Habit Number 2
Govern wisely.
Having a strong IT decision-making structure in place can force businesspeople to think of IT's role in the overall enterprise (not just division by division). It can also better align IT strategy with corporate strategy - making sure that they are one and the same. Ideally, senior management is part of that structure.
At financial holding company National City, executive vice president and CIO Jim Hughes runs the strategic priorities committee, which includes the company's chairman, two vice chairmen and the heads of each line of business. The committee meets monthly and reviews all upcoming and existing IT initiatives. Hughes says he was brought in as change agent five years ago to redefine how IS worked and to overcome "a lack of confidence in the IS organisation to deliver". One of the ways he did so was by redesigning the committee to include its current makeup. By working closely with the business, Hughes says, "there's been much tighter alignment, and we're much more strategic in the way we think about, plan and execute projects".
Successful governance doesn't require an IT supergroup. Divisional IT steering committees, made up of senior leaders in each division, are common in decentralised companies. At drug maker Schering-Plough, divisional information officers (DIOs) meet regularly with their business counterparts in the company's four divisions (animal/health, international, manufacturing, and sales and marketing). "The DIOs' mission is to tightly align the IT with the business," says vice president and CIO Donald Lemma.
Governance is top of mind among CIOs these days, Kitzis says. And with good reason. "If I look at alignment, good governance and involvement with the leadership team, the last two are absolutely required elements. Alignment is necessary but not a sufficient condition for success," Kitzis says. (For more on IT responsibilities, see "Getting the Big Guns Onside" CIO, May 2003.)
Habit Number 3
Assign direct reports to be business unit ambassadors.
How can you truly understand the needs of a business - and manage user expectations - if you don't have an IS point person wound as tightly into that business as a Stuart MacGill leg-break? Call them relationship managers or IS business partners. They're your lifeline to the business functions. In many companies, they may report directly to the CIO but have a dotted-line (and sometime direct-line) relationship to the head of a business.
At Capital One Financial, each divisional CIO for the major lines of business has a BIO - business information officer - who works with a business and operations leader at each line of business. "Any one of the three could sit there in a [senior] management meeting," says Gregor Bailar, executive vice president and CIO, which is a statement exemplifying the confidence Capital One has in its BIOs. "They need to have two hats. One is be a relentless champion of their business area, understanding that business's needs. At the same time, they have to see how that impacts technology."
BIOs are often tasked with prioritising IT projects for their divisions and working with their business counterparts to allocate spending and create delivery time lines for projects, Bailar says. The goal: seamless alignment.
Sony's Milde pursues alignment through his business account managers. "They're sort of like mini-CIOs," he says. Those managers must have a passionate understanding of their business; what he's not seeking are VoIP or database experts. It's a process he put in place last year, and he's assigned a person to run that area.
IT business partner is the moniker for the aligners at Avaya. And in a slight twist, vice president and CIO Mike Crowley is looking beyond IS at the network equipment maker to find talent for his current crop of seven business partners, and he tries to attract MBAs. "We'd like to infuse [our group of partners with] more people from the business," he says. After all, an MBA can be passionate about technology too.
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