Business-IT Alignment and Organizational Maturity: A Program Management Approach for Continuous Improvement

Neste e-mail Advisor do Cutter Consortium, o consórcio Norte-Americano para a Gestão das Tecnologias de Informação, Alexandre Rodrigues debate a problemática do alinhamento contínuo das soluções TIC no apoio aos processos de negócio (i.e. o Busines-IT Alignment), à luz da disciplina emergente da Gestão de Programa.

Alexandre Rodrigues, 19 Mar 2008

Business-IT Alignment and Organizational Maturity: A Program Management Approach for Continuous Improvement by Alexandre Rodrigues, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium

Business-IT alignment is often approached as a discrete goal to be achieved in a specific moment in time, as opposed to a continuous organizational process. This discrete one-off perspective creates the illusion that, if properly managed, an alignment initiative will lead to the desired final state of having the IT system fully aligned with the business needs.

These initiatives are typically implemented through major projects, which, more often than not, fail to deliver and meet the expectations (despite being accepted as mandatory). As the business environment is in constant change and as technology evolves, this alignment process is also inevitably continuous.

As many organizations recognize this reality, they often fall into a situation of painfully rescoping their large "ongoing" alignment projects or recurrently canceling current projects and starting new ones. In this scenario, the need to continuously realign IT to the changing business is perceived as a threat to business performance and competitive advantage; continuous change is not effectively capitalized over time, and opportunities are not explored.

I would correlate this problem with the degree of organizational maturity in managing change through projects. There is no doubt that the alignment process takes place in the context of projects and project management: business projects, process improvement, and IT projects are all part of continuous realignment. The difficulty in achieving effective benefits" realization throughout the alignment process stems from the absence of one of the three fundamental disciplines of change management: program management.

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