by Greg Shields

Your business’ IT department has likely been handed a number of tactical responsibilities. It’s responsible for your email system. It keeps the file shares and databases operational. It handles network management as well as desktop administration.

But layering above all those tactical responsibilities is an overarching mission that represents IT’s high-level reason for being. That reason relates to its charter to keep your business’ technology up and operational. To that end, consider the following as an appropriate mission statement for your IT organization:

It is the primary goal of IT to provide secure access to business applications and data via interfaces required by the business and with an appropriate level of performance.

This statement very succinctly summarizes IT’s reason for being. The problem here in many organizations is in maintaining a focus on that mission. Deconstructing this statement for a minute, it becomes easy to see how misalignment can easily plague IT organizations that can’t, won’t, or aren’t allowed to follow that mission:

• “…to provide secure access…” A business’ data is its lifeblood. It is this data that enables the business to fulfill its mission while gathering a level of profit that validates the risks it takes. Thus, the highest priority of IT must be the security of data above all else-protecting that data while in storage, during transport, and while being processed. Second only to security is the need for appropriate access to that data. The secondary mission of IT is the creation and management of mechanisms for access to that data.
• “…to business applications and data…” Data is important, but that data is fundamentally useless without the applications that render, calculate, and provide interfaces for people to work with it. Thus, creating the same kinds of secure access to your applications is also a central part of IT’s mission.
• “…via interfaces required by the business…” Some businesses require data and application access only within their brick-and-mortar, while others need pervasive solutions that work from everywhere. More pervasive access is obviously more costly as well as more risky. Thus, providing that access through the interfaces that the business requires-and no further-is a central issue in defining IT’s scope.
• “…and with an appropriate level of performance…” Lastly is the assurance of an acceptable user experience while interacting with IT systems. This final, yet no less important, mission of IT lies in the building and maintaining of systems that ensure a high-quality end-to-end user experience.

These statements sum up the charter for an IT organization. Yet what they don’t do is necessarily set its boundaries. A central problem here relates to the options that are available for IT to accomplish its mission: They are many in number. They are often redundant in approach. And many are entirely unnecessary for solving your business’ needs.

As a relatively new industry that is staffed with techno-centric individuals, Information Technology routinely suffers from a kind of technological irrational exuberance. Not unlike the same bubble-oriented mentality that ultimately created the last set of economic downturns, IT professionals can find themselves overly swayed with technological solutions to business problems that don’t necessarily exist.

Alternatively, IT organizations regularly find themselves selecting and implementing solutions in a void of true business requirements. Lacking real reasons why your business and its processes require certain solutions, IT finds itself making decisions in a vacuum. It is here where your executive input is critically necessary to assist IT with determining what solutions really make sense for each set of business problems. The need is greater probably than with any other organization in your business: Working strategically with your IT department can bring direct benefit to your bottom line while reducing misalignment.

Adding to this mis-prioritization is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy between IT and the technology companies that service them. You already know that your IT organization finds itself focusing on techno-centric solutions. The companies that provide those solutions-not unlike your own-make money by finding profitability in identifying and providing solutions to service gaps.

The issue is that when the gaps are lauded by techno-centric professionals rather than business requirements, technology solutions become created that are exciting yet have no problem to fix. The result is an abundance of IT products that arrive on-scene as “cool” solutions but lacking in business relevance. Or, in the most egregious of cases, actually complicate business processes in the name of “cool” rather than improve them.

You’ve seen this happen before. Consider the situation where you approve a new project, perhaps for a new widget or service that has been extolled by the IT organization. Perhaps this solution makes a service available in a new way, or adds a new device to be managed. The device appears outwardly “cool,” but you can’t quite figure out how it directly improves your core business processes. You might approve the project because you don’t understand it, only to later find out that its implementation is costing you without actually doing anything to improve revenues or customer satisfaction. Beware such projects.

Lastly is a final but extremely important prioritization problem that isn’t often recognized by non-technical executives. This problem relates to a tendency by IT professionals to seek solutions that benefit themselves or their group’s internal processes but at the cost of inconveniencing others in the organization. For example, this situation occurs when technologies are implemented that make IT activities easier to accomplish, but at a greater time or money cost to other groups in the business.

You’ve likely seen this situation before as well. Maybe you’ve been approached to change the ways in which IT provisions computers to users, reverting them to a completely new paradigm such as “thin clients” or “virtual desktops” or any of a hundred different solutions that always arrive with a positive ROI and a compelling strategy. But that ROI doesn’t materialize once all the forgotten costs begin to be summed up. There’s a reason for the ancient saying, “Never trust an ROI you didn’t build yourself.” And when you don’t fully understand the implications of radical new technology, you can often get bitten by the results.

Projects like these get approved more regularly than you’d think, with IT organizations incorporating solutions or practices that makes their job easier while in the end making everyone else’s job slightly more difficult in exchange. Sound familiar? If you’ve found your IT organization to be increasingly more non-responsive to the real needs of your business, consider a third misalignment between IT and business in that…

About the Author

Greg Shields is an independent author, speaker, and IT consultant, as well as a Partner and Principal Technologist with Concentrated Technology. With 15 years in information technology, Greg has developed extensive experience in systems administration, engineering, and architecture specializing in Microsoft OS, remote application, systems management, and virtualization technologies. He is a Contributing Editor and columnist for TechNet Magazine and Redmond Magazine, and serves as the Series Editor for Realtime Publishers, the world’s leading provider of high-quality content for the IT market. Greg is a highly sought-after and top-ranked speaker for both live and recorded events, and is seen regularly at conferences like TechMentor Events, Microsoft Tech Ed, VMworld, and more. He is a multiple recipient of Microsoft “Most Valuable Professional” award.