Quelle: CIO, USA

David Drew used to have his own supergroup for IT decision making at3M: the Information Systems Steering Committee. He had all sixbusiness division chiefs in there, along with the top functionalleaders, meeting together six times a year to do nothing but jam on ITstrategy, endorse IT projects of more than $1 million and prioritizeIT resources.

It was great while it lasted. In a company of strong businessunitseach focused on their own wants and needsthe committee was Drew'sbase for creating consensus for a unified IT strategy. But when W.James McNerney, the company's new CEO, took over in January 2001, hebroke up Drew's group. And the business unit executives didn'tprotest. They already had to prioritize IT resources for their ownunit; they didn't want to do it at the corporate level too.

"Our company is big and complex, and the group members didn't feelthey understood the issues in all the different units well enough,"explains Drew, who is vice president of IT for St. Paul, Minn.-based3M.

But Drew can't conceal his disappointment. "The corporate ITprioritization process was moved back to IT, and I would really ratherhave it at the highest business level," he laments.