cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

IT-based process changeThe IS managers create the initial set of principles which convey thebasic attitudes of the company towards technology, the overall directionthe business is taking and the use to be made of existing technologies.These principles should be good for two or three years, or until there is amajor shift in strategy. They should cover infrastructure, applications, dataand organization. Examples of such principles are given by Davenport:On infrastructure: We are committed to a single vendor environment.On applications: IS will provide applications that support cross-functionalintegration of business processes.On data: Data created or obtained within the company belongs to the corporation– not to any particular function, unit, or individual. It is available to anyuser in the company who can demonstrate a need for it.On organization: The user-sponsor of a systems project will be responsible forthe business success of the system.Once this amount of time and effort is spent aligning the thinkingbetween senior business managers and IT managers, the strategic coursefor IT progress is set, and decision making becomes much easier.Enterprise architecturesThe term ‘enterprise architecture’ is becoming widely used whentalking about IT strategy. It means building an organizing logic for businessprocesses and IT infrastructure, so that the alignment between thebusiness and IT is more visible, more dynamic and more focused oncreating value.THE ROLE OF IT MANAGEMENTIT management skills are critical to an organization’s ability to incorporatethe technologies that are ‘out there’ and use them to best advantage.However, IT staff are often left out of the core decision-making processesand treated as implementers rather than strategists. The solution, webelieve, is to ensure that IT management skills are present not only withIT departments, but all over the organization (see box).287