Communication Techniques

To ensure that the information systems strategy aligns with the organization's goals, senior IT managers need to effectively communicate with senior management and the business functional areas. In this chapter, we have discussed some of the tools available to IT management and their role in enabling communications throughout the organization. The IT steering committee assists in providing clear guidance to the IT department, to ensure that acquisition and integration activities align with the organizational strategy. In addition, the senior managers of the IT steering committee receive regular status updates on projects in progress, the cost of projects, and issues that impact the critical path of those projects. The change-control board serves as another vehicle of communication to the organization. The change-control board reviews and documents changes at all levels of the IT infrastructure and regularly reviews milestones. In addition, the individual project manager maintains project schedules defining milestones and resources that are being utilized.

IT senior management should use this information to provide both status- and decision-based information for both formal and informal reporting to the organization. IT managers use real-time and historical reporting to show continuous improvement and provide ad-hoc information required by functional business areas to facilitate decision making. The better IT management understands the organization, particularly the individual business functions, the better it can provide timely and effective solutions.

The increased reliance on and integration of IT in business requires IT and senior management to make quicker decisions regarding IT infrastructure. The internal competition among the business functions for IT resources presents challenging and sometimes conflicting priorities. A strong line of communication will help the organization reduce conflict and ensure the efficient use of IT resources.