Behaviour that gets more business value out of IT

Defining desired behaviour is recognized as an essential part of getting more return on investment in training and improvement initiatives. It is the bridge between the problem that an organization wants to solve, and the competences and training that are needed to solve it. The 8 Fields Model that GamingWorks uses and recommends described this in more detail.

I conducted a workshop about desired behaviour at the annual itSMF Finland conference in Helsinki on October 2nd 2014. The question that the participants discussed, was “Which behaviour will get most business value out of IT?”. The participants focused on the behaviour that the business should exhibit, in their role of IT’s customer. They said that the business ideally:

·        Shares the strategy / big picture / longer-term plan with IT

·        Discusses the ‘why’ behind IT investments with the IT department and reaches agreement

·        Improves its understanding of IT and the IT dept’s capabilities

·        Trusts the IT department with the ‘how’

·        Formulates concrete and simple targets, and expected measurable value 

·        Defines and prioritizes needs and requirements

·        Leads and executes business change management and global portfolio management, in close collaboration with IT

·        Takes charge of the business’ information and its flow

In the past 12 months I have conducted two similar workshops together with SDI’s Howard Kendall for itSMF UK in Birmingham and itSMF Ireland in Dublin. The two workshops also considered the behaviour that IT should exhibit. Combining the findings from these three workshops, we have three groups of desired behaviour from the business, the IT function and the enterprise as a whole.

The business:

·        Has a good understanding of IT capabilities

·        Shares the strategy / big picture / longer-term plan with IT

·        Discusses the ‘why’ behind IT investments with the IT department and reaches agreement

·        Specifies outcomes rather than output

·        Prioritizes outcomes

·        Formulates concrete and simple targets, and expected measurable value 

·        Is the accountable owner of information systems

·        Leads IT

·        Doesn’t bully IT but trusts them to be their IT partner

·        Allocates more time to IT, e.g. explain situation to IT, train users, inform users about changes

·        Leads and executes business change management and global portfolio management, in close collaboration with IT

·        Takes charge of the business’ information and its flow

The IT function:

·        Has a good understanding of the business’ need and context

·        Communicates in terms of benefits, costs and risks, in order that the business can take well-informed decisions

·        Abandons ‘technical’ SLA’s and explains in more meaningful ways what they’re doing for the business, involving the business in designing the reporting

·        Regards itself not as a separate silo but as an integral part of the business

Finally, the enterprise fosters a culture in which business and IT share the same table and have a joint vision, and the business and IT talk to each other more often, creating more mutual understanding of pains, priorities, possibilities and limitations.