The most current BITA engagement we’re working on is with a client in Edmonton. I’ve just returned from two weeks working directly with the clients to develop a Relationship Management Framework (RMF) to use to improve the communications and decision making between IT and the many different business units to which IT provides services. This is, in many ways, a pure BITA engagement, since the purpose and the method both relate to business/IT alignment. The client has enbraced this concept and our approach whole-heartedly, and are fully committed to the development of this RMF and its deployment as a new Relationship Management model. It’s great to see such focused commitment to this in such a large organization! Stay tuned for updates as this progresses, and we can show you some of the materials we’ve prepared for this project!
January 26, 2009
A BITA Project
Posted by SKA under BITA | Tags: Business/IT Alignment, Relationship Management |[3] Comments
Business/IT Alignment 
June 24, 2009 at 10:16 am
Can you give more on the Relationship Management Framework? This is an interesting approach.
Generally, we focus on user uptake and to some extent business cases – we have not focused explicitly on relationships. How does that work.
June 24, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Hello Randal and thank you for your comment. In this situation, the client had made some strategic decisions to improve the relationship and communications between business and IT units, putting in place a corporate initiative called the ‘Business Engagement Strategy’. There were multiple projects under this, including developing a set of engagement indicators and redesigning the content that IT provided for the BOD report, to make it relevant to business goals & objectives. One of the other projects was to develop and implement a framework and model as to define the business/IT relationship so it could be operationalized. The client even formed a new department that had the mandate to develop, act and manage relationships and communications between IT and business units/stakeholders.
We developed a conceptual framework that fit into the culture and existing practices of the client. This framework provided basic principles for business relationships, and addressed elements such as: structure, governance, policy, roles, responsibilities, resources, practices, communications processes, etc. This framework provided the foundation for the new operational units and position descriptions for the new roles.
It was an interesting project, and something that I really enjoyed doing since it involved knowledge, skills and experiences from across my academic and professional background. Those opportunities don’t come around all the time!
June 24, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Randal – I should have included this in my reply: if you’re interested in discussing this further, you may also be interested in my LinkedIn site, and joining the ‘Business/IT Alignment’ Group. Here’s the link:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanneadnams