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Last week, at BPM Think Tank I shared some of the SOA Consortium (and my) views on the complementary relationship of BPM and SOA. I purposely kept the conversation away from technology and standards. Instead, I focused on the changing role of IT (value generation), the problems BPM and SOA solve (instantiating business scenarios which are comprised of processes, activities, services and events), the changing role of enterprise architecture (business architecture as first class citizen), the importance of business and IT collaboration on enterprise strategy and enterprise architecture, and the need for IT professionals, particularly architects, to gain business smarts.

On Monday, I read an article in the online WSJ, What's Next for IT, that echoed many of these themes, and provided some additional insights into the question Phil Gilbert posed "How are organizations injecting business smarts into IT professionals?"

The article is an excerpt of an interview between WSJ editor Francesca Donner and three CIO's -- Meg McCarthy of Aetna Inc., Frank Modruson of Accenture Ltd. and Steve Squeri of American Express Co.

While the entire article is worth the read, I wanted to excerpt some of the excerpt, particulary on the topics I mentioned above. My categorization has caused some selections to be ordered differently than the article.

On the changing role of IT: "Strategic" and "At the Table"

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Analysts have written that IT departments are becoming more strategy- and business-oriented. Do you agree?

MS. MCCARTHY: I totally agree. At Aetna, the IT organization is critical to enabling the implementation of our business strategy. I report to the chairman of our company and I am a member of the executive committee. In that capacity, I participate in all of the key business conversations/decisions that impact the company strategy and the technology strategy.

MR. SQUERI: I believe that over the next 10 years, the CIO will get more involved in the overall business strategy of the company and see their role expand in importance. The CIO will be increasingly called upon not only to translate business strategies into capabilities but to become even more forward-looking to determine what capabilities the business will need in the future.

The days of tech leaders as relationship managers and "order takers" will go by the wayside and they will be called upon to create and drive technology strategies that drive business capabilities.

On bridging the Business-IT divide... "Business-IT Integration" (my term)

MR. SQUERI: I agree that technology organizations are getting closer to the business. It's a must.

This doesn't happen overnight, though. We need to help the business better understand technology. We need to help our technology employees better understand the business strategies.

One way we are doing this is by moving people across the organization, from the business to tech and vice versa. Alignment with our senior leaders helps build the connection at all levels within the organization -- we're all at the table together.

MS. MCCARTHY: Steve's note is very consistent with some of the strategies we are employing [at Aetna] to bring greater alignment with our business partners.

Transitioning people from the business into IT and rotating IT people to the business brings a greater understanding to the broader organization.

MR. SQUERI: For businesses that leverage information or use technology as a competitive advantage, it is important that business leaders know how to leverage the technology groups to enable their strategies. This means that just as technology groups are learning to translate business strategies into technology capabilities, business leaders will have to think about their strategies in terms of long-term capabilities.

The only way that can really take place is by deepening the working relationship and ensuring that IT has a seat at the table.

MS. MCCARTHY: Our current CEO and chairman has a technology background which has been invaluable to our business at Aetna. He encourages all our non-IT leaders to have a good working understanding of technology and to understand the systems that enable their business areas. He also has the business leaders report on all the "systems" projects/programs for their business areas -- a recognition that this work is not just systems work but business and systems work.

I would encourage all non-IT managers to get an orientation to their systems organization. I would also encourage non-IT leaders to spend time with their IT partners, particularly the architecture team during their strategic planning process. Have the architecture team look out three years and identify technologies that could be applied to the business to improve productivity or increase revenue. Working together on these things can generate creativity on both sides.

On SOA, Service Definition and Business Process, "Bi-directional Business-IT Understanding"

MS. MCCARTHY: ...The other important aspect associated with Steve's comment and his business background is the focus that most of us have on building a services-oriented architecture.

The analogy that I'll use here is Legos. In a services architecture, we build discrete services that are individually tested and certified, versus a more traditional programming method. These services can be used and reused very efficiently, i.e., the Lego concept of taking Legos apart and reusing them to build something new. The promise of this approach is significantly reduced costs and speed to market. The ability of the IT organization to do this work efficiently is a function of how well we work with our business partners to define our business processes at the right level...

... The big challenges for most companies will be the continued work on building an adaptable architecture that provides for seamless interoperability with other companies, i.e., ease of communications and transaction processing with business partners and customers.

The CIO in this work will be an important strategic partner who can educate and vision with their business partners. [As CIOs] we need to understand the business, the technologies that are evolving and work closely with our business partners to identify opportunities for the company and our customers to exploit these technologies to achieve market leadership and competitive advantage.

On Next Generation Technology Leaders:

MR. SQUERI: I believe that finding the right talent is a key priority and challenge we're facing.

We all talked about the need to align technology and business strategies. Part of getting there is bringing in and developing people with technical, business and management skills. Our technology leaders need all of these skills to be successful and make our businesses successful.

Posted by brendamichelson in BPM • Business-IT Integration • SOA • business • enterprise architecture • general IT • leadership |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

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