IT, CIOs are frequently advised, needs to be aligned with the business, and alignment, we’re told, is mostly a matter of effective IT governance.
Alignment is better than misalignment, I suppose, but in the end it’s weak tea. Add overreliance on IT governance as the means for achieving it and you turn IT into a stifling, choking bureaucracy, not a more effective organization.
What’s the superior alternative? Focusing your efforts on integrating IT into the business, not just aligning IT with it. That’s integration, as in taking all the steps necessary for IT to be, and to be perceived as being, integral to every aspect of the enterprise.
That’s the subject of this first article in a series I’ll be rolling out over the next few months called “Building effective IT 101.”
