understand how the other side’s point of view. To top it off, various groups within a company are vying for limited funding as well as the approval of the top executives. So in many ways, companies are like families: there are plenty of areas of potential conflict. What separates the average companies from the great ones is the development of a culture that understands that such issues will arise and then puts mechanisms in place to try and mitigate the potential damage. However, it isn't easy, which is one reason why it is such a common problem.

Two root causes:

1) In many cases, non-IT senior managers view IT as a "cost center." Staffing and resource decisions are made with the overarching goal of reducing IT expenses. Visionary IT managers are not attracted to the company because a) they're not needed, and b) they're expensive. In that context, unless it's plugging in cables, configuring wireless access points, or enabling someone to log on, IT people are simply annoying or in the way. They speak a language that nobody understands and nobody wants to understand.

2) In businesses where IT is a strategic enabler, competencies and skills haven't caught up to what enterprises require. What's rare is an an IT executive who has broad business understanding, strategic vision, and interpersonal skills. When an enterprise demands them, those shortcomings create friction.

The most effective CIO's I've met bring that combination of skills to work in organizations in which IT is inseparable from the business strategy. Their skills are valued by everyone that the enterprise serves. One related note: higher education has recognized this issue and have developed curricula to develop the next generation of IT professionals. For additional information, please see http://www.commerce.virginia.edu/academic_programs/MSMIT/Pages/index.aspx.

I like the analogy of Dilbert as I've often witnessed the distinction when meeting with many clients but never put it in that perspective. It's funny because, typically, in the end both IT and the BU's are ultimately seeking the same outcome. The underlying issue that amplifies this rift is whose path do they follow and who is in control. I believe most IT groups would love to give the BU's everything to do their job but the reality is that there is a tradeoff between cost and the realities of business. IT has many questions that need addressing to make sure the application will integrate and not impede the existing applications/network. A few of the questions often asked by IT involve costs - who is paying the bill, support, implementation, ROI, training, network impact, and the list goes on. From a BU perspective they don't necessarily see the IT concerns as it's not their responsibility to understand the bites and bytes. They see a need, a market trend, or an opportunity and need it now. In the end both IT and the BU's want to see their company perform at peak performance and the road to get there often times diverges and converges many times.

While I don't disagree with any of the contributors, this is a question I get asked a lot by HR professionals.

I believe that tension can actually be a positive sign of a function (HR or IT) growing up and moving away from a cost saving mindset towards a value creation approach. The tension comes from 2 sources - firstly it's the changing relationship between the function and the business (i.e. they are taking on new roles and this means growing pains) and secondly (and most importantly) cost saving and revenue growing are opposing demands (growing revenues means taking risks and therefore costs while cutting costs restricts revenue opportunities).

Organisational Design academics recognise that all organisations, profit and non-profit, face a number of inherent contradictions e.g. to centalise or decentralise; to create new products or grow existing ones. These
contradictions are known as ‘dualities’ – states for which there is no right answer and organisations must therefore find a ‘balance’ to best meet its goals in the environment that it exists in. A well established fundamental (or meta) duality is the tension in organisations between the need to save costs (or deliver the best value for money) and increase revenues (or find new users).

If you are interested in more background I have written a white paper for HR professionals, although I think the concept applies to all support functions. It can be found at http://bit.ly/cOScey

As in most disfunctional relationships, all the blame doesn't go to one side. There is plenty to go around. Yes quite often the IT department has an air of superiority. I can tell you from personal experience, when you spend an hour teaching someone how to "double click" it tends to warp your perception of your user base. Supporting non-IT people can often be frustrating. On the other side, seldom in my experience does IT really treat their users like customers. Typically IT will take an attitude more akin to workers at an adult daycare. I saw an earlier answer that mentioned IT spending more time preventing problems...a few answers down someone else talked about IT being obstructive and stopping people from doing what they needed to do...these two comments really illustrate the problem....do we let people do what they want to do...and deal with the consequences...or do we lock things down for the preservation of the system and the users as a whole?
As with most complicated questions the answer is a bit of both. Leadership is the key to it all. Leadership at the CEO level, at the CIO level and at the individual employee level. Non IT people whose jobs depend on technology should make an investment in understanding it a little better. IT people whose jobs depend on the efforts of the other employees need to embrace that understanding wholeheartedly. If that philosophy pervades from top to bottom, it may not solve all the problems but it will certainly go a long way towards making the company a better place to work.

The way I see it is that people just don't see IT as a tool for doing a job. On the IT side, people seem to fight for control of the system. This is made worse by management on both sides of the IT divide doing the same thing.

Personally speaking, I hate this whole "customer" thing. If a department has a legitimate need for IT, then they can say "we need IT because we can do X, Y, and Z more efficiently". The job of the IT depatrment is to then make it happen, not argue why something shouldn't be done.

Where IT can have an input is in the way the systems are put together based on their knoweledge of the relevent technologies being employed. They certainly shouldn't start saying that the graphics department can't have Photoshop for example because it is too expensive or too difficult to deal with - that is for the management to discuss from a business point of view with the input of IT, and not for the IT department to solely dictate.

From reading around I get the distinct impression that IT isn't simply providing technical expertise to get a job done, they are trying to run the show. That is entirely the wrong way to do it.

To reduce the friction between IT and the rest of the enterprise means people should stop viewing it as some seperate entity and start viewing it as a highly technical function that supports the other departments, and is integral to getting things done rather than external.

Jim Smith and Robin Goodchild have hit some major points.

- a company is a team that must be managed by its leader, s/he cannot abdicate aspects of the team like IT. IT is a resource to be used by the whole company in a directed way. Hence, there can be no internal customers using IT anyway it likes. Customers are the people that buy a company's good/services, everyone in a company works to provide those goods/services.If management of any department --- Sales, Ops, HR, IT, etc...--- can't work well with other departments, then its is time to get some new management.

My additional point: its the money!
- IT staff make more money on average than other staff, always a good reason for tension
- if bonuses are based on department "performance", then management will battle for the "loot" and run from costs, like IT; Bonuses should be based on Company Performance, which many smarter companies already do.

I don't like the term "IT" but in general people who work in "IT" are:

a) know what they are doing but have minds bordering on crazy
b) don't know what they are doing but hide the bad news or hide behind technical terms

Lines of ("IT") business don't always have a clear understanding of how how they can reach there business objectives or strategy so they have to some extent rely on the "IT" people to advise them on how to get there.

There are thus two mind sets, one that is involved in technology and one that is involved in a business objective or strategy - hence the conflict.

Take for example a big company like Nokia that has loads of cash, the business there see themselves loosing out in the internet world of online services and ideas that make money like google, apple, facebook, etc.

So the business knows where they would like to go in terms of strategy they want some clever ideas and services that people will use and enable them to sell more top range mobile phones that subscribe to these new services.

So they are advised to buy some company's that have some ideas and products that could be integrated into their strategy.

Now years down the line they have failed, the most of the trendy people and companies they bought can't do "IT" and don't have the quality of products that people expect to see in the 21st century.

The result : looks like the CEO might be loosing his job.

This is a great question that applies to IT and business units as well as nearly every internal service provider and line units (e.g. HR, accounting, etc.). The fundamental issue is that IT and the business units are set up to fail by companies that create objectives that are in conflict (thus ensuring friction), and IT departments that see the machines they maintain versus the people who use them as customers.

Companies virtually guarantee tension if IT is held accountable to providing basic technology at the lowest possible cost while line staff wants the best technology, customized or non-standard applications, 24/7 support, and a 100% open platform (i.e. no restrictions on access or usage). IT management, justifiably, complains that it is set up to fail when it is held accountable for "Controlling costs and delivering exceptional service." The responsibility for this tension rests at the feet of the organization's leadership and to an extent IT and line management who struggle to communicate openly around the tension.

The solution is to drive to goal alignment and then actively communicate and get buy-in to that alignment. Line management generally will support IT's objectives if the burden for support ties back to business unit level P&Ls ("Oh, 24/7 service and customized applications cost more to support?"). In fairness, too, IT departments have a tendency to have a bunker mentality due to years of being beaten upon. IT staff's that huddle in data centers, provide "remote support" and use a wait-until-it-fails approach virtually guarantee that line staff will see them as the enemy.

In my experience, training IT to recognize that its customer is the USER of the technology is helpful first step. I have had my help desk staff do weekly "walkabouts" to talk directly with users and proactively spot issues before outright failure occurs. While time-inefficient, avoiding the use of remote desktop technology in favor of walking to the customer's location to provide support, humanizes the support process, and dramatically increases customer satisfaction.

By aligning objectives, communicating to build buy-in, providing line staff with the option for support that goes beyond the basics (with an understanding that the line has to pay for the up-leveled service), and humanizing IT, the tensions and conflict can be virtually eliminated.

All of these posts are good and touch on many potential reasons for tensions between IT and the lines of business. My answer assumes that everyone involved on both sides of the divide are basically doing their jobs as expected. Basic lack of performance will cause tension in any relationship.

The cause of the seemingly ongoing tension is natural one that isn’t necessarily bad if kept in check. IT is a service provider for the lines of business who are their customers. There always is some tension in this type of a relationship. I have been involved in IT as an internal service provider and also in an outsourcing/consulting environment for 36 years and that service provider/customer tension exists in both however in outsourcing/consulting business you must manage it very carefully or you are out of business. One of the key things you do in the consulting/outsourcing environment to reduce and manage the tension is manage your customer’s expectations very carefully. As a result there are many professionals in that type of company who in addition to being excellent technologists are excellent at customer relations. In an internal IT shop there usually is not this degree of customer relationship management focus so the tensions can go out of control much easier. There always will be business function department operatives (customers) who have unrealistic expectations of what IT can do and who will not follow proven processes to build, maintain and enhance IT business applications. It is IT’s job to manage those expectations and develop a good customer relationship to keep tensions at a healthy level and out of the Dilbert zone.

What Joe Natoli said. I believe the answer is to have an IT Director that understands business and their needs. Of course, this is a rare breed in IT but does exist in enterprise situations especially. This is why selling to a large enterprise is easier than selling to a small entity with an IT manager that doesn't know business...but then it can still be a tug of war.

IT department doesn't know business properly, because majority of IT Directors or CIO came from IT related activities, their career developed in IT, business people don't know IT capabilities and feel treatened by unknown definitions and words. To estimate properly price and hours of IT work is a hell of a task for non IT person.

This is old “horse and carriage” situation. The business should lead (horse), and technology (including IT) should follow (carriage). In reality is usually opposite: IT offers some a solution for a problem, than business has to figure out what is the problem.

Dilbert is logical winner.

IT has three important, strategic roles to play in a company.
1) Enable Growth
2) Improve Margins (aka reducing Fixed and Variable Costs)
3) Creating Business Value

IT and BUs should have a very close, working relationship. I think the challenge comes down to leadership, respect, ownership and trust.

All business activity is based on “trust”. That might come as a surprise, but when you think about it, it‘s the way we operate. Yes, our legal council makes us enter NDAs, we use purchase orders and standard forms of agreement, etc. But the deal is always done long before the documentation based on trust and respect.

Whether you are a salesperson, consultant , IT professional or business manager, “Clients for Life” by Dr. Jagdish Seth is a easy read. Its about building great relationships and it is just as important that within enterprises as it is for salespeople and consultants.

I first read it over ten years ago and I’ve read it more then once. You can buy it on line used for a couple of dollars. I’ve given it to friends and clients. I have thirty years in the data center business and have experience have had a lot of fun with my clients!

I am going to answer this one simply. The tension lays in the truth that IT mostly does not take the time to learn how their clients i.e. lines of business operate, and thus, what the real needs are. Second, what I have watched in over twenty (and truthful thirty) years in the IT industry is that many, many IT departments have this sense of superiority to those they support . . . You combine those two together, it leads to a lot of tension.

What I have found over the years, spending three or four hours and sitting down with a line business leader saves a lot of missteps. Bluntly, to the IT Teams and members, it's all a matter of communication. As IT professionals, we have to learn to speak the language of our business clients, not vice versa. To those who say that is the responsibility of the business analyst, I am sorry, but NO. Business Analyst are business-centric, not technology-centric.

We as Technology Professionals must learn to translate technological terminolgy to business terminolgy. Failing that, the tension will remain.

I suppose there is no single good answer to that question, but my experience beginning in the mid-60s suggests to me that what we now call IT began as the technical part of what was then called "data processing." Until the mid-70s, the technology part was pretty rudimentary and was viewed as subordinate to the overall business operations, goals and funding, hence tightly connected to those goals. Indeed, there was back then, the position of "systems analyst", a person who didn't write code but understood the business end of technology and served as an effective bridge between business and technology.
As technology became both more sophisticated... and expensive, it developed its own constituency across the computer industry and the businesses that selected and bought its products. By the end of the 70s, true systems analysts had all but disappeared and the term IT, meaning technologist, had become ubiquitous. At that point, the IT world, with its newly perfected relational database management techniques and tools in hand, claimed equal status at the table of solving business problems. Things began to go bad then and have not improved much since. IT folks came to view business decision makers as hopelessly provincial and incapable of the kind of rigorous decision making needed to effectively deploy technology, while business people reacted to this incipient elitism with growin contempt. Neither had a lock on the high moral ground, but it didn't matter once the battle was joined.
If we are to break down this wall, there needs to be a realization on both sides: that technology, however powerful and rigorous, doesn't fully understand the ambiguities of the business world; and that business, whatever its goals, needs a close working relationship with technology if it is to meet them. That won't be easy, but it is possible if both sides will step back, take a deep breath and accept that its view of the world is incomplete without the other.

The problem with corporate leadership and IT is that corporate leadership is usually technology naive. They either believe their IT or they don't. They have no other way to make a judgement. In this case, a corporate IT is only as good as its CIO and most CIOs don't have the leadership (esp. communications skills) to make up for the leadership naivety.

I believe one of the issues is that IT is a means without an ends. In other words like teachers who have a teaching degree but no expert knowledge of what to teach, IT knows IT but no real expertise on the lines of business needs so they don't know how to apply it successfully.

No easy answer to this conundrum.