Nowhere is clarity more needed than in the way IT relates to the business/finance areas and vice-versa. In many ways, CFOs are from Mars and CIOs are from Venus, as a PriceWaterhouseCoopers study suggests. According to the study:
- CFOs believe IT lacks understanding about business strategy
- IT managers say CFOs don’t communicate goals effectively
The other day I attended a session at the Harvard Club in New York titled CFO/CIO Straight Talk. My Creating WE Institute colleague Judith E. Glaser, CEO of Benchmark Communications, gave the keynote on dialogue and collaboration, which was followed by a panel discussion with CIOs and CFOs.
Judith shared the results of an extensive study she conducted among CIOs and CFOs. Overall, CIOs were much more optimistic about areas such as effective collaboration, information validity, successful execution, and managing relationships. The CFOs were more prudent in their evaluation, which isn’t too surprising. But it does illustrate the differences in perception across the two groups. And perception is everything.
Areas where they aligned the most, according to Glaser’s study, were in mutual respect, shared understanding of the current business environment, and the knowledge that technical strategies have the potential to provide value. Areas where they disagreed most were around success metrics, effective communication, adequate resources, and a shared understanding of how to implement strategies.
As Glaser showed, once CIOs and CFOs were trained to communicate more effectively and more candidly, the charts showed that they were working more harmoniously toward the same goals, plus they both had a greater sense of urgency and passion.
The panel discussion that followed seemed to support this information. They shared ideas and practices that worked for them, including:
- Demystifying IT – through one-on-ones, lunch and learns, and regular touch-base meetings
- Speaking in business language, not acronyms or system-talk
- Focusing on benefits as opposed to solutions, making this clear in all goals and initiatives
- Creating a business relationship/analyst role, and having them sit in the business as opposed to IT
- Boosting project management skills to deliver on promises better from a time, cost, and scope perspective
- Always pairing a project manager with a subject matter expert to bridge the communication gaps
- Simplifying processes (one CFO spoke of a complex registration process that was reduced to a simple YouTube video)
Clearly—and as Judith noted in her presentation—this emphasizes the need to develop a shared way to make decisions (ie. better governance and portfolio management); a common view of what success looks like; agreement on a select few key metrics; and perhaps most importantly, greater focus by all parties on shared goals.
In essence, CFOs and CIOs need to conquer complexity through simpler processes, clearer communication, and greater focus. Over the last month, I’ve been working with a Marengo colleague to develop a practice area around Business-IT Alignment that helps them do just that. Stay tuned for more.
