Tom Eller is a Managing Partner at Working Capital, LLC and my "go to guy" on any questions I have when I'm conducting a search for positions having anything to do with Business Intelligence, IT Strategy, and Business Strategy execution, or doing career coaching for these people.  Tom has led consulting for Oracle in the Southeast and before launching Working Capital was the VP of Ecommerce Technology for PRG-Schultz.  He has also served as CIO/CTO for several startups as well as consulted on IT and BI strategy for companies across multiple sectors. Tom earned his MBA at Emory University's Goizueta Business School.   

By Tom Eller

Considering the high volume of articles and discussions pertaining to Business and IT alignment, one can only conclude that the strategies defined to date must be limited in their success or at least the tools and methods employed to execute those strategies must be sorely lacking otherwise the problem would have been solved. 

To better understand the reason for this lack of progress let's take a minute to understand the difference in perspectives between Business and IT.  Business tends to think in terms of Objectives and Strategies while IT tends to think in terms of Infrastructure, Technologies, and Applications.  Both groups share a need for data and information, but usually do not have a shared vision for the usage of said information and data.

Given the lack of progress in this area for most organizations it's time for a new alignment strategy(defined as"the means by which objectives are consciously pursued and obtained over time")that provides a clear and measurable basis for the allocation of resources to meet the objectives of the business. This new strategy is information driven and will create Business and IT alignment by definition, as it requires tools and defined processes just like the other strategies in the business.

However, the new alignment strategy and associated tools have some demanding requirements.

• It must be lightweight and pervasive. While the strategy is comprehensive, the implementation must be incremental and cannot unduly burden the organization with excessive work, and it must complement the existing processes for resource governance until such time that it replaces them.

• The output from the alignment strategy must provide consolidated visibility into the requirements and resource demand.

• While we will probably never achieve a totally objective allocation of resources, the alignment strategy must provide a quantitative prioritization and allocation of resources which minimizes internal political and personal influences of these allocations.

• The alignment process must provide instant reprioritization and impact analysis capabilities to adjust to changing business conditions, including identification of resources that are no longer properly aligned with objectives.

• The alignment strategy and process must contain clear feedback mechanisms and measurable results for the organization.

Up until this point, organizations have not had the ability to implement an agile, flexible, tool supported process for reasons too numerous to mention.  However, with the emergence of certain technologies and innovative thinking, organizations now have to ability to thoughtfully implement a reasonable alignment strategy that is quantitative, responsive, measurable and effective.

For example, a global optical manufacturer recently leveraged a combination of Open Source (Workflow, Process Management and DBMS), commercial software, and Java to create a graphical, web based solution to support the new alignment process.  The process created an immediate return including:

• IT and Business agreed to stop all projects that were not contributing to the objectives and reassign those resources based on business unit objectives.

• The quantitative evaluation of new projects and initiatives produces faster fact-based decisions enabling consensus and reducing conflicts on prioritization.

• Consolidated visibility and impact analysis allows IT to respond to ad-hoc requests quickly and more efficiently.

• Project budgeting and approval cycles were shortened based on a common understanding of objectives and resource alignment.

The experience of this company and a growing number of others proves that real alignment with the business can finally be acheived by IT leaders willing to try a new approach.

If you have any questions or comments contact Tom at (770) 335-9562, teller@n4m8n.com

Building Teams with Happy and Productive Employees 
By: Phil Stevens, EVP and CIO, Scintel Technologies
 

The cultural wisdom that happy people will work harder and produce better results is subtly embedded everywhere.

On the other hand, in a typical business with multiple "number one" priorities and a pressing need to do more with less, leaders may question their return on investment in employee happiness.  How important is "employee happiness" and what can a leader do to influence it? 

I would like to share my insights and recommendations for a more productive IT organization based on a successful transformation that I led at a Fortune 100 company.

The Myth of the Happy Worker
Happy workers work harder and produce more. Right?

Could this conventional wisdom possibly be wrong?  Well, yes, it could be.

Every MBA student has learned that a substantial body of research, dating before Brayfield and Crockett's 1955 study "Employee Attitudes and Employee Performance," indicates that there is no appreciable link between employee satisfaction and individual performance. Follow-up research has supported Brayfield and Crockett's study.
 
What has been your experience?  Have the following employees been on your team:

• A dissatisfied employee who produces equal, if not better, results than satisfied employees;
• A Programmer who can write code twice as fast as other team members but shows disdain for team meetings and occasionally can be overheard speaking poorly of the company;
• The IT Director who seems out of touch with the company mission yet "runs a solid operation".

Individuals can be unhappy or dissatisfied yet produce good results, a surprising development because it counters what we, as leaders, have been taught.  A more important question remains: If employee satisfaction is not linked to individual performance, should leaders spend time on making sure team members are satisfied?

Organizational Citizens
Yes, leaders should care about employee satisfaction. In his book "The Subtle Significance of Job Satisfaction", Dennis Organ addresses an important distinction between individual in-role performance and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). OCB refers to those little-recognized, voluntary actions that are necessary in any effective organization. For example, a co-worker helping a new hire learn about the company's unique processes or checking with other team members before committing to a course of action. Some people use the term "discretionary effort" or "engagement." Although employee satisfaction is not a predictor of in-role performance, it is a predictor of engagement, discretionary effort, and OCB.
 
Organ explains that OCB is more important to the functioning of some organizations than others. For example, OCB may not be a differentiator in an assembly line where employees' interactions follow well-defined standards; but, it is critical in project management where unpredictable elements require cooperation and teamwork.  OCB typically does not impact individual, in-role performance, but, in some types of organizations, it can have substantial impacts on organizational effectiveness. Individual satisfaction can impact the team without impacting the individual.

Yes, it sounds a little counterintuitive.  
 
Is OCB important to IT?  Yes, especially when it comes to IT as a differentiator. It is safe to draw a box around some IT functions, like being ambivalent about the development process Microsoft uses to create Word but using Microsoft Word every day. Likewise, it may be possible to outsource the development of some software modules or the operation of email infrastructure without requiring a high degree of OCB with the outsourcer.

On the other hand, the creation of a new business service, the integration of an ERP system with corporate processes, and the development of an ecommerce Web site - the very functions that exemplify how IT can enable the business - are all cases where OCB is critical. IT must be engaged to add value to the business.
 
As a second argument for the importance of OCB, Jim Collins said, "good is the enemy of great".

Consider the following: Good infrastructure in the organization, good development team, and a good project management organization; yet, somehow, as you assess the performance of your overall IT organization, you are underwhelmed.   How is this possible?
 
Individuals or small groups are working well, but the larger team is not working well together.  It may take a long time to recognize the problem and even longer to do something about it, because good is the enemy of great.  OCB and large-scale process integration are necessary for a great, high-performance IT organization.

Individual satisfaction is not a strong indicator of individual performance, but it is a key indicator of organizational performance, especially in the most impactful technology projects. What are some of
the challenges and solutions for improving employee satisfaction, OCB, and organizational effectiveness? 

Here's what I learned from my initiative to create a high-performance IT organization in a Fortune 100 company.
 

Creating a High-Performance Organization
In my experience, an IT organization works best when its leaders strategize effectively, coordinate processes, engage team members, and maintain momentum with communication.

Develop a Good Strategy
An effective strategy is crucial to success. Unfortunately, strategy often suffers from poor development, communication, and/or execution. Several years ago, while leading a client server computing team from ad hoc operations to consistently process-based operations, I discovered that the transition required an inordinate amount of time and energy. However, the time and energy paid off, as I was able to create strategic change that produced more reliable and scalable systems as the business we supported more than doubled in volume.

I learned that a strategy should be relatively simple and clear with a few key components. The strategy must be reinforced frequently over time, or the organization risks losing focus and prematurely shifting to a new strategic priority at the expense of the last one implemented. And, finally, the strategy needs to be embedded into the culture and operation processes of an organization.

Maximize Impact by Integrating Processes
Strategy may make each individual team within the organization good, but to make an organization great, those teams have to be coordinated with each other and with the business. An important step in moving from good to great is to integrate processes and systems from end to end by disregarding team boundaries. Insisting on the inter-departmental view of efficiency and effectiveness provides untapped potential in most organizations, as I found when I launched an initiative called "One Team".

"One Team" took an organization of 500 members that senior leadership thought was performing well and helped it perform even better by integrating the IT communication and processes within its departments as well as within the business as a whole. IT employee satisfaction went up, our customer satisfaction scores improved, and projects were more effective because of this effort. At the same time, our organization was more efficient because we didn't waste effort throwing things over the walls between departments or arguing about whose team was to blame.

Engage the Team Members by Giving Them a Meaningful Role
A clear strategy has been communicated and coordinated among teams, and all involved have a clear objective and focus. However, this is not a guarantee that each team member will feel personally engaged.  

Employee satisfaction, as discussed above, will significantly impact team performance. Employee satisfaction and what influences it can be difficult to quantify; a good approach towards cultivating it can be found, interestingly, by focusing on its desired outcome - engagement.

People will work hard with creativity and enthusiasm if they believe that they are playing a meaningful part in an important effort. If an organization has both the passion for strategic goals and the strategy to achieve them, it has the foundation for the important effort people are searching for. Integrating teams and departments into larger processes gives you the chance to demonstrate to every employee how he or she impacts the corporate objectives, and you give the team the reason and the motivation to engage. In a wonderful example of win-win, by taking care of the two previous factors of high-performance, you secure the third factor of individual engagement.

Maintain Momentum with Communication
Now that the organization strategizes effectively, operates its departments in a coordinated manner, and engages its team members enthusiastically, how do we, as leaders, maintain the momentum? The most important element is communication up, across, and within. As the IT leader, communicating up and across the organization ensures that the IT strategy is aligned with the business strategy and lets the rest of the organization know what to expect from IT. Communicating within the IT organization ensures the strategy is consistently understood and consistently prioritized.

A clear strategy that is consistently reinforced across departments and within an organization will provide a foundation for success. Communicating the strategy across teams and departments helps integrate teams into larger processes and ensures that team members are engaged. Maintaining communication will build and maintain a level of credibility and trust that will become embedded in the organization's culture. This same communication will help eliminate and reduce problems and pave the way for a long-term reputation of maximizing performance in your organization.

If you have any questions or comments about Phil's article post your feedback.  We'd love to hear your stories about employee satisfaction impacting organizational effectiveness.