Ask people what makes May a noteworthy month, and many folks in the northern hemisphere will wax rhapsodic about its being the peak of springtime. Others might mention Mothers' day.  Ask Forrester's IT analysts and they're pretty sure to immediately blurt out "IT Forum!" IT Forum -- the conference formerly known as GigaWorld -- is our biggest IT conference as it brings together all our IT analysts and about a zillion of our customers in all the IT-based roles for whom we do research. Each major IT role gets a separate track of research -- that's 10 tracks this year. It's essentially a week of non-stop analyst-attendee interaction in various forms. It's intense for both analysts and attendees and easily the most stimulating week on my calendar. At least, on my business calendar (wouldn't want you to think I don't have a life!).

I'll admit to spending only 3 hours on the show floor.  Most was spent in the cavernous and gloomy AIIM sessions area where I gave an "Analyst Take" session on SharePoint 2010, a talk on Dynamic Case Management, and reviewed suppliers for Document output for Customer Communications. My impression  of the floor activity was an improvement over the last two years. Perhaps contraction of sponsorships had hit the right balance with demand, or perhaps the great spring weather and improving economy were at work, but the mood was upbeat and the crowds were steady. Vendors were grumbling less.  Cloud talk and SaaS were under-represented. E-discovery and records management were in line. And the usual interesting collection of arcane conversion, migration, capture, and other providers - usually in the lower rent districts - continued the tradition. SharePoint was again pervasive. Those that say "that ship has come in" may not be aware of other ports and forms of transportation. One wonders what the future of the show is if the SharePoint sessions are the biggest draw and Microsoft and key partners have the biggest booths.  Philly is a city that has lost its major corporate headquarters and no longer has growth industries - but it does not deserve its reputation.  The AIIM show - with roots in microfilm and paper - is similar - and likewise - is still pretty good.   

This week, I talked with an IT group that had an organizational unit called “IT Business Management” with the charter to help IT run like a business. Well, it’s about time! I know a lot of IT strategists and consultants push the idea that IT should be an integral part of the business and shouldn’t be thought of as an independent organization. And that may be what it should be, but it’s not what it is today. Today’s IT is by and large a separate organization even when it is distributed across multiple business units.

In many companies IT is a large, complex business unit in its own right with a significant chunk of the business’s operating budget. When CIOs control hundreds of millions of their company’s dollars, shouldn’t they be thinking about what business value they are delivering on that capital? And isn’t a great way to do that by looking at and managing IT like a business?  

When I first started talking about building a capability model for IT, I received a lot of blank stares and comments like: “Why would anyone want to do that?” My question is: ”Why wouldn’t everyone want to do that?” IT execs spend a significant portion of their time managing business demand to fit current IT resources but very little time improving IT’s ability to respond to increasing business demand. An IT capability model provides an excellent starting place to view IT like a business and identify what is most important to IT’s success and where to invest the few dollars we have to make it better. Many architects I talk with are having real success with business executives using capability maps to focus the conversation and their attention on what parts of the business are most important. With an IT capability map, we can do the same thing for IT.

 Business first!Whether your goal is business transformation, IT effectiveness, or just a better technical architecture, you need to start with a business-only view of your business architecture. If not, you will struggle with getting business sponsorship, and just as importantly, you will struggle with your own understanding of the business.  

Until EAs convince business people that they do in fact understand the business, business leaders aren’t going to get excited about business architecture. This is basic sales 101- first understand the customer. To be sure, business cares about technology. In fact, they care about it quite a bit. Business leaders clearly understand how important technology is to their business success. What they are not so sure about is if IT understands the business. If the business was confident IT understood them well then we wouldn’t be seeing all the issues resulting from business people engaging with technology vendors and making technology decisions without IT’s input. Instead, they would be saying: “IT knows what I need, go talk with them.”

Architects that don’t collaborate with their business compatriots when building business architecture are finding it difficult to connect with the business. I have been talking with a number of architects lately that are getting push back from the business. What is the business saying? “That’s an IT thing.” Why are they saying that? Most likely because it is an IT thing - an IT centric business architecture.