by Greg Shields

Actually achieving that nirvana of alignment between IT and your business needn’t necessarily be an insurmountable activity. It is after all, your business. The corrective guidance in this letter has purposely been delivered at the level that a CEO such as yourself can hand down with the expectation of results.

But truly recognizing that the needed change has occurred requires measuring it both before and after its change activities. Complicating this process is the non-quantitative nature of success itself. How do you measure the effectiveness of your IT organization and its ability to meet your business needs? How can you identify and compare today’s state with tomorrow’s or next year’s?

One mechanism that can help you understand why you and they are misaligned attempts to describe IT on a spectrum of maturity. This concept of maturity was first introduced by Gartner in a paper titled Transforming IT Operations into IT Service Management (Data Center 2003, Deb Curtis and Donna Scott). I talk at greater length about these concepts in two books, The Definitive Guide to Business Service Management (Realtime Publishers, 2008) and The Definitive Guide to Application Performance Management (Realtime Publishers, 2009). You can freely download a copy of both of these books from www.realtimepublishers.com; however, allow me the opportunity to spend a few minutes explaining this concept of maturity here.

Gartner’s IT Maturity Curve focuses on the level of process maturity in an organization, and how that level of process maturity directly impacts IT’s alignment with its surrounding business. The following quote from The Definitive Guide to Application Performance Management describes the model:

This groundbreaking white paper defined IT across a spectrum of capabilities, each relating to the way in which IT actually goes about accomplishing its assigned tasks. An IT culture with a higher level of process maturity will have the infrastructure frameworks in place to make better use of technology solutions, solve problems faster, plan better for expansions, and ultimately align better with the needs and wants of the business they serve.

Process maturity within an organization is defined as quite a bit more than simply having the ability to solve problems. Within Gartner’s maturity model, the capacity of IT to solve – and prevent – ever more complex problems was defined largely by its level of process maturity.

Gartner defines five stages in which an IT organization can exist: Chaotic, Reactive, Proactive, Service, and Value. At each stage, the IT organization is defined by a set of characteristics. These characteristics illustrate the types of activities and behaviors that are seen in the organization’s culture. Though not necessarily an objective checklist, it will likely be obvious to which stage your own organization fits.

As organizations move from one stage to the next, they will find more documentation of processes with less replication of work, greater and more advanced levels of configuration control, different incentives for determining what is considered success, greater maturity in monitoring, and the implementation of toolsets that enable richer planning and more effective budgeting.

Gartner’s model goes far in highlighting how the process formalization of frameworks like ITIL can indeed be aligned with the needs of an agile business. Based on the characteristics seen within an IT organization, it is possible to plot that group’s location on the curve. Once identified on the curve, it is further possible to create a plan of action that assists in moving the organization through its stages. The ultimate goal of Gartner’s curve is in seeing IT process maturity at the level where it is not only service-oriented but also value-oriented to its encompassing business.

Getting through the stages requires an IT organization to embrace the characteristics of that stage. Figure 1 shows a simplified summarization of those characteristics.

Figure 1: Gartner’s 5-stage IT Maturity model with relevant characteristics at each stage.

Can you identify here where your IT organization resides? Are they leveraging configuration documentation and documented change control processes, or are they chaotic in their completion of daily activities. For organizations that have made it through their first wave of formalized process but not their second, are they showing signs of embracing service alignment and business alignment? Or, are they organizationally “stuck” in strict process orientation?

Chapter 2 of both guides explains each of the stages in much greater detail. It also details the individual activities that can serve as measurements for identifying your current stage while reaching for the next. Ultimately, engaging your IT organization in the conscious activity of identifying and focusing on maturity will assist in tuning its processes towards business relevance. This can occur in a number of different ways:

• Mature IT organizations better understand the business relevance of technology investments.
• Mature IT organizations better realize their role in the greater business, and can leverage that realization in finding value-added activities.
• Mature IT organizations do a better job of spending money and working within budgets.
• Mature IT organizations exist as better citizens of the business, seeking ways to further business goals through technology means.
• Mature IT organizations have the capacity to develop new services within reasonable periods of time, while at the same time ensuring acceptable levels of service quality.
• Mature IT organizations are ready for a seat at the boardroom table.

Where to Go from Here
Obviously, this entire process of elevating your IT organization to business partner requires attention from both sides. Left alone, your IT organization cannot be incentivized to change its ways. Left alone, your business lacks the common language to work with this group of people towards a common goal. Considering IT’s short history in combination with today’s world of work, now is an appropriate time to begin fomenting that involvement.

You as CEO must be a major participant in that change.

Dear CEO, today your IT organization is killing your business. They’re not bad people. They’re not lazy. They’re not problem employees, not unethical or immoral in any way. In fact, they’re quite the opposite.

They’re ready for the change. Right now, they just need a little assistance in getting there. With the right level of involvement from you, along with a shared set of goals, they’re ready to be part of the solution.

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.