So funktioniert Alignment

IT, quite simply, is part of the business, and if we don’t think about our role like that, alignment won’t happen.

Our Business Sensibility Program is designed to enable this way of thinking. The core of it is a mentor program that every IT employee is strongly encouraged to participate in; metrics for it are integrated into their performance appraisals. I asked our IT Governance Committee, made up of all the C-level executives, to encourage their people to be mentors because an IT group that understands the business can only make the business better. That got their initial support, but more than a year in, they’ve said that they are learning as much from us as we are from them. And we’re learning a lot, gaining intelligence through this less formal interaction to inform project and system initiatives that we would never have had otherwise. We’ve had some terrific experiences, and now we are gathering specific ideas from the mentors – such as suggested books, papers and other readings - to improve the quality of the relationships across the board.