IT is Business!

Organisations that have realised the value of IT no longer think of it as just a support function that sucks up much needed financial resources from the business. It is constantly seen as central in the quest to achieve operational excellence, innovation leadership, improved service delivery and compliance.

Surprisingly, the development of the IT strategy is still seen as a process that sits outside of the “business”, resulting in the frustrating and constant misalignment between Business and IT.

The misalignment has a lot to do with the strategy formulation process - where the enterprise strategy is developed and signed-off first.
As far as possible the IT strategy development process needs to be integrated with the enterprise strategy development process, as shown on the diagram below, so that the technology vision of the business is shared and agreed to by all functional executives.
The result is a business road map that takes into account the limitations as well as the enabling capacity of technology. This two-way development process facilitates an IT Strategy that is tightly aligned to the business.



The IT strategy developed through this process will be business-centric and more importantly, it will speak the business language that other executives understand.

So when faced with a challenge where IT and “business” are not pulling towards the same direction, examine your strategy formulation process and consider changing to a mindset that says “IT is business”.

Tumi Mphahlele is Managing Director: Busara Strategic Projects, a division of Busara Leadership Partners, www.busaraleadershippartners.co.za

Resource availability need not necessarily kill a project

Project Managers are not always afforded the luxury to recruit members of their own team. In certain instances they are considered fortunate if they have full-time resources assigned to the projects. This makes project resourcing one of the biggest issues that PMs have to deal with at some point in their careers.

There are valid reasons why business units cannot commit full-time resources to projects:
· Projects usually require content skills and expertise that the business unit cannot afford to be without for extended periods of time
· Business units that second employees are usually required to reintegrate them at the end of the project life cycle. The business units that replace secondees are then left with additional head count that they have not budgeted for
· Projects do not always end as per original schedule – they sometime run over due to scope increases, or they end sooner when deliverables are de-scoped. This makes it difficult for business units to manage their resource plans and budgets effectively

Rather than fight to have the highly skilled subject matter expert (SME) full-time on the project, the PM should rather push to secure a less-skilled, contractor to work full-time on the project to support the SME. The SME remains in the business unit but is actively involved in the project as a technical lead. This way, the integration and resource planning issues fall away. This solution, however, assumes that project location is not a factor. In other words, the SME is able to work both on the project and in the business unit at the same time, whether through physical contact or online.

Tumi Mphahlele is Managing Director: Busara Strategic Projects, a division of Busara Leadership Partners, www.busaraleadershippartners.co.za

"No PMO please, we are small"

The silo thinking in organisations is associated mostly with large companies that have semi-autonomous business units, differentiated customers and separate business processes. It is not rare, however, for smaller and medium-sized companies to also display some silo characteristics.

Project consultants are often surprised to find out as soon as they start working on a project at a medium-sized organisation, that there are other consultants working on a different project in the same organisation. The projects are likely to:
- Impact the same internal and external stakeholders
- Impact the same organisational processes
- Require access to the same or similar set of data
- Have implementation dates that are close together

On coming across such an issue, a good project consultant will get in touch with the project sponsor to work out a solution that will ensure success for all related initiatives, and ultimately for the business as a whole.

But that happens in another world.

In the real world, the consultant has a proposal in her hand that clearly specifies the scope of what she needs to deliver, including the timelines and the high-level milestones. She is not keen on liaising with another consulting firm to resolve a business issue that is not immediately in her scope. She is certainly not prepared to work closely with another consulting firm and run into delivery risks or even being “outshined”. The safe bet is to “stick to your knitting once the wool is apportioned”.

The concept of a Project Management Office in smaller organisations can be used to address issues such as these. The PMO in large companies is like a centre of excellence, resourced with a number of highly skilled Project Managers, supported by sophisticated tools and churning templates and processes to support projects in the entire organisation.

In smaller organisations, the PMO should not have a directive, supporting or controlling mandate; it certainly does not need a large headcount or sophisticated software. It just requires a single individual with Programme Management skills to align and integrate all the initiatives that take place in the organisation. This will ensure that projects are aligned in terms of what is being delivered as well as the impact to the organisation.

This approach facilitates proper planning, effective change management and reduces chaos. But more importantly, it challenges the very silo mentality that is meant to be out-of-place in smaller organisation.

Tumi Mphahlele is Managing Director: Busara Strategic Projects, a division of Busara Leadership Partners, www.busaraleadershippartners.co.za