Solving Strategic Problems: Going Beyond Being a Technology Order Taker

A few months ago, I gave a presentation to some information technology (IT) leaders, and my topic was how designing great experiences for people should enable IT to earn a more strategic role within their company. I created this presentation after years of observing the interactions between IT groups and their business counterparts within a company, as well as the subsequent involvement of external IT firms, including mine.

The common flow of interactions that occur between business and IT follows this general structure: the business believes there’s a need among their users for something, so they identify some high-level requirements and solicit IT’s help. A series of budgeting, scheduling, and scope-definition activities ensue, until everyone agrees on what they’ll develop, when, and how. Cue an external partner’s involvement through an RFP (Request for Proposal) process, whereby IT seeks proposals for the work they’ve been discussing. External IT partners begin a long proposal-submission process—listing their questions about the RFP, filling out response templates, creating implementation and resource plans, and outlining rates and budgets. This process proceeds until IT selects an external partner and the work commences.

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