Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Power to the Users

As technology becomes increasingly entwined with business processes, accountability for and ownership of systems decisions must inevitably shift
Page:

After a working lunch at a workshop, a senior IT manager at a global telecommunications company approached me with a problem. Over the course of several mergers, acquisitions and reorgs, his firm now had three work-order processing systems. His boss had told him to get it down to one over the next six months. He wanted advice.

So I asked, which system did the users seem to like best and why? He said he didn't know. I suggested he organize a meeting between the three user groups to thrash out which one made the most sense for the most people. Make them pick. He hadn't thought of that. Unfortunately, his firm's IT culture had IT, not users, "owning" systems consolidation after reorgs. Baby-sitting interdepartmental user meetings was frowned on, he asserted.

Too many CIOs set their people up for failure by allowing their IT leaders to draw utterly false and dangerously misleading distinctions between their role as technologists and their responsibilities as business partners
I couldn't help myself: I told him he was setting himself up to fail. If he unilaterally imposed a system, he would tick off the two groups whose systems lost out. Even if he were able to sell his choice internally, he'd have to understand the ins, outs and usage of each system. What's more, while he might know the IT budget for each system, he probably didn't know what the real business costs were for the business units. This was neither his decision nor IT's to make, I argued. The users knew more about what they needed than he did. They should own the choice. Substituting his technical assessment of systems for their business judgement about work-order processes guaranteed infighting.

As we talked, I was shocked to discover this wasn't some rinky-dink consolidation of a few backwater apps; these systems managed and tracked billions of dollars in equipment and servicing orders. While the need for enterprise standardization was completely understandable, the notion that IT should set those standards was not. I pleaded with him to go to his boss's boss — the CIO — and request that he call the users together. "Have the CIO position you as business partner," I begged. "If you're seen as the systems dictator, these users have a real incentive to help you fail. Please . . . CYA." He said he would.

Page:

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Boss, INS, Inspiration, IT People, MIT, MIT Media Lab

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Three government scenarios for cloud printing
    Does your organization rely on a mobile workforce? If so, cloud printing can make printing easier and mobile workers more productive. And getting started is easier than you think.
    Learn more »
  • Consolidation Without Compromise
    Virtualization of computer, storage and infrastructure is enabling the transformation of enterprise datacentres into private clouds. The impact is an unprecedented ability to consolidate infrastructure without compromise: no change to service level agreements (SLAs), no loss of performance or scale, and no regression in the organisation’s overall security posture. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • Unified Storage Strategy guide
    This Guide features the following: - Cloud leads five storage trends for 2011 - Most IT managers plan to adopt cloud storage - Storage virtualization buying guide - Virtual machine management (VMM) - Cloud storage a steep climb - Building a better business backup system - Server virtualization: Six management myths
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments

HP and IDG news, product videos and resources