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White Paper

Trends in no-man’s-land between

business and IT, and other exotic places

In Mark Smalley’s ‘Trends in no-man’s-land between business and IT,

and other exotic places’ workshop for NGI The Hague on 24 January

2013, the audience had the opportunity to share their opinions about

the relationship between business and IT, and how the business fulfills their responsibilities with respect to ‘business information

management’. This paper summarizes 700 years of experience in IT.

Mark Smalley, 1 February 2013

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Is there a profitable relationship between

business and IT?

Successful relationships between business and IT are few and far between.

While this can be analysed in terms of processes, roles and responsibilities,

knowledge, information flow, etc., there often seems to be a basic lack of understanding of each other’s world.

The 35 attendees were divided into 4 groups and discussed this topic, summarizing the discussion in terms of critical success factors that could

provide guidance to the broader community. This ‘good practices’ are

grouped into three categories.

Good practices for the Business and IT

• Commitment Commitment from both business and IT should be crystal clear and

focused on common goals for the business. Both parties should reach

out to each other to really create the value that the organization

needs. So no private sub-goals, no risk-avoiding behaviour and blame games - just plain going for it and creating the success... together!

• Communicate and listening Two-way communication between business and IT – although the

business should give IT insight into the business strategy so that IT

can create a roadmap, IT doesn’t just blindly follow whatever the business comes up with but has the responsibility to suggest how IT

can enable the business (“don’t ask me questions, bring me

solutions”). Other points about communication mentioned were:

o A ‘liaison officer’ as intermediary between IT customer and IT delivery

o Continuity in communication (sometimes there’s good

communication at the beginning of an initiative but then it fizzles out)

• Understand and make sure that you’re understood Clear understanding of terminology (there are often differing

interpretations of very basic topics)

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• Small is agile Small solution-oriented teams are more effective than traditional large

IT departments, particularly when agility is needed to keep up with the

speed of the business

• Clarity about who-does-what

Clear ownership with respect to responsibility for activities/processes

and deliverables

Good practices for the Business

• Clear requirements Business provides clear insight into their functional requirements

• Realistic deadlines Deadlines set by the business are realistic

Good practices for IT

• User and customer focus

IT focuses on the IT users and the IT customer (note: the customer is

usually business management and may have different goals than the

users, e.g. IT cost reduction); IT translates technological developments into business opportunities (and business language)

• Business relevance IT is aware of the business relevance of IT

• Process analysis and prototyping Use of process analysis and prototyping to support communication

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Is the business in charge?

While the business should be in charge of (the use of) all business assets,

including information (technology), it is often the case that people in IT believe that the business should be taking IT more seriously concerned. This

if often expressed in terms of accountability and responsibility, decision-

making, and capabilities and competences to execute the tasks generally known as ‘business information management’. Once again, the attendees

were divided into groups and discussed this topic, summarizing the

discussion in terms of the following ‘good practices’.

Good practices for the Business

• Well-informed top management

Top management has sufficient knowledge about the business, and how information and IT affect the business (IT has an important role to

play, in contributing to this knowledge)

• Pro-active top management

Top management is pro-actively aware and intervenes to prevent

things getting out of hand (instead of waiting until a calamity occurs

and is brought to their attention); how important information (technology) is to top management? Maybe they just have better

things to do and are prepared to suffer the consequences

• Strong leadership

Strong leadership; willingness to make decisions; professional and

constructive behaviour (not we versus them)

• Knowledgeable users

In addition to their business knowledge, the users also have

knowledge of the information systems that support the business

• Natural tensions

Recognition of the ‘natural’ tensions that exist (e.g. between information security norms and the possibilities that smartphones have

to access data)

• Strong vertical alignment

Strategy has been translated to the ‘shop floor’ (minimal deviation of

interests)

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References

[BiSL] Business information Services Library www.aslbislfoundation.org/en/bisl/

publications/books/299-2012-

bisl-een-framework-voor-business-informatiemanagement

[BIM] Business information management function http://aslbislfoundation.org/en/bisl/publications/

whitepapers/doc_download/787-2012-08-

white-paper-bim-function-v5-m-smalley

Acknowledgements The author is grateful to NGI The Hague for the opportunity to engage

with their members and to the members themselves for sharing their

knowledge and experience, in particular to Leo Verkaik, Jos van ‘t Veer

and Kees van Loon for their contributions to this paper.

Author

Mark Smalley is Ambassador-in-chief at the not-for-

profit, vendor-independent ASL BiSL Foundation and

is a self-employed IT Management Consultant at Smalley.IT. He is specialized in Application Lifecycle

Management and IT Governance. Mark is a regular

speaker at international conferences, where he has

reached out to thousands of IT professionals.

Follow & engage with Mark on Twitter @marksmalley

Email: mark.smalley@aslbislfoundation.org

Further details, publications & speaking engagements at Smalley.IT