Three Ways to Build Business Knowledge in an IT World
The need to understand how your organization’s business works are the keys to your success. This statement would hold valid truths from the administrative assistant up to the CIO. Everyone in the IT organization MUST understand what it’s role in the business environment in order for that organization to be effectively implementing IT across the enterprise. I recently came across a slide show on CIOInsight that discusses the Top 10 Management Concerns of CIOs. In this report they interviewed CIOs from 112 different companies to find out what most CIOs are concerned about in the coming year. The top three rounded out at Recruitment being first, Aligning Business with IT as second, and Building Business Skills as the third most important concern for CIOs. This means that companies are facing an enormous demand for IT talented professionals that not only understand the nuts and bolts of IT Services but also how IT Services can provide value to the Business.
1. Understand Your Industry
Understanding the industry of your business is crucial to understanding how an IT department can provide services to it’s business users. Subscribe to trade journals, read competitors websites, download how-to articles, and make certain you have read the wikipedia article relating to your industry at least twice. A great source for anything about everything is About.com. About features micro sites about particular topics with real people with subject knowledge in the various category. From understanding Supply Chain Management to the latest widget you can build with PHP is available on About. Trade journals are great also. I subscribe to a number of them to really understand how each industry is using technology in their own worlds. A couple I would recommend would be GovTech, for government related industries, and QSR Magazine for the Quick Service Restaurant Industry. Yahoo has a great directory to help you out if you are uncertain which trade magazines fit your industry.
2. Develop Business Skills Developing those functional business skills taught in college to Business Majors make you much more effective in your delivery of IT Services. Think of how many project decisions are won and lost based on a technical presentation of data? How many promotions are given based on the word smith of a performance review? How much publicity can you drive for your project across lines of business? Developing the skills of negotiation, presentation, and business writing will most certainly help your campaign. If you don’t have those skills try enrolling into an MBA program at a University or taking a course at a local community college. Toastmasters International is also a GREAT way to build your presentation skillset. No one will force you to take these courses, you will have to put in the effort on your own.
3. Take on projects that allow you to interact with Non-IT users When we deal with people that speak the same IT jargon as we do we tend to lose track of reality. Every chance you get to present a technology topic to someone non-IT is another step to developing great business savy skills. A number of times it helps to completely explain your mission to a neutral party. When I took a Geography course back in my freshman year of college, the professor stated that the best way to know that YOU understand a topic is to be able to explain it to someone not in the course. The same holds true in the IT world. If you can explain how a database works with storing a restaurant’s financial data you are one step ahead of the curve. There is no real course to obtain these skills other than experience. Get on projects that allow you to interact with Accounting, HR, Marketing, and other departments. Prepare an elevator pitch about how your role on an IT project impacts your business, industry, and the world.
Understanding how your functions as an IT Professional effect the Business on a minute-by-minute basis will greatly effect your career and bring some job satisfaction. So the next time you are at the bookstore pick up a copy of the latest trade journal and get the move on. The time to align business and IT is now.