A perennial question in most organizations is: How do we align business and IT operations?
The inevitable follow–up to that: Why hasn't the CIO figured this out yet?
Not much thought is given to how many projects line–of–business owners heap onto the IT department's plate, or to the fact that requests flow in without reference to their strategic importance to the company–sometimes even bypassing normal channels. IT leaders wind up having to make ad hoc decisions about where and how to focus resources, and they often have to base those decisions on incomplete information.
The problem is the process–and the solution involves providing greater visibility into every aspect of IT, from creating requests via a single entry point to ranking them in relationship to strategic corporate goals. Innotas enables IT leaders to get a clear picture of the demands on their organization, and share that information with the business leaders who can help them prioritize projects to achieve business–technology alignment. Innotas' Request Management capability supports:
- Data fields to define where a request originates, as well as its cost, savings, and benefits estimates
- The ability to score requests, based on individually defined processes, to assist in evaluating investments
- A comprehensive view of every project and work request submitted to the IT organization
Setting the Stage for Business–Technology Alignment
Without improving and automating the request process, IT takes some big risks in the hope that it's expending its efforts in the areas most critical to the business. With improved and automated request processes, risk turns to advantage: projects can be objectively evaluated, and business partners are given equal responsibility for helping to direct IT investment.
With advanced project request management, IT organizations enable transparency into their workloads, and set themselves up to have the conversations with the business that will lead to informed decisions that match up with corporate goals. At long last, business and IT really will be aligned.
Get aligned.
