There’s a lot going on at the moment from an IT perspective. An awful lot in fact; all these emerging technologies hitting us from left, right and centre; in fact from all directions.
From the latest technologies promoting social collaboration of information, the whole web 2.0 phenomenon, the tidal wave shift of web and web technologies becoming a staple in the the normal IT diet, to the general shift of web based technologies now being a mainstream component in any IT strategy.
What intrigues me the most is that irrespective of what patterns, practices, technologies, new waves/trends/hype curves that exist the fundamental problem remains. IT is meant to support business process yet the perpetual failure of IT delivering business value remains. The GAP!
Talk to 100 IT professionals from any discipline, and all 100 will quote you “…of course! IT is there to support the business. We’re here to make sure the business can meet its objectives…we make sure they have the tools to do their job!”.
Yet what I have witnessed throughout my career in the IT industry (across varying industries) is the continuous failure of IT solutions to meet business need. It’s just a perpetual failure. Why?
We all acknowledge there is an obvious GAP between business strategy and tying in the appropriate IT strategy to enable the ultimate objective, the business objective! Sounds simple, right? Well…yes it is simple. But why do we fail, and not just on the odd occasion but continuously?
Microsoft has released a whole bunch of tools that truly are great tools/platforms to create amazing applications, with all the marketing of promises of delivering value to the business in many ways and at many levels. But at the end of the day these are yet another set of tools, that will no doubt keep the keen geek (myself included 
very happy playing!
(The same is true for open source stuff – really the technology stack is almost irrelevant outside of a capital/operational investment perspective)
The GAP, between business need and IT delivering tools and methods that assist the *business process* still remains wide. What we end up with is business process always having to morph to varying degrees in order to satisfy IT limitations.
How do you bridge the gap? And I’m sick of text book answers which work in fluffy-lala-never -never-land but will with almost 99.999% certainty always compromise business potential. (I was tempted to say five 9’s)
There is a real GAP and it’s got nothing to do with the technology available, instead how the technology is tied into a sound business strategy.
sagaaart, i have a very busy day, and then you go an post this… something so provocative that its making my blood boil … (well, actually, i just disagree, it doesn’t make my blood boil… but i’m trying to build this hard man image, so stop giggling
So, business objectives heh? Do most business’ even know what their business objectives are? How many times is the vision and objective to deliver “customer support” – and how many times do they fail – not because of IT reasons, but because of lack of cohesion amongst their own varied plans and the execution by each department (especially HR – a company is only as good as its people!). I would go so far as saying 99.999% of business cannot delivery to their own vision because they:
* don’t really believe what they say
* don’t know what they want
* don’t know what is possible
Well, i must be the 101st guy… because, yes IT is there to support the business, but its not *only* there to support the business.
Imagine this… a techie sitting in nokia says: hey, boss… look i can make this switch and phone work wirelessly… now imagine the boss response… you waste of a time guy… its not as quick as the wired version, what are you wasting my time and the company’s time for… make a cable that that transfer’s data faster! Well, luckily, the boss was not an idiot… and said “ah ha, a mobile phone”!!!
Do you think “business objectives” delivered space ships, mobile phones, web 2.0, facebook, google, or for that matter even 0.001% of innovation out there!
NO!
My saying to you is that *far too often* IT is there to “only support the business” – it fails some of the time because:
* IT try to incorporate overall project management as part of IT
* Business don’t know what they want
* IT overarchitect
* Business don’t know *what is possible*
– Sure the business objective might be to turn a mouse into an elephant, but that’s a bit hard without knowing anything about mutation or DNA…
So, here is my question to you… are you too busy trying to:
* just meet business needs
(i certainly hope that is part of your objective, and a very important one at that, but hopefully not your only one)
or
are you ensuring that:
* you meet business needs (this includes educating them on what is possible)
* making things only as complex as needed and no more
* delivering *innovation* to your company
far too often i heard – i cannot give you a tech spec until you give me the business requirements in concrete… far too infrequently do i see – gimme an idea (or i’ll give you an idea, you business man you!) then i’ll passionately tell you what how we will delivery what you want and more (including possibly changing the original idea a little bit to suit what is currently possible) – and we will do this ***together*** and “lo and behold” at the end, you will have specified something we can deliver – and we will be able to deliver something you want!!!
sagaaart, now if you post another one of these today – and i have to take the rest of the day off, just remember, i know where you live!
sagaaaaart, how did you manage to slip this one by:
(The same is true for open source stuff – really the technology stack is almost irrelevant outside of a capital/operational investment perspective)
Even in round brackets, as if it were an obvious, a given!!!
The technology stack is only irrelevant if one does not have a holistic picture…
As pr0b0b0 says:
There is *nothing* more dangerous than a person with just one idea!
(and i tend to agree
The business will only _not care_ about the technology stack (and other factors) when its motivation is say – only to make money – whichever way possible… now, a lot of business’ pretend to _care_ about the whole? How many of them use marketing ploys to pretended to care (aka, only do “fair trade” if they think it will increase sales … wasn’t nestle doing some “fair trade” stuff… – convinently hiding the fact they were targeting african children towards addiction of their products!).
So anyway, absolutely the technology stack is important… the CEO might not be a technologist, but he should hire someone that does care (which shows that he cares)…
Open source technology is not just a technology, its a philosophy, its a mindset, is an aspiration! When you choose that path, you don’t just _say_ you believe in collaboration, in collective intelligence, you practically show it!.
Saying, “i believe the world would be a better place if people did not drive cars” is one thing “taking the next step to cycle to work” is a whole new level altogether… the first statement isn’t bad… its a great start, but at some point, the next step must come!
So, if you believe in the sharing, openness, collective intelligence and freedom, start converting (program by program) to open source today!
(and get those micro$ofties to stop “stealing” code from the community and then pretending open source is bad!!! – support GPL3 today!).
Mage – Thanks for your enthusiasm and passion – it’s very obvious from your responses;I havent been avoiding responding, just finding it difficult to set aside some time to respond.(i’m lol at the fact you missed the open source comment
btw, I love your responses! i mean it sincerely.Here goes…I think you agree that there is a gap. and i agree with you the way to bridge it requires effort from both ends, the business and IT, with th ultimate aim for IT to supporting the business meet its goals.As far as bridging the gap through innovation from IT is a great and fundamental approach. Many discoveries of applications and tools (some you’ve mentioned) have been borne out of sheer innovation, no arguing that one. Albeit, in the mainstream business context, where typically the business is focused on a product/service, the ability to innovate still exists, yet is often dramatically reduced to an idea that is nice, yet never seems to get raise to a level of importance above the typical everyday operational issues. So in reality, (and i’m not arguing right or wrong here) innovation becomes at best an ideal thought -unfortunately!you said:”…are you ensuring that:* you meet business needs (this includes educating them on what is possible)* making things only as complex as needed and no more* delivering *innovation* to your company…”excellent, i concur 1,000%. The right partnership between IT and the business results in an approach that ensures the delivery of the three objectives you mention above; The technology stack – my point with this is the focus should be on how best to deliver the value the business desires (assuming a journey has been taken to understand the biz needs, even collaboratively with IT); once understood, appropriate technology could be used to delivery on the needs, sometimes raising the need to re-evaluate original needs as different stacks may deliver otherwise not-though of potentials.again i’m not opening a debate on open source vs commercial s/w; just keeping the focus on the gap between bis, and it delivering the valuewith anticipation waiting 4 ur response mage 
hello sagart,
i’ll keep it on context (about the GAP
although i think open source vs proprietary is a very relevant debate – but possibly another deserves a post of its own 
(just briefly though, saying the technology stack is not important (as long as it does the job) is like saying – its okay to have slaves, because its about getting the job done!
I do agree that to quite an extent there is a GAP. I agree it requires effort from both ends to bridge it… but i do have a strong opinion on how to bridge it
and more importantly, how its created and what it is! I think the GAP is mainly generated out of a misunderstanding of each others (IT and Biz) intentions…
innovation becomes at best an ideal thought -
unfortunately!
well… dunno if i agree with that… in the short term, sure… it *appears* it becomes just a though… but you sow the seed, and only time can make it grow… persistence and hard yards are needed to make it work… and i agree that not everyone has the tenacity … i know i don’t! I’m your classic programmer… once i’ve proved to myself that something is possible (by doing the proof of concept) – its very difficult for me to turn it into a real life operating product… my most recent classic example is a script i wrote in SL to talk to the outside world… i wanted to see how that was done… wrote a little LSL, and the corresponding CGI… and it worked beautifully
… i proved the concept for myself and moved on 
i might find another challenge within the same context… generating graphics in SL… but it would be a different challenge… not more of the same! There are people though who are good at the detail… so what’s important is, you need all types… the R&D people, the operational programmers… whoa! whoa! stop press! R&D people… ah ha… how many people have actual R&D departments, or budgets or people… sure it should be everyone’s responsibility, but then, so should cost saving and budgeting… does that mean we sack the CFO? So, i think a major factor in innovation being left to nothing but an idea in most business’ is that business’ don’t take R&D and innovation seriously! so, its left to us (as meger IT folk) to ensure we keep educating business’ on what is possible until they see the benefit… its a hard slog (luckily not so hard at my workplace) but a necessary one 
How will that bridge the GAP… well, the GAP is due to a lack of:
* knowing what is possible
* working together
One of R&D’s main purpose can also be education of business in IT… and working together… (alas, there is a simple answer to that, but the solution does not fit into the margin – fermat!)
here’s a link for your enjoyment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology
as I keep telling people “I am not a techie girl”..so I feel ill-equipped to respond to this post (hence the late response sorry Sagarrrrrrt)
Just want to ask, has anybody thought about the end user? Yes, the people factor.
If only the business unit and the tech unit would stop getting so hung up on themselves and think about the purpose of the outcome (speaking generally)…
Maybe it is because I tend to represent the end user, whether they are a learner, a web site user, a person wanting to network or connect….and it seems I always have to put up a bit of a fight for THEIR needs and wants (goodness…you mean the end user has something to say? a reason for using this software? other than for a technical “endless summer” experience or to put money into somebody’s pockets…
{Sigh}
Maybe this GAP(Goodness Another Problem)could be bridged by focussing on making it work for PEOPLE however it happens….
(not the other way around) so people who love technology and those who have business glee can stop navel-gazing?
No navel-gazers here tho (I hope)!!!
hello wonderwebby,
the end who? oh.. user…
i guess business envisage themselves the end user as they usually define the product…
business are meant to, and most of the time, do do research into what the user wants and then build their requirements based on that…
(now don’t tell me, that doesn’t happen
btw, asking the end user only holds true if the end user knows what they want… do they?
Mage – if you know how to ask the end user the right questions in the right environment…..
but not all business professionals know how to do that
true true… very true… asking the right questions in the right environment would indeed produce amazing insights…
Hi All,
Its a bit late to respond to this but i only found out about this post today, thanks to Mage
I guess all of us agree on the fact that there is a gap in between the business and IT.
I agree with you sagart that for a long time IT has been viewed as something which *supports* the business rather than being seen as something which adds value (monetary or otherwise).
In spite of the massive and exponential growth and innovation that has happened in IT in the last decade it is only viewed as a support service in a majority of places. Except for the few major players of IT (think Google, Apple and though some may disagree even Microsoft
)
But there has to be a way to make people realise how much are they underutilising IT.
And i agree with Mage when he says that far too often businesses don’t know what they want, but more importantly they don’t know what is possible.
Also, Wonderwebby points out something very important when she mentions asking the end user the right questions in the right environment, how often do IT actually go and ask the end user something? other than when the process has been initiated by the end user itself and that too generally is not to innovate but to solve a specific need.
Here again IT ends up being a *need* to solve or fix rather than something which can add value.
Businesses need to understand that IT being what it is, needs a very fertile ground for innovation, most people in IT, and i do say most not all
, have the ability to be innovative its just that as time goes by and without proper/enough “fodder” for the brain to work on they are relegated to the background and hardly ever tap into their pool of knowledge.
I believe what would make a difference is the following,
* Hire the right people – this is very very very important, to innovate you have to have desire, you need the drive even if it is very subdued. It is easier to wake up a dormant passion than it is to actually create one where there isn’t any. Hire the right people so that when the time comes they show their true worth.
* Foster them – The right people will very quickly stagnate without enough stimulation. This is a trait particular to them. There are enough out there who will settle down in a rut and be content at just doing what is asked and no more and no less. The “right ones” are no exception. Don’t let your team stagnate, keep them stimulated, motivated, interested or whatever it takes to keep them happy. “Nurture” or “Cultivate” is probably the word i am looking for.
* Business Insight – If you want innovative ideas from people, they need to know where you are coming from, they need a better holistic idea of the business to be able to understand how all the pieces fall together – a fundamental point and quite obvious, but far too often businesses forget this and IT is relegated to the sidelines only to be dredged up when there is a problem to be fixed or something to be implemented.
Until Businesses proactively take a step forward and look for ways that they can actively involve IT in the business process, The GAP will be there, IT will be seen as a support service, critical to the functioning of the business but a non value-adding function
hello sentient being,
your comment is most insightful… i think you have a lot of valid points there… i think the comment about “hire the right people” is a critical one and one that cannot be underestimated…
i also believe nurturing and cultivating is important, but on the same token… the *right* person will be passionate enough to create an environment around them where they will be massively self motivated (MSM … not MMORPG
You also said… “until business proactively take a step…” … but my question to you is… forget “business” for a second… what are IT doing to proactively take a step towards business? educating them, creating for them, etc etc…
There might be places where even the *right hire*’s hands are tied… aka, no time allocated towards R&D, no budget to get and try things… and the *right hire* (who will have obviously made the wrong job choice) will be sidelined to doing their passionate stuff as a hobby out of office… (rather than an excellent blend of being able to do passionate stuff all the time) – so my question to you… are you hands tied? does your workplace offer you freedoms with time and budget (to a limited extent of course, or perhaps they would even fulfil your request for a space ship
and if so… what have you done with those flexibilities… when was the last time you ran around the office with excitement showing people new stuff or telling them about stuff you are excited about?
off with their heads i say… off with their heads… (oh woops.. sorry, got carried away in my wanderings… was thinking of business people again
but back to the topic… [well, sort of] … about passion… passion can be cultivated… i used to hate computers until year 10… then i consciously decided i was going to like them… and i made immense effort to make sure i worked with them… got to know them better … and i absolutely love technology today… i genuinely do… (as you can probably judge from my passion on the topics
and yet, passion is often overrated… hard work and diligence are often undrerated…
Creating a motivating environment around us is something that all of us do at some point or the other. None of us, or let me say very few of us are in a role which is stimulating and entertaining 100% of the time so all of us have to *push* ourselves at some time and nothing wrong in that.
There needs to be a better $something, i can’t think of a word to put in here
so its a variable, between the business and the staff and the user.
Now I wish I was in a position to identify what that $something is then I would be able to explain a lot clearer or in a better way.
Since you are going to be reading the “Cheese” i’ll say this, and it will make sense after you read the book, I wish i was a “Sniff” I really do but i don’t think i am. I am more of a “Hem + Haw” leaning towards “Haw”. What businesses need are more Sniff’s and Scurry’s.
And yes passion can definitely be cultivated, its just that it takes that much more effort and needs somebody who is dedicated enough to spend the time helping somebody cultivate it. Which is why a dormant passion is easier to wake
.
And as far as the question “what am i doing?” goes, I’m guilty as charged
.
But then so is life isn’t it? you want to find out at times that you aren’t doing anything worthwhile and then rekindle the drive to go and “Jump In!” again. That is the beauty of it, the ability to rediscover your passion, that is what lets you find out how good your original belief was in the first place.
And i have to disagree with you on passion and hardwork. passion can never be overrated
as long as it is within boundaries of sensibilities, the more the better but yes hardwork is definitely underrated.
Hi Sentient, and magethx for keeping the flame alivemage:”and yet, passion is often overrated… hard work and diligence are often undrerated…”passion 1/10th, it’s the perseverance through the hard work and the diligence required that gets the prize, and those truly passionate, will reach the zenith point. the remaing 9/10thshow many times i’ve seen the mask of passion, and digging an inch deep you uncover self illusions of grandeur. (FRICKIN FAKERS!!!!!! LIARS!!!!)Let’s suppose I have a staff member who I just started performance managing today – not a very nice process (i hate doing it). Let’s pretend this is a made up story
let’s assume i spent 2.5 hours today with my pretend friend the hr manager and this pretend staff member of mine, telling him how he wasn’t living to my pretend expectations. his pretend reply (amongst many other pretend replies) was to say he takes pride in his work, and the care and quality he puts in it. AAARGGGHH! RRAAALLLPPHHHHH!! (…add expletives recursively here…)Pride my sag-arse!classic case of someone who is “passionate” (a gold cup looks pristine from the outside) yet doesn’t have the required drive determination, hard work ethos, and commitment to quality and perseverance, to really be passionate (the old crusty rusted interior of the gold cup)unfortunately passion can and many times is skin deep, hiding flimsily the rot that’s set deep on the inner.No matter how many dollars you throw at these people, there’s no difference.if there was real passion, of genuine kind, you’d embrace the hard work to get the “holistic” view, to see it from all view points, technical, business, end-user needs; IT professionals need to be chameleons, donning the disguise of the different people-sets we need to interact with. this is a major contributor to the GAP problem. young guns who suffer illusions of grandeur, and don;t want to walk the difficult path to learn, to learn, to learn, to experience, to learn, to make mistakes, to learn, to listen, to experiment, to try, to see, to hear, to learn, to try, to learn, to fall, to get back up, to learn…”I want to be the CIO because I fricking deserve it, I AM GOD!!!!”You still have a tit in ur mouth. Learn to walk, learn respect, and learn to learn, then you’ll reach ur zenith, and nail it!
hi sagart,
your post made me smile first thing in the morning
.
and yes i must say that so many times do you see passion that is skin deep, but there lies a deeper problem.
I must say that i really liked your *pretend* story
.
and yes i did say that the drive is crucial! even though it may be subdued and not a flaming fire visible a mile away, but without it there is _no_ next step.
And coincidentally you are asking the same questions as a whole that mage was asking yesterday while i was talking with him, which is “What am i doing to be a part of the bigger picture?” whereas the view i was taking in my comment was “Why am i not doing anything to be a part of the bigger picture?”
Looking from different sides of the fence, i was thinking more reflectively while both of you are thinking more proactively as much as i hate to say it
.
The young guns these days are raised on a diet of the silicon valley boom, quick money and the Interweb as a medium of making quick money, unfortunately a lot of them see _that_ as passion, i don’t believe that to be the right view, there has to be a vision, a dream, a need to do something right and at the core again comes passion. true passion shapes all the other qualities.
Everybody sees himself/herself as an ingenious entrepreneur, a gold mine waiting to be discovered, a rough uncut diamond but not a lot are willing to actually get down and dirty to do what it takes, Illusions of grandeur – yes definitely – people become brilliant architects while designing and dreaming up their castles in the air, but very proudly wait for someone to come and do the groundwork for them, why? because they already see themselves living in those castles and cannot imagine how to build them or see themselves actually working for building them.
We need to realise that just visualising our dreams isn’t all that is needed that is just a part of it all.
there i go ranting
, and i wonder why i can’t ever seem to write a blog entry on one topic.
“learn to learn” ….. i like that, it reminds me of something i heard a while back –
“I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma.”
saggy… firstly, did i tell you what brilliant blogs you write… you create a great environment for sharing and learning via the sharing of your thoughts… what an inspiration.
i sent this link to the finance team as mandetory reading yesterday… will be interesting to see what discussion that generates over the partition…
as for passion… i think a definition might be in order… as i feel we might be talking about the same thing in different ways… i don’t know an ultimate definition.. but if a definition is, your passion is defined by you wanting to spend time and energy on the thing you are passionate about, makes you wake up and get right into it and not go to sleep till 4am … then, that’s hard work and dedication as well in it.. isn’t it… so what i might be calling hard work, others might be saying passion… but i was distinguishing it as passion being the driving force… but hard work being the needful… passion being the vision, and hard work being the implementation
and, oh great sentient being, you seem to have a level head on your shoulders (assuming you are human.. you can never tell who is on the other side of the keyboard, it might be a rabbit? – but then again, rabbits have shoulders and a head too!)… as you might know.. i’m a huge fan of jumping in… but i believe it does need to be in line with a vision… the vision is critical …. fine to jump in without a vision if you are a aimless wanderer with no destination… but if you want to achieve something the vision is critical… if you want to get to point E from point A, then you have a direction, you start walking… and when you see a car going in the same direction, you jump in… it takes you as far as it can take you (you might have even helped with the driving some of the way), then you start walking again, then you see an airport, and you jump in the plane, then it drops you off, then you see a ship, and you jump in… always moving closer and closer to E! If you don’t know where you are doing, you might jump into a car going in the other direction!!!!!!
Now one of my points is this… what if you don’t know what E is… as a 4 year old what they want to be when they grow up… expect a different answer every day! Are we any different… educate the world, remove world poverty, design a spaceship, ahh… so many things i can do… i don’t know where to start… well, let me tell you where to start… start anywhere … take *anything* that satisfies your principles and Jump In!!! you might change direction soon… but you started with something that your heart is not against at least… so now you have momentem… and its in the rightish direction… easier to keep the moment and change than start with nothing…
want to solve world poverty issues… then maybe talk to people at work about it… find a job where its important to others in the company (even as a side issue) .. help drive it… then, if you feel strongly enough and build that passion… go and serve in bigger ways… but jump in.. .jump in… jump in… (but always with vision or at least a set of principles) …
and what of those that don’t have any principles said the master… and mr.chung replied… they shall perish, they shall be covered in mud and it shall gliter only to those that cannot see… they will be awake during the day, but they shall not sleep at night… for they need your support through prayer… as nothing short of a miracle can save them!
lots of interesting comments here…innovation, passion, incentive, reward, education, motivation, world change.
I think you could create a seminar on this!
hi
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good luck