Though Gartner's alignment problems were exacerbated by acquisitions, they had other roots as well, according to Stanco. Gartner is organised geographically, with different executives responsible for different countries and regions and different functional units. That makes communication and enterprise-level thinking a challenge.

To spark communication between IT and the business units at Gartner and get them thinking about company-wide strategy, Stanco introduced elements of what he would later call project-based budgeting. The project-based budgeting process consists of a three-tier advisory council in which IT and business-unit leaders from around the world participate in the project planning process. There's also a formal proposal system requiring project sponsors to tie project goals to corporate strategy, prioritise projects based on criteria derived from corporate goals, and generate a return on investment and total cost of ownership analysis after launching projects. Paolillo and Stanco both point to the GBIS, or Gartner Business Information System, an analysis program designed to help managers control profit and loss, as an example of a new tool developed using Stanco's project-based budgeting methodology.

One of Stanco's first steps toward establishing that process was to appoint strategic business partners (SBPs) from the IT side to each business unit and establish a review process to vet and approve projects under $US100,000 that are limited to one business unit. The SBPs and business unit leaders discuss project merits and have the power to give them the green light. By summer 2000, in time for fiscal 2001 budget planning, a three-tier advisory council was in place. This hierarchy included a council for larger projects that assembled senior business and IT managers from around the world.

To ensure that project proposals are tied to company strategy, the lead project sponsor, who can be from IT or a business unit, fills out planning templates that identify the goal the project is supposed to facilitate. One of the advisory council members then prioritises the project in a "stack ranking", using criteria weighted according to the relative importance of the project goals. For example, since growing research revenue and profitability are paramount, those projects will end up on top of the stack.

A key component of this methodology is its flexibility, says Paolillo. If the company needs to reconsider strategic and corporate priorities midyear, then the top-level advisory council can rework stack rankings and reprioritise projects using a new or reweighted set of criteria.