Talking the talk

Over the years, I've become a frequent traveler in the no-man's-land between IT and business groups. In most cases, both sides cannot talk to each other.

This isn't much of a revelation; it's just the way things are. Most business people talk in terms that relate to their core interests, discussing issues of time, money, process and turf. Of course, techies have their own interests and priorities, and they talk another language altogether.

For IT management, this presents a problem you must learn to overcome. It's imperative that you can speak with your business counterparts and superiors who are not going to learn to "talk tech."

Fortunately, this isn't as hard as it seems. By applying three simple rules, IT managers can greatly improve communications with their business contacts. I'll draw on some specific IT projects to help explain. The names of the people involved have been removed to protect the reticent.

Simplify

About three years ago, I was consulting on the selection and implementation of a desktop management  system for 3,000 PCs. This was a multimillion-dollar project.

The IT group wanted something with a lot of bells and whistles but couldn't agree on the details. They argued among themselves. Topics ranged from which products should be evaluated to what types of reporting would be needed to whether servers and mainframes also should be managed. There was no clear agenda, scope or focus.

They were also upset with business management whom they said were "stupid" and "weren't listening."

Meanwhile, business management said the IT people were "too impatient," "too free with money" and didn't "understand the issues." They wanted to know why the project was worthy of discussion and what benefits it would provide.

In truth, the technical people had done a poor job of explaining the project, such as the purpose and requirements.

Management was thinking of canning the project.