Friday 8 June 2012

"The Business" and "IT" Never the Twain Shall Meet?

Talk to a technical person, and they will say "I can't develop this until I get a clear specification from the business". Finding someone in "the business" to answer these questions can be challenging. When you finally find one, they are often likely to say "I can't specify for IT, I don't have the technical knowledge".

And there you have a classic dilemma. Your technical people are not business savvy and focus on the infrastructure and how it works, and your sales and service people are too focused on their customers to make technical decisions. The more you outsource, the greater this problem can become, with contrasting, siloed areas and no over-arching control. This becomes more apparent when contractors are brought in to deliver change, and they cannot obtain the valuable business/technical decisions to move projects forward.

There is real value in treating data as a separate asset from the infrastructure that it resides within. For very often, the most difficult decisions are about the data, rather than the computer systems themselves. Without empowered specialised people who understand the data, the business and the systems, your company is doomed to decision paralysis.

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