In Pursuit of Total IT Alignment ….Food for Thought

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Strategy  

There is no shortage of opinions, articles and essays when it comes to aligning IT with the vision, strategy and objectives of the enterprise.  IT alignment seems to be on the lips of everyone these days.  A simple Google search on “IT Alignment” delivered no fewer than 48,200 links. One can only wonder why it is so rare and elusive.  Is it because achieving alignment is difficult?  Is it because CIOs don’t get it?  Is it a cultural impossibility?   As a former CIO of 9 years with one company, I can understand the challenge and have a few thoughts of my own on how to approach and achieve alignment.

At a minimum, IT alignment requires the IT organization provide the right applications, infrastructure and resources to the enterprise on a continuous basis.  But to really be successful, CIOs need to achieve IT alignment culturally as well as technologically.  I learned long ago that the old adage, “It’s not what you know but who you know,” is not completely true.  If I were rewriting that adage today it would read:

“It’s not what you know or who you know, it’s how you are thought of that counts”

So here is some food for thought on achieving IT alignment.

1.       Be the Relationship CIO – the CIO sets the tone for how the IT …

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