Business and Information Technology Professionals:
An Evolutionary Perspective

A word of warning

What is evident is that unless computer people begin to adopt a more open and professional relationship with their clients, they will inevitably move from Stage 2 to Stage 3 and remain permanently in Stage 3. One possible consequence of this is that internal computing groups will not be able to compete with external groups on an equal footing and may face the unpleasant future of becoming uncompetitive and face outsourcing.

This scenario is inevitable for the computer people who believe that professionalism simply is measured by the inherent quality of their technical work. Professionalism in computing must be measured within a broader context of organisation impact and client relations.

Some survival strategies for internal computing groups

Unless computing groups adopt pro-active strategies for addressing the impact of these Stages (in particular, Stages 3 and 4), it is inevitable that they will be relegated to a permanent Stage 3 existence. Many of these strategies are described in more detail in Thomsett's Third Wave Project Management [1993].

While some of these strategies are expensive, their costs are insignificant to the returns to the organisation from closer partnerships between business people and computer people. Further, they are insignificant when compared to the long-term costs of loss of real control by business people through the out-sourcing of one of their key strategic and competitive tools - information technology:

• develop a career structure based on project management competencies and through extensive selection, education and work experience develop a team of professional project managers;


• provide education and awareness sessions for all business people in the areas of project management, strategic planning, system development and project identification and justification;


• install formal project, quality and service agreements on all development projects that establish clear responsibilities for all project stakeholders, Steering Committees and Project Sponsors;


• establish co-located business/computer professional project teams and, in particular, out-post computing professionals into the client areas;


• ensure that there is a repeatable and open process for project selection;


• develop and install rigorous procedures for return-on-investment and benefits realisation;


• conduct client-relationship, client service, financial management and marketing seminars for all computer people (including software support, system programmers, telecommunication and data base experts);


• ensure that the corporate mission, goals and objectives are understood by all computing people;


• develop and install professional project sizing, quotation and estimation techniques;


• conduct team building sessions involving both business and computer people; and


• review system maintenance and support procedures to ensure that client service extends beyond system development.

There are many organisations that have implemented elements of these strategies. However, unless all these strategies are placed within the context of professional and ethical practice for the entire internal group, the IT organisation will simply disintegrate into sub-cultures at different stages of the model. That is, some clients will have Stage 3 relationships while others, in the same organisation, may have Stage 4.

Building a professional client service culture is the key challenge for IT and project managers.

References:

Larry Constantine & Ed Yourdon [1989]. Structured Design: Fundamentals of a Discipline of Computer Program and Systems Design. Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall.

Louis Davis [1971]." The Coming Crisis for Production Management : Technology and Organisation", International Journal of Production Research, Vol 9 (1).

Peter Drucker [1989]. The New Realities. London, Mandarin Paperbacks.

Fred Emery & Eric Trist [1965]. " The Causual Texture of Organisational Environments" Human Relations. Vol. 18.

Daniel Freedman & Gerald Weinberg [1977]. Handbook of Walkthroughs, Inspections and Technical Reviews, Boston, Little Brown.

Chris Gane and Trish Sarson [1979], Structured Systems Analysis : Tools and Techniques. Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall.

Charles Handy [1989]. The Age of Unreason, Boston, Harvard University Press.

Watts Humphrey [1990]. Managing the Software Process. Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley.

Richard Nolan [1979]. "Managing the Crisis in Data Processing", Harvard Business Review, March-April.

Phillip Metzger [1973]. Managing a Programming Project. Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall.

Tom Peters [1988]. Thriving on Chaos. London, MacMillan.

Rob Thomsett [1993], Third Wave Project Management. Englewood Cliffs., N.J. Prentice Hall.

Ed Yourdon [1990]. Modern Structured Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall

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