Business units and tech teams are always challenged to stay aligned on projects, priorities, and plans. Strong tech & businesses partnership means tech initiatives are aligned with business goals, deliver a real competitive advantage, and increase confidence to invest more in technology.
Many IT leaders have their attention fixed on the C-suite and the board while working with one or two layers of tech-team reports. But when you make decisions and set strategy, there will be lots of unseen sludge that slides downhill to frontline staff across the organization.
Employees are often inclined to give rosy, over-optimistic perspectives to their leaders at each level, so at the top, leadership too often has an inaccurate view of how work really happens on the ground.
When tech leaders make time to join business teams in action, and observe and participate in their work, they get invaluable insight into everyday challenges that technology can solve. Spending a “Day in the Life” in every work function, with a combination of video, meetings, and hands-on , increases the understanding of how different areas of the company function. In addition to a smarter tech team, the experience creates camaraderie and builds cross-functional relationships that are key to successful projects with big payoffs.
Observing people doing their jobs shines a huge spotlight on new ways to make work more efficient. Seeing manual tasks and errors firsthand will open up ideas for tons of projects where tech can implement tools to improve the business. Many of these will be projects that can be fast and easy to implement – delivering quick ROI. A lot of opportunities for AI and machine learning initiatives are found in these explorations.
Contact us if you need help getting into the weeds to identify and prioritize technology initiatives. We have a templated approach that we customize to every organization to guide hands-on collaboration and partnership that aligns tech and the business