Aligning IT/Engineering with the rest of the business
When it comes to achieving fast flow and maximizing value delivery, alignment between IT/Engineering and the rest of the organization is a critical factor. Misalignment in this area is a significant source of friction and inefficiency, often resulting in annual losses valued in the millions or even billions of dollars for medium and large organizations.
The Project Management Institute (PMI) found in their Pulse of The Profession Survey that global businesses were, on average, wasting $109M for every $1B spent through poor alignment, with teams having a lack of strategic clarity, suboptimal project delivery, or not meeting delivery targets.
The benefits of aligning IT/Engineering with the rest of the business:
Significant cost savings by reducing inefficiency
Enhanced competitive advantage through technology
More effective resource utilization
Faster market responsiveness
Improved financial performance
Align your technology and business for fast flow — book your discovery call today.
IT and Engineering are more than just service departments
Highly aligned organizations explicitly acknowledge the value of two-way alignment between IT/Engineering and all other departments. The traditional view of IT as a service provider to the business is dispensed with, to be replaced by an approach that recognizes that alignment involves both aligning IT with business objectives and aligning business objectives with what is possible and sensible with IT.
To foster this alignment, leading organizations implement regular events. These can be meetings, showcases, or conferences that bring together IT/Engineering and other departments or teams. These events serve as platforms for sharing knowledge, building understanding, and identifying opportunities for collaboration.
To be well-aligned here, your organization needs regular, visible collaboration between leaders from different areas. This might manifest as joint talks or showcases between two leaders from different parts of your organization. Such collaborations set a powerful example and help to break down any silos between your departments.
Good alignment needs cooperative leadership
The goal is for IT/Engineering leaders to actively seek to understand goals and constraints from outside of their area. This proactive approach ensures that IT strategies and initiatives are informed by and aligned with broader organizational objectives. It also helps to build trust and credibility for IT/Engineering as technology leaders across the organization. With the current implementation of increasingly powerful Generative AI into many workflows, IT can help sense-check and guide adoption in a safe, secure, and compliant manner. Proper alignment between IT and other departments is essential for this to be effective.
Correspondingly, leaders outside of IT/Engineering should actively seek to understand opportunities and limitations within IT/Engineering. This two-way street of understanding is crucial for setting realistic expectations, identifying opportunities for innovation, and making informed decisions about technology investments.
Alignment between IT/Engineering and the rest of the organization is a critical factor in organizational success. Through regular alignment events, visible leadership collaboration, and mutual understanding of goals and constraints, organizations can create the conditions necessary for effective value delivery and sustainable growth.
The rewards of remodeling silo-based work
Implementing strong IT/Business alignment in your organization can be challenging, as it often requires breaking down long-standing silos, overcoming potential mistrust or misunderstanding between different teams or departments, and investing your time and resources in building relationships and shared understanding.
The benefits of strong alignment are substantial, creating organizations that are better positioned to:
Leverage technology for competitive advantage
Respond more quickly to market changes
Utilize organizational and departmental resources more effectively
In the context of fast flow, this alignment is especially crucial. When your business and IT are in sync, there's less likelihood of wasted effort on projects that don't align with your business goals or that aren't technologically feasible. It also enables more accurate prioritization of your IT initiatives based on business value.
As already stated, the financial impact of misalignment can be severe. Direct costs resulting from inefficient processes, indirect costs stemming from missed opportunities, and delayed market responses can lead to companies generating half the return on invested capital and 18% less in EBITDA, as outlined in McKinsey’s Organizational Health Index.
Conflux can help you align IT/Engineering with the rest of your business
As the leading group of industry experts around fast flow and Team Topologies, Conflux can help you to become a thriving organization, delivering at speed.
We’ve identified nine key dimensions common across organizations using fast flow to shape effectiveness and alignment, and successfully drive innovation and growth.
Book your free discovery call where we’ll take a deep dive into your key areas of focus for alignment with fast flow, including aligning IT/Engineering with the rest of the business:
Assess your organization against the nine dimensions of fast flow
Gain valuable insights into areas of strength and opportunity
Strategically prioritize initiatives for fast flow
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