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December 05, 2004
Is the IT Department the New Business Consultant? Part 2
I'm reminded of Rem Koolhaas, who, besides having one of the coolest names ever, is the founder of the architecture firm OMA, as well as the business consultancy AMO. The difference? One designs the buildings, the other designs the business that are housed in the building. Koolhaas found that his in-depth studies of how organizations functioned often were more useful to the business than the new building itself, so he spun off the study group into its own entity.
IT does the same type of studies. Because we use computers, we are forced to map how a business works in an unforgivingly logical fashion--we are ushering in the System of the World that Stephenson imagines. The hard part of designing programs, as Steve McConnell and Fred Brooks remind us, is defining requirements and developing a conceptual model that meets those requirements. Once that model is developed down to the pseudocode level, the work flows quite naturally.
As time grows, more and more aspects of business are being so analyzed by IT departments. What they often find is ambiguity, incoherence, and inability to do the job well. Their job, then, is to clarify, cohere, and execute well the programs that replace processes or support tasks. As we do this, we are unintentionally forcing the business into a model that more closely follows the program--just like a good business consultant. In envisioning this scenario with my boss, we concluded that within ten years the IT department would have major say in business process decisions.
Although it seems that the success of the IT department in bending the business to their ways might have to do with how many bearded men it contains.
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Posted by Noel at 03:39 PM
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Comments
Noel, only a few short weeks! Congratulations! If you get a chance, stop by blog.subcurrents.com which is joint effort between myself, Ken Mont., and Ellis Chaplin. Fun times.
Posted by: justin at December 7, 2004 03:18 PM