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ManualsBrandsWiley Manualsbooks978-0-470-72406-4

Introduction

This book offers a practical guide to you if you want to improve the

return your organisation gets from its IT investments and

ultimately if you want to use IT to help drive transformation in your

organisation. The book distils what we have learned from

conversations with practitioners into six common-sense,

actionable principles, based on best practices, which you can use

to improve alignment between IT and business priorities, goals

and strategies.

This book is focused on improving the situation as it stands today.

It is not a collection of impractical theories or a set of best

practices from a single organisation, which cannot be broadly

applied. Throughout, it incorporates a wide variety of examples,

covering both where things have worked well and where they have

failed, from which you can draw based on your situation.

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL

Summary of content (12 pages)

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AL Introduction MA TE RI 1 PY RI GH TE D This book offers a practical guide to you if you want to improve the return your organisation gets from its IT investments and ultimately if you want to use IT to help drive transformation in your organisation. The book distils what we have learned from conversations with practitioners into six common-sense, actionable principles, based on best practices, which you can use to improve alignment between IT and business priorities, goals and strategies.
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Introduction What on earth has IT got to do with gardening? If everything in IT was working even mostly as it should be, this book would not be necessary. As things stand, it is. IT doesn’t matter? When former Harvard Business Review editor Nicholas Carr posited ‘IT Doesn’t Matter’ in 2003, he was making the point that component technologies are commoditising and thus available to all.
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What on earth has IT got to do with gardening? 3 operate in the same way as commercial businesses: indeed, there are a number of examples in this book of how it is in their best interests to look for commercial opportunities. But first, of course, they need to get on top of their costs and use IT to support the existing services, without which commercial potential is no more than that, potential.
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Introduction IT investments and their business environments are highly dysfunctional. Often, this is as much a result of business organisation dysfunction as IT dysfunction: to succeed, both must be treated at once. Entering the technology garden There’s something about a garden. Stand in the middle of one and it will tell you a story, about its purpose and intentions, its current state and perhaps most importantly, who looks after it.
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Aligning IT and the business 5 other’s capabilities. And, like plants, services have a lifecycle. They are created, developed, maintained, and ultimately, they die, but the garden as a whole is sustainable, if it is tended correctly. Above all, that is where the ‘garden’ paradigm makes the most sense. In our research for this book, we have learned a great deal about how organisations successfully achieve and sustain alignment between IT and the business.
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Introduction It’s difficult to define an idea as broad as IT–business alignment succinctly, but a working definition should go something like this: IT-business alignment is a collaborative process that businesspeople and IT organisations go through to create an environment in which investment in IT and delivery of IT services reflect business priorities, whether IT services are sourced internally or externally; and in which business priorities are influenced by understanding of IT capabilities and limi
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Aligning IT and the business 7 Second is the delivery aspect. This is a direct consequence of the first aspect. It highlights that the way in which the IT delivery organisation provides services to the business must be governed by the same business priorities. This extends to encompass the way that IT service delivery is measured. Only then will it be possible for businesspeople to assess the business return on their investment in IT.
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Introduction capabilities. A common language is essential for the establishment and maintenance of that shared understanding. Establish a peer relationship between business and IT: there needs to be real sharing of authority and responsibility when it comes to making and implementing decisions that have implications for business and IT.
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Finding your way around this book 9 goals and objectives. We’ll be discussing different perspectives on EA in context as we explore the various aspects of alignment activity, and particularly how the concept may be applied incrementally without running into ‘analysis paralysis’ and other problems which so often plague enterprise mapping and modelling exercises that attempt to ‘boil the ocean’. So look out for references to EA as we go, as it is a crucial element in the overall equation.
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Introduction applied in the real world. The book does not shy away from investigating the tensions between the business and the IT department, as this understanding is key to overcoming the alignment impasse.
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Finding your way around this book 11 some terminology may be unfamiliar, it is clearly defined and explained. As such, the book provides a common vocabulary for both sides, to break through the mystique and jargon, and to lower the communication barriers between technical and nontechnical stakeholders. Finally, the book is aimed at any other party with an interest in IT–business alignment, not least the IT supplier community.
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