From Gatekeeper to Innovators: The Changing Role of IT in the Era of Technology-Driven Business

Have you ever experienced working with an IT Department where you come across statements like "The IT department holds the authority to make technology decisions", or any notion that "technology is IT business"?

These statements simply serve to uphold the status and authority over the technology of the IT department. They keep the silo thinking up and running and fail to yield optimal outcomes.

If an IT department still holds on to such beliefs, it's evident that they don't understand the fundamental reality that business and technology have become inherently intertwined. Business is technology, and technology is business!

The question at hand is how IT and Business departments can seamlessly integrate. Undoubtedly, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and companies must undergo a trial-and-error phase to see what works best for them.

How about a prototype as a first step towards change?

✦ Staff a team with specialists of each discipline

✦ Have them sit together to explain what skills and knowledge they bring to the table

✦Encourage them to align on their team roles and their expectations towards each other.

👉This builds a strong and innovative team

Managers ask themselves:

✦ How can we support the team in goals and roles they aligned on?

✦ How can we improve the teams' capabilities?

✦ How can we keep away everything that interrupts the teams' work?

👉This is good leadership, yet, these seemingly straightforward questions are often overlooked by managers.

This prototype redirects attention from fixed responsibilities and emphasizes shared objectives. While this represents the ideal scenario, it is common for resources to be limited and specialists to be unavailable when the business department requires a solution.

In such cases, business departments may become frustrated or they may take on tasks that are IT responsibility. Consequently, IT departments may feel their responsibilities being undermined, leading to a sense of helplessness and being unheard. Usually, this ends in innumerable alignment meetings and disputes.

🛟 What to do when this happens?

Have a look at how often this happens. If it is indeed a significant issue, it implies a need to develop skills where resources are available. In a rapidly advancing era with limited resources, organizational flexibility becomes essential. Necessitating to move away from traditional organizational structures. Please understand, that this does not mean, indiscriminately mixing up responsibilities, but rather establishing a framework in which teams can align on how the work should be done.

After all, you want to produce results not meetings and frustration. When departments unite, they align their goals and foster relationships that mitigate time-consuming office politics and improve performance instead.