The IT Decision-making Process Needs Revamping
I met with some IT managers recently to discuss concerns over a decision to revamp enterprise-wide business processes and systems. These managers did not make this decision, yet they were responsible for implementing it. They felt that deploying a software package as a way to revamp their business was an ill-conceived strategy and that the project plan was not viable. Based on everything they told me, their concerns were valid.
In my experience, the above scenario is not uncommon. Decisions are made at the top of an organization with little understanding of their impact, and then forced down the throats of people who know these decisions are wrong. Unfortunately, most corporate cultures spawn a climate where executives make IT-related decisions without gaining input from key stakeholders. These projects are doomed to fail because relevant and affected parties were not called on to consider all elements of the issue and the solution.
In addition to being a waste of money, ill-conceived decisions drain resources from more constructive pursuits and damage the morale of people chartered with implementing them. Companies need to address this issue at the source. The decision-making process must change.
Resolving this problem is difficult because it challenges a culture where senior executives are supposedly smart enough to make decisions on their own. In reality, leaders rise to the top because they have a vision and are willing to take risks needed to deliver that vision. The decisions needed to implement a vision should be opened up to key stakeholders. Establishing a collaborative decision-making process allows relevant and affected parties to collectively consider all elements of key decisions and implementation plans stemming from those decisions.
The first step requires identifying all stakeholders impacted by a given decision. In the above example, this would be a cross-section of business analysts, IT personnel, and third parties involved in the planning, implementation, and use of related business processes and systems.
The next step involves creating a decision-making body or wisdom council comprised of representatives from each stakeholder category. The wisdom council reflects the collective thinking of all relevant and affected parties and formalizes the decision-making process outside of the usual round of golf or client dinner. The wisdom council is derived from Native American cultures, but it is very applicable to the decision-making and collective thinking required in complex IT environments.
A wisdom council is assembled whenever a major challenge arises and an initiative is required to address that challenge. Various stakeholders are assigned roles within the council to examine elements of mobilizing a proposed project. Project elements include creating, evaluating, sustaining, leading, supporting, integrating, implementing, and organizing a given initiative.
Teams gather information and state what it would take to address each of the above elements within a project. They also raise alternatives to be considered along the way. In the above example, stakeholders would examine project requirements for retooling global business processes and deploying an enterprise-wide package to support a new global business model. If such an approach were untenable, alternative options would be considered.
The fall of communism demonstrated weaknesses in central planning and decision-making models. Multifaceted challenges require multifaceted solutions with input from a variety of sources. The wisdom council creates a framework for delivering multifaceted solutions while eliminating politically-driven projects that are doomed from the start.