PREFACE

Why do organisations exist? This philosophical point is discussed in Chapter 1, though fundamentally the answer is that they fill a niche (or perhaps a better description is a need) in society.

Why do organisations change? This can probably be summed up in one of two ways: because people change their minds, and because everyone likes to be seen to be flexible (or agile, if current buzzword terminology is used).

One of the key attributes of the ‘IT of the future’ should be flexibility. In simple terms, this means that it should be possible for your portfolio of IT applications software to be changed quickly, and at minimum cost, whenever your business needs for IT support change. You can certainly count on the business needing faster access to greater quantities of information than ever before, from a growing spread of geographical locations; though it is impossible to predict what the information will be.

You will, unfortunately, also be faced with changes in technology, at least some of which will be intended to provide the very flexibility we are discussing. Flexibility is the main benefit of technology – not the much claimed cost-savings which many authorities dispute. Flexibility, including access to information wherever it may be stored, from any location, is the major benefit of the Internet and the World Wide Web. What is unfortunate, is that in many cases you will have to change your applications to allow them to run on the improved technology.

So there it is then, IT is the driver for business change and everything you do will be dependent on IT. Well, not so fast. IT outsourcing is more popular than ever, and the business world sees IT as the tail on the dog – not vice versa.

A reviewer of this book made the excellent suggestion that a statement should be made that IT change inevitably should follow business change. The ubiquity of IT tends to the belief that IT is the driver, the enabler and the goal of all change, whereas, in reality, it is no more than a tool for business. Despite all of our technological advances, people remain essential and people drive business.

IT may cause change to the business (and, therefore, to how the business organisation must change to accommodate new concepts, lines of business and consumption of IT), but that does not mean IT shapes the business organisation, or its hierarchies, or that it is anything more than a factor in understanding the job performed by a person.

By itself, IT is irrelevant in terms of hardware. Services provided by IT to support government, banking, insurance and so on, are based on applications developed to automate or support business processes. And most often, business change is driven by the need to change services, create new services, or simply to fix problems with existing services – in other words, applications development.

Deciding your requirements for new applications on the basis of a defined business need is by no means straightforward. It isn’t like building a garage or a patio, where the end product is tangible, the planning, architectural and building work are well understood and straightforward, and the scope for changing your mind before, or after completion, is limited.

IT is complex, intangible, quite hard to understand, very easy to change, and hard to keep under control. The ‘easy to change’ statement perhaps needs a little more amplification. IT spends vast sums of money because it is complex and because it needs to control many thousands of changes every month. And yet, that very complexity is one of the reasons cited by IT for needing experts to manage change – because it is so difficult and so complex, it needs expensive monitoring software to keep things under control, and many highly-paid experts to ensure change goes well.

These experts tell you how hard it is to change IT – what they really mean is how hard it is to change IT successfully – without detriment, or the need for further change, or indeed, the need to back out of ill-conceived changes.

The truth is that IT is far too easy to change, and the IT organisation is often predicated on managing change, instead of managing the delivery of more reliable services.

It is not easy for business and IT people to talk about the IT requirements of the business because it is claimed that IT requires precise language. The plain words spoken by business are clearly imprecise then …

Of course, the root problem is that IT wants business to communicate in quasi-technical language and the business is paying IT to support business. What should bring both sides together is a properly planned programme of change, where requirements are fully understood, specifications agreed by both sides, organisational impact assessed and risks are identified and managed.

In short, this is the time for detailed project planning and project execution within the framework of the change programme. Some IT preparation may be possible in advance of the change, but much of it will have to be done during the change. You may need projects to manage some, or all, of the following IT-related changes.

Infrastructure acquisition

• Acquire application package software
• Develop bespoke software
• Acquire underpinning IT infrastructure (system software, telecommunications facilities).

Infrastructure integration

• Smoothly integrate new IT infrastructure with existing
• Infrastructure management
• Improve the management, or control, of the IT infrastructure.

Continuity of support

• Ensure existing IT facilities operate smoothly until replaced, or no longer required
• Ensure arrangements exist for fall-back and disaster recovery.

Business readiness

• Prepare business and IT users to cope with changes
• Accommodation changes
• Prepare the physical accommodation and environment for the changes.

Undertaking changes of this scale, so that everything happens in the right sequence and at the right time, is a matter of careful planning, good organisation and readiness to deal with the unforeseen.

And key to all of the issues associated with smoothly managing change, is understanding and managing how the organisation must change (not only in the business as new practices are rolled out, but also in IT, where new skills may be needed and where technology change has a major impact on the role of support staff).

And then there are the people issues …