This week is the regional enterprise IT service meeting in Singapore. All the key service managers in APJ gathered, together with CIOs in each key affiliate such as Japan, China and Singapore.
During the meeting, the CIOs shared key experiences on how to engage business users and transformation IT from “service provider” to “strategic partner”. It is really enlightening to learn from them.
BTW, all these CIOS are all younger than 40… That’s my desire.
Below are a few key take-aways.
How to engage users from infra perspective
- take input on concerns/opportunities etc.
- develop strategy and solution together
- quick feedback and prototype <– very important
- align solution
Align and engage business leaders
- link the foundation (IT) with business goal and objectives naturally
If business user does not buy in your IT proposal, it is business user’s issue, it is IT issue. There is always dollars to spend, the key to secure the dollar is to make the business users understand how important what you are doing is related to his core business.
IT is the business leader with IT accountability.
Measure your work
- Identify all the gaps with relations to the business objectives
- Align with business users on priorities (top 3-5 for a year)
- Define measurable deliverable as metrics
- Record the results in the PM
In a new role, always start with a snapshot of KPI, so that we can show the value of our hard work.