Alignment versus entwinement
The next time your senior management talk about business-IT alignment, highlight the fact that alignment implies that the IT function needs to be a well behaved supplier, as opposed to a badly behaved one.
Pushing the alignment agenda will guarantee that your IT function will:
- Remain a victim of business strategy.
- Continue to take a reactive project-oriented approach to business requests.
We need entwinement, which implies that the IT function is a strategic partner to the organisation. With such a model the IT function will:
- Be a co-creator of business strategy.
- Become a proactive demand driven service provider.
So please let’s drop all talk of alignment if the intention is to maximise the ROI of the IT function.
