This document contains a summary of a presentation by Al Strauss on improving business-IT relationships. It discusses common problems that arise such as poor communication, lack of understanding between business and IT, and IT projects failing to meet costs, schedules, and requirements. It provides recommendations for both business and IT to better understand each other's needs and challenges. This includes the business understanding how IT systems are used and structured, and IT understanding how systems impact business processes and how to get better requirements from business. The document advocates a collaborative approach using techniques like Agile and emphasizing strong leadership, culture, processes, and soft skills.

1. By Al Strauss

2.  Prior work includes:
◦ Software Developer
◦ Software Tester
◦ Software Process Improvement
◦ Business Analyst
◦ Change Agent/Organization Development
◦ Consultant
 Education:
◦ BS in Business Administration
◦ MA in Human Resource Development

3.  In your experience, how well does IT satisfy
the needs of the business?
 Is IT’s output done in a timely and successful
manner?

4.  Poor communication
 Lack of understanding
 Too busy

5.  Since storytelling is a cross-cultural effective
method of training…
does anyone have a story to share with the
rest of us?

6.  Cost overruns
 Project delays
 Systems don’t work as expected
◦ Creates ongoing costs for workarounds, operations
& maintenance
 Employee frustration, overtime and turnover
 Google “IT project failure costs”
◦ 11,300,000 hits

7.  “A study published in the Harvard Business Review,
which analyzed 1,471 IT projects, found that the
average overrun was 27%, but one in six projects
had a cost overrun of 200% on average and a
schedule overrun of almost 70%...One estimate of
IT failure rates is between 5% and 15%, which
represents a loss of $50 billion to $150 billion per
year in the United States. Another study estimated
that IT project failures cost the European Union
€142 billion in 2004.”
http://businessjournal.gallup.com/content/152429/Cost-Bad-Project-Management.aspx

10.  Early days of software
◦ IT “spoke” a different (coding) language
◦ Physically separated from others in the company

11.  Business owns the software
◦ Think of homeowners adding an addition to their home and IT is
the general contractor

12.  IT needs to understand:
◦ How its systems are used by Business
◦ Who uses those systems
◦ How the systems impact and/or integrate with the
non-system work of the Business
 Business needs to understand:
◦ How to give IT good requirements
◦ IT structures (i.e., databases)
 Both Business and IT need to understand:
◦ A software change (i.e., a new system or major
upgrade) is a change to employees’ jobs

13.  “Seek first to understand, then be
understood.” – Stephen Covey
 Business – ask IT about its strengths and its
struggles
 IT - ask Business about its strengths and its
struggles
 If it can’t be on-time, it is better to be late
and right than on-time and wrong
 Appreciate and communicate

14.  Agile
◦ www.agilemanifesto.org
 Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
◦ www.cmmiinstitute.com

15.  Strong senior leadership
 “Companies manage culture by intent or by
default” – Edgar Schein
 Reward system
 Culture always wins

16.  Business and IT processes
 Cultural capabilities
 Soft skills (communication, etc.)
 Hiring
◦ BAs can’t do it all

17.  IT is uniquely positioned to help the business
because it sees the interdepartmental
relationships from data and process
viewpoints
◦ The more IT understands the business, the more IT
can help
 Not necessarily technical help

18.  Insanity – doing the same thing over and over
again and expecting different results
 “No problem can be solved from the same
level of consciousness that created it.” –
Albert Einstein

19.  Link to Amazon

20.  (612) 868-0627
 al@alstrauss.com
 www.alstrauss.com