by Harris Kern

Featuring Harris Kern's 10 Commandments

Part 1  |  Part  2

Top IT Issues and Challenges

After studying over 350 Fortune 500 and Global 2000 IT organizations, I've compiled a list of the top issues and challenges plaguing IT executives. No wonder IT is still considered a cost center by their business counterparts. Below are some of the more common issues and challenges in IT:

• How do CXOs lead, educate, and partner with CEOs and the executive  management team?
• How does IT ask the right questions and jointly specify project requirements to prevent business units from throwing project requirements over the transom (often as solutions masquerading as requirements)?
• How do IT executives market and enhance their value to the enterprise?
• How can IT get its business partners to communicate IT's value to the  enterprise?
• How does IT stop purchasing technology for technology's sake?
• How can IT stop the mistrust and develop credibility with the organization?
• How can IT change the mindset of, "IT is for IT's sake" into a  customer-centric culture?
• How does IT jointly develop business cases that can be used to determine  priority?
• IT does a good job of following orders, but how does it change such a  culture to one that has creative solutions?
• Traditional IT strategic planning is a yearly, typically static, and discrete, process. It takes considerable time (often four to six months) to produce a large, static document that details projects and timetables from a technology versus business viewpoint. How do we change this process into one that is more tightly integrated with the business?
• How can IT do a better job of aligning with the business?
• How can IT do a better job of thinking strategically and being more proactive instead of always being in a reactive mode in their production environment?
• What are the minimum, yet sufficient, processes required to build the ideal  IT organization?
• How can IT maintain centralized control for standards, processes, and  architectures?
• Systems are often slam-dunked into production - how can IT ensure a smooth  transition from development to production?
• How can IT become more cost effective?
• How does IT stop "working in silos" to become a team with synergy?
• How can IT be perceived as adaptable rather than bureaucratic?
• How can IT use less related (isolated) communication and develop more key  relationships?
• How can organizations retain IT staff?
• Which IT governance model should be used and how should it be used?
• How can management direct employees well when it is so pressed for time?
• How can management help when an organization restructure has negatively  affected certain individuals
• How can very entrenched mindsets be changed?
• How can barriers that revolve around culture be bridged?
• What can be done when staff is trying to manage their workload, but many are  failing miserably and burnout is widespread?
• How can ownership and accountability of key enterprise-wide processes be  clarified?
• How can IT reduce complexity?
• How can a good balance be achieved between security and privacy?
• How can management empower a staff that is not, or does not, feel empowered?
• How can IT be helped to do more with less?
• How can system management processes be made effective?
• What to do when an annual HR performance appraisal program to evaluate  employees is not effective for IT?
• How can quality of life be improved for IT staff?
• What can be done when lack of patience is common among staff?
• How can management help the IT staff manage their time more effectively?
• What can be done when communication is atrocious between IT and the business; IT and vendors; external service providers; and within IT, especially between Applications Development and Operations Support?
• How can a company fix its IT organizational structure when it is missing a  key function(s) or if it is not properly structured?
• How can day-to-day behaviors be aligned with, or support, organizational  objectives?
• What can a company do when it is faced with replacing or outsourcing  inadequate, under-performing IT operations?
• How can IT develop an effective outsourcing strategy?
• How can IT satisfy rapid ramp-up and/or multi-location infrastructure  requirements?
• How can leading-edge technology and services help IT gain and maintain  market advantage?

These enterprises are bleeding profusely because of many years of procrastination and neglect. Years of merely focusing on new system development and technology have finally taken their toll, and it's costing companies millions. The issues are common and widespread throughout all industries (i.e., telecommunications, manufacturing, entertainment, and media). No one is excluded.

Executives are looking outside their confines for answers, and they're seeking guidance from infrastructure service providers for quick solutions. A word of caution to these executives-do you think these service providers -- many of which came out of the cupboards overnight -- have their act together?

Executives, please heed this warning: If you outsource trash, you will receive twice the trash in return, which of course means, twice as many headaches. You will have to manage two dumpsites. You will still have to deal with your customers, and in addition, with the vendor that stores your trash.

The only way to turn this around is to focus on people, process, and the organization structure as technology. The first step is to define the ideal IT environment.

The Ideal Computing Environment

My definition of the ideal IT environment is one that is  designed to exceed the enterprise's strategic goals while nurturing the  individual to achieve exceptional productivity and job  satisfaction. The follow signs are an indication of such an  environment:

• Educated and committed enterprise executive management
• Complete alignment with business goals and objectives
• Strategic decisions that accommodate a dynamic business environment
• Cost effectiveness
• Common architecture (i.e., processes, tools, standards)
• Staff is productive and has a better quality of life
• Culture encourages honesty, mutual respect, creativity, and job satisfaction

When designing the ideal computing environment, a critical piece of the equation is establishing the right methodologies, or what I refer to as the 10 commandments for building a competitive IT organization. As depicted previously, most of what stands in the way of developing such an organization is not technology related. When designing this environment, the focus should be on:

• People
• Organization structure
• Processes
• Technology

Just as most people abide by a set of commandments in our everyday life, the same holds true for IT staff responsible for establishing a competitive IT organization. The following are guidelines, or what I refer to as the "10 commandments for building a competitive IT organization":

The Ten Commandments

I. Thou shalt focus on the thy people.

The corporate mandate is, "do more with less." In IT, we've been doing more with less for years. Arguably, running the business of IT is more difficult than managing any other business, for several reasons:

• Customer demands for additional services and higher service levels at a  lower cost
• Constantly changing customer requirements; continuous change to keep up with  business requirements
• Rapidly evolving technology
• Rapid ramp-up and/or multi-location infrastructure requirements for  corporate acquisitions
• Constant threat of being outsourced as most executives feel that IT is not a core business competency and/or they perceive that vendors can provide services at a lower cost
• Infrastructures that are complex to design, support, and maintain
• The need to forge compromises between business and technical constraints
• The need to enrich relationships with the business
• Managing ambiguity
• Managing time horizons
• Non-IT executives' difficulty in understanding IT's value
• Politics -- IT is the "undesirable step-child." Most executives have no idea what to expect from their IT team, and do not recognize what it takes to deliver technology solutions to the business
• And finally, the worst catalyst for the past few years, economic downturns  and rising global competition

Physically and mentally, IT professionals are disheveling. IT executives are saying, "We've been lean for years and now my staff is burning out from consistently working 12+ hour days and weekends. What's it going to take to stop the hemorrhaging?" IT executives have invested in implementing key elements to build world-class organizations such as:

• Best practices (i.e., processes, standards)
• The best technology money can buy
• Experienced employees

Management has also gone so far as to invest in a variety of team-building exercises over the past few years in an attempt to promote teamwork and motivate the staff, hoping they would see an increase in productivity and customer satisfaction.

Yet when all is said and done, the staff is still not performing at the level required to provide a satisfactory level of service to their customers. So what's it going to take? Effectively implementing best practices and acquiring the best technology money can buy will help a bit. The traditional ways of dealing with IT staff (i.e., communicating regularly, incentives, challenging people, delegating responsibility) also help, but only a bit; it will not guarantee success. The people issues today require  extraordinary measures.

The key to success within IT is promoting self-discipline so staff can effectively manage their own lives. My vision brings the world of IT and discipline together to properly address the people issues in IT. The goal is to arm IT professionals with the right tools to become more productive, not only in their career, but in their personal life as well. At the end of the day it's all about the people. Staff will need to motivate themselves; yearly or quarterly offsite team-building activities are not the answer. Motivation has to originate from the individual consistently. IT executives need to empower their  staff to acquire discipline to be successful.

The most important ingredient in one's lifetime is discipline; with it you can achieve everything; without, you will struggle to exist.

Yearly Performance Reviews

IT executives should also supplement yearly performance reviews (sponsored by HR) with a program I refer to as People Performance Management. Employees need to establish and monitor goals weekly. Yearly performance reviews are ineffective in IT; a year in IT seems like an eternity!

II. Thou shalt effectively organize to partner and align with the  business.

IT needs to be organized to rapidly respond to the needs of individual business groups. This requires a planning process tightly integrated with each of the business groups and an enterprise-wide vision within which all of these needs can be met. This can only be accomplished by establishing working relationships at individual, and group levels with all business partners.

Business teams, including IT as a "business," work together. Other than enterprise infrastructure, there is no such thing as an IT project. Whether IT is responsible for 10 percent of the tasks or 90 percent of the tasks, IT is merely a member of a business team led by a business project champion. All projects require business unit champions and business project champions.

All members of this business team are scheduled with accountabilities and deliverables, and priorities are determined through jointly developed business cases. All projects are required to build a business case; a technology case is not sufficient. Further, all business cases are required to discuss alignment of objectives with enterprise objectives. IT is inseparable from the business and requires complete alignment with business goals.

"Alignment with the business" needs to be more than a strategic plan or a written set of operating principles. The technology organization needs to be set up in a way that allows business alignment to flow as a natural consequence of the way the job is done.

To flexibly align with the business, IT needs to be able to react both functionally (e.g., deep technical skills) and geographically (e.g., globally, regionally, locally) to business imperatives. The solution is a matrix organization that combines shared services with personnel dedicated to business units at the global, regional, and local levels. This can accommodate any enterprise needs by strengthening or weakening "dotted lines" and/or "standards/guidelines."

The only way to align with the business is to become a part of the business. Dedicated applications development staff, physically sitting with the business, having their operational priorities set by the business, participating in business operations and strategy, and having their budget overseen by the line of business forces technology to be aligned with the business. The key to the matrix is that these groups, for all practical purposes of reporting to the line of business, are reporting on a straight line into technology and on a very strong dotted line to the business. This unit is a part of the business, but ultimately, reports to technology. The management principles to be followed are a strict adherence to joint understanding, with no surprises. The business priority is to discover and prioritize opportunities and needs, while the technology priority is to offer practical solutions. The systems manager in charge of this group must represent IT to the line of business, and must represent the business unit to IT. This position in a matrix organization requires the ability to report to multiple managers and to be an honest advocate for each. Success requires the appropriate personality as well as the appropriate culture. Taking the time to find and train capable systems managers is critical. The organization may be right, but still will not function correctly without the right people in these key positions. And they need to understand the business, the personalities, and the technology without allowing ego into the equation.

The systems manager is the single point of contact between business units and IT, since a many-to-many relationship is counter-productive. All activity is coordinated through the systems manager, who must avoid the trap of becoming a bottleneck. A large part of this role is like that of a traffic cop participating directly only in those activities that require a systems manager's direct involvement. The systems manager has direct control of the business unit's dedicated application development staff and coordinates the business unit's use of shared technology services.

Shared services provide specialty skills that may not have critical mass within each business unit, and need to be managed for the enterprise to leverage skills, obtain economies of scale, and maintain an application architecture. Specialty skills may include database administration, system administration, help desk, and network administration. Shared services are traditionally almost exclusively found in infrastructure or data center groups. Technology as a business partner has now evolved beyond this model of shared services. Personal productivity services are critical, new shared-services organizations that don't report through the data center hierarchy.

Personal productivity services are a group that integrates support personnel and personal productivity applications at the desktop and individual level. It is technology with a human face. It is comprised of the help desk, first- and second-level support, training, and desktop development. Desktop development was created to expose many users to IT value powerfully and directly because of the speed of implementation and the very real and immediate "quality of life" improvement. This very quick response to individual and small group needs repeated for many small groups is an opportunity to add value to the enterprise and at the same time, establish relationships across the organization.

IT has become mission-critical and needs to be managed as a strategic asset. IT is inseparable from the business and requires complete alignment with business goals. Successful IT executives need to consider themselves and convince others to consider them as part of the business, not separate from the business, by managing risks and expectations.

Continue to Part  2.

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Harris Kern is a renowned American author, publisher, lecturer, and IT consultant, who focuses his considerable talents on simplifying IT -- and making it work. Through the Harris Kern Enterprise Computing Institute (www.harriskern.com), he has developed a powerful resource for building competitive IT organizations. Under the umbrella of the Institute, IT professionals from many of the world's leading companies come together to take advantage of leading edge disciplines and strategies for improving the IT industry.