Without a doubt, some good IT organizations exist, as illustrated by this McKinsey interview with Marina Levinson, the CIO of NetApp. This organization, like many others, has IT focused on the right principles. I’ve pulled some highlights from the interview as evidence:

This is good, but it isn’t nearly as good as IT can get. That’s because Levinson’s model is still based on the current IT operating framework, which has two inherent flaws, which she herself acknowledges:

1. Governance slows down innovation. (Levinson: “Folks in the lower levels of the organization occasionally criticize the process as painful and time consuming.”)
2. Delivery of services remains within the domain of IT. (Levinson: “Don’t worry about how we are going to get there”)

As a result of these flaws, passionate professionals looking for IT approval and resources are forced to wait in line before they can test and implement their great ideas. In turn, the business’ overall capacity to innovate is diminished.

Improving on this flawed model is a good idea, but it’s not the end goal.

The end goal is to manage IT as an organizational asset, not an organizational structure. Achieving this goal requires tools that allow everybody in the business - across, up and down the organization – to modify their “applications” and underlying infrastructure. What Excel was to innovation in the 90’s and business intelligence to the ‘00’s, tools can be developed (such as the ideas embodied in business process management) that encourage IT self-sufficiency and reduce the need to funnel all IT requests through IT.

Of course, reaching that goal won’t happen overnight – maybe not even in the next decade. But there is much that you can do to bring the future forward:

• Accept that managing IT assets is your responsibility, just as managing financial or human resources assets is. That means you fix your IT “systems” just as you would fix your budget problems or employee problems.
• When IT asks you to expand your role leading IT-enabled business change, don’t assume that IT is trying to shirk their responsibilities. Agree to share the responsibility.
• Get smart about IT through education, hands on interaction and problem solving with your current systems and consumer technologies.
• Refuse to promote ideas that don’t include commitments to realize tangible value (process measures are a great way to define and manage value).
• When defining system requirements, insist on functionality that will “externalize the logic” so that much of the enhancement and maintenance can be done by your team without involvement from IT.
• Learn how to manage projects and change, perform business process and data analysis, and start complying with IT standards and processes. Doing so will earn you the right to manage internal and external IT resources yourself rather than through IT.

The truth is business leaders have always wanted direct control over information technology, as evidenced by their willingness to create “shadow” IT organizations, select technologies without involving IT, and contract directly with vendors.

Governance clamps down on these IT “end runs” but it harms the innovative process. It’s time to start moving to a new model that enables both innovation and distributed control over IT. To start, leaders need to get smarter about IT and assume control over the IT assets that fuel their business.

Share your views – how are your business leaders getting smarter about IT?