Bridging the Value Gap Between IT and Business

The New Face of IT Service
Management: Aligning Business, Development and Operations Teams for Strategic Advantage Neil Ward-Dutton, Research Director April 2007
Macehiter Ward-Dutton is a specialist IT advisory firm which focuses exclusively on issues concerning IT-business alignment. We use our significant industry experience, acknowledged expertise, and a flexible approach to advise businesses on IT architecture, integration, management, organisation and culture. www.mwdadvisors.com © Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2007 The New Face of IT Service Management: Aligning Business, Development and 2 Operations Teams for Strategic Advantage
Executive summary
We need a new approach to make Our research shows that a lack of trust in IT's ability to long-term improvements in the deliver business value is one of the biggest hurdles that business value of enterprise IT enterprises face in bringing IT and business closer together. In today's business and technology environments - where expectations of IT are higher, but where change, risk, and complexity are increasing and the legacies of past investments are having an ever greater impact - it's imperative that IT organisations find ways to demonstrate their ability to add value.
SOA is only part of the answer We're often told that Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) will sort things out by making systems more flexible and agile. However although SOA is a key enabler for a more "business-tuned" IT organisation, it has two limitations. Firstly, SOA is a software design approach and as such can only provide you the promise of flexibility: without the right business context for SOA work, that flexibility is likely to lead you down unproductive paths. Secondly, SOA is about the development and integration of systems, and as such focuses primarily on the "projects" side of IT work. But there's more to IT work than "doing projects" - we need an answer that can provide a foundation for more effective working across the board.
A holistic approach to IT service The single key element that's missing from many IT delivery and service management organisations is an effective model for engaging consistently is what's needed with business teams throughout the whole lifecycle of IT investments - from when they're first considered, to when systems are being managed, changed and upgraded in operation. Although SOA doesn't deliver the answers here, a broader "service based" approach to IT delivery does. A holistic view of IT service delivery and management, based around a business-meaningful IT service model where managed IT services are mapped to business activities and processes, provides a solid foundation for that consistent (and meaningful) engagement between business and IT teams. If this model is created in the right way it also provides business context for organising IT work throughout the lifecycles of IT investments - and across IT practice stovepipes.
Maturity in service delivery and The journey towards an IT organisation which is able to management depends on two key deliver long-term business value from its investments comes capabilities from building two key capabilities. The first is effective operational integration of IT management processes, work flows and information across practice "silos" in development, administration and operations. The second is the evolution of individual work practices so that they're carried out in the context of a common high-level managed IT services/business activities model that is understandable by business teams and governed to drive shared ownership and responsibility for change management.
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2007 The New Face of IT Service Management: Aligning Business, Development and 3 Operations Teams for Strategic Advantage
Does anyone know the value of enterprise IT? It appears that even if we do know the true value that IT delivers to businesses, most of us aren't doing a good job of explaining it to business people. Our ongoing research into the challenges faced by CIOs and other senior IT and business decision makers strongly suggests that lack of trust in IT's capabilities is one of the biggest hurdles faced in the transition of an IT organisation to a situation where IT and business are truly aligned. This lack of trust, more often than not, lies at least in part in the fact that business representatives rarely have access to information or ... [download for more]