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April 10, 2002

IT-Business Alignment: Week 3

Charting a Course Toward Business Alignment

Turning the HomeWorks' IS-Business Alignment and Planning (BAP) Team from a concept to a functioning organization began two days after I returned from the SLT off-site meeting at the Crest Family Resort.

Just after 9 AM, Jesse Reed (IS Strategist), Rebecca Morse (Manager of Business Requirements and Analysis), Steve Wilson (IS Accountant), and I met in my office over coffee, juice, and bagels. After a brief warm up discussion about the weather (which was unusually hot for early spring) and a talk about what our kids were going to do this summer (Morse's 17-year old son was going to spend the summer in France), I kicked-off the meeting.

"I've decided," I began, stepping over to my office whiteboard, "to treat the building of the BAP team as an IS project. Basically, no different from any project IS has ever done around..."

"Oh, great!" interrupted Reed, nudging Wilson with his elbow. "Does that mean we're going to be late and over budget like all the IS projects this place has done for the last 20 years?"

Everyone, including me, laughed.

Reed's comment hadn't missed the mark by much, and we all knew it. The IS record for on-time delivery of projects was maybe three projects in ten, at best.

"Okay...okay," I continued, raising my hands and looking up at the ceiling, "Let me rephrase. Like any other project with one big difference — we're going to get this project done on time and with quality."

I paused and looked each of them in the eye, trying my best to communicate by body language that I was serious and not just giving them the standard beginning of a project pep talk.

Executive Summary

The BAP Team becomes a reality as Ted Kingston and the others flesh out a project roadmap and operating model — treating the development of the team itself as a (well run) IS project. As with any major change, selling the rest of HomeWorks on the BAP Team concepts is difficult. The BAP Roadmap lets Kingston and his team clearly define their role within HomeWorks and communicate that information to others around the company. A significant portion of the BAP Roadmap is devoted to explaining the relationship that exists between IS strategic planning, IS business analysis and project prioritization, and project development and support. Getting these three functions working together cohesively will help reach BAP's goal of building sophisticated, cost-effective systems to meet the company's strategic goals.

Cast of Characters

Click here to meet our cast of characters.

I picked up a marker and began writing on the whiteboard.

"We're going to do this project the old-fashioned way," I said. "By that I mean we're going to work today and over the next few days to develop a project roadmap that we can present to the rest of the SLT and that Mills can present to the other execs for approval."

I wrote "PROJECT ROADMAP" on the board in capital letters.

"If BAP is ever going to work around here," I continued, "we need to get support from the SLT and the rest of the business executives. Mills will have to take this thing 'on the road,' you might say. He'll have to sell it to everyone, and we're going to have to help him do it by defining what this BAP thing is all about. Frankly, I'm not sure I could answer that today myself! Most of the executives and the SLT will need to be convinced that this can work — once they understand what BAP is. That won't be a slam dunk, for any of us."

"I bet Andy Lyons is going to be a hard sell," said Morse, referring to the IS Director of Tech. Services. "He's already nervous about what Mills is doing in his area as far as service levels. He isn't good with other people messing with his sandbox." Everyone nodded at this comment.

"And the business!" said Reed. "They talk about being involved in IS projects but they never want to spend the time or people to get involved. Big on complaining when things go south though."

"What do they call it in the government?" asked Wilson. "Plausible deniability?"

"Just two of the thousand obstacles we'll have to overcome to make this thing work," I said, turning back to the board. "It ain't gonna be boring!"

"After the Roadmap, we're going to develop an operating model for BAP," I wrote the words "OPERATING MODEL" below PROJECT ROADMAP.

"The operating model will show how the team will work together to align IS with the business. We're also going to define roles and responsibilities, an organizational chart and team imperatives. In other words, what we must do to be successful."

"We'll have to make up processes, methodologies and workflows, and the rest as we go along, I'm afraid. There really isn't time."

I continued writing, building out our working agenda. Everyone was taking notes. They were getting down to business now.

"Finally," I said, "we're going to build a detailed plan to get all this done in the next few months." I put down the marker. "That's it."

"That's enough," said Reed.

Oh yeah," I said, sitting down, "one more thing. We'll also have to figure out who — besides us four — should be on the team. After all, we don't want to keep all this fun to ourselves. Right?"

"I love to share," said Morse, smiling.