Business-IT Integration Balance Model (Introduction)

Business-IT Integration Balance Model is intended to be used at negotiations between the Business and IT parties as a tool for initial strategic assessment of existing and desired situations in their relations.

The model helps to define the organizational changes necessary for proper Business and IT Alignment.

BUSINESS-IT INTEGRATION BALANCE MODEL

The main idea is that in relations of business and IT representatives different maturity levels of both parties are possible. And for proper balanced relations the maturity of each party has to correspond to each other.

As IT penetrates deeper in our lives and becomes a part of daily routine, you can often encounter a situation when business managers have relatively good understanding of technology possibilities and advantages. And at the same time people from IT (IT department, IT provider, IT managers, you name it) are not that willing to make a step towards understanding of business needs, requests, and of advantages and restrictions brought by technology. They are too much submerged in the technology complexity and their maturity is not sufficient for productive communication with people from the business side.

TYPICAL DIFFERENCE IN MATURITY LEVELS

As a result of this maturity difference we see the difference in mindsets, difference in values, difference in the language used. This is often described as abscence of Business-IT Alignment.

In an ideal situation there is not much difference between a business manager and an IT manager (you can also think about a CIO as a fully-fledged board member here). IT managers take responsibility for the results, budgets and the financial part of projects, notice new business opportunities or threats through the lenses of knowledge of appearing techhnologies and innovation trends. Business managers understand at least the basics, main principles of technologies used and value brought by them, and don't take the arrogant position in respect to IT, like "ah, I have no idea, it's the realm of techno-geeks" or "those IT guys, they can never make it just work". Instead they leverage on the possibilities which IT makes possible and take into account potential limitations or points of failure.

The business and IT realms in such a situation become integrated. And there are examples of companies where you can already find it.

But, of course, not every company can get it to the highest maturity level. And in fact, not every company needs it. A company producing glass bottles for the last 20+ years is not likely to revolutionize its business by introducing some changes in IT.

It is much more important here to watch the balance between the business need for IT, its IT maturity, the understanding of the situation by people from business on the one side, and IT provider focus, mindset, its business maturity on the other side.

If you try to map your company or some example from your experience on this maturity model, it will immediately become evident where and what type of disagreement might be there, and what possible improvements are needed.

----------------------------

Notes:

Initially the model was introduced in 2006 by Paul Leenards and was based on the models of Nolan and McFarlan. You can find a brief description on his blog.

Resently I made a scientific research to challenge, validate the model and see how well it reflects the real-life situation. If interested, you can download the complete public report here.