Have you noticed for a number of years now we keep “aligning,”“governing,” and “strategizing”? We do it quite relentlessly asthis set of recent Google counts may prove: “business ITalignment”: 185,000 hits; “IT governance”: 2,370,000 hits; “ITstrategy”: 4,770,000 hits.

I, too, dedicated my own resources on these important subjectsto consult, speak, and write about them, including within the pagesof this magazine (see “Define Align,” March 2005, or “Governing inTough Times,” November 2004). Still, when I talk with insuranceCIOs about such issues, far too often I get a feeling of despairand confusion.

Aren't you disturbed so much talk and attention produced solittle in terms of real results? I am.

Let me quickly add as disturbed as I may be, I'm not about togive up.

And so today I will challenge your thinking in a different way.I will propose a simpler yet effective strategy to progress towardbetter alignment and better governance. And I will propose it hasto do with certain types of people who, judging by the landscape,are in short supply within most shops. So, now for somethingdifferent and simple: Hire more right people.

Let's start with a quick test: Please count your businessanalysts (BAs) and project managers (PMs). But there is a smallcatch. I don't mean just counting warm bodies. I want you to countthe really good ones–you know, those on your staff you assign to ajob and can leave virtually unattended.

Now, please perform my first rule-of-thumb test. Add the majorbusiness units you provide with service and add all major projectsyou have to manage simultaneously. Next, compare. If the number ofyour good business analysts is lower than your count of businessunits or the number of your good PMs is lower than the number ofprojects, I can safely say you must be experiencing many sleeplessnights. I also can safely add your business users must be a ratherirritated bunch.

We just touched on one of those simple-yet-underappreciatedimmutable laws of IT: Communication and dependability trumptechnical expertise.

No amount of technical prowess in your shop ever will be asubstitute for capacity to communicate and deliver as promised.They must come first and remain first on your list of priorities.Conversely, their omission leaves a vacuum filled by phenomena thatlead to many suboptimal decisions.

Lacking credible guidance, many IT decisions are driven bybusiness users who know little about technology. Often, they aredriven by what I refer to as “gray noise.” In contrast to the“white” variety, gray noise disturbs, distracts, and detracts. Allof you likely have experienced “the curse of the in-flightmagazine.” This is the phenomenon in which some senior person is ona plane ride and comes across an article about a new technologicalcure. Or this executive happens to be on a golf course, where thetrusted vendor rep whispers into his or her ear. Or when a trademagazine runs a cover story about a competitor's miraculous newsoftware application, you just can hear the question: “Why don't wehave this?”

So many companies are driven by IT organizations that aretechnology-smart but don't understand the real needs of thebusiness. Or they cannot translate business needs into technologysolutions. Many IT managers don't know how to present a businesscase for or against a particular technology. As a result, theentire conversation between business and IT is focused on issuesthat are strictly operational, at best tactical, and rarely touch astrategic level.

Yes, business-smart CIOs (of whom we luckily have more and more)can and will close some gaps, but on their own, they can do it onlypartially. What every IT organization needs is a much largerechelon of people who can converse intelligently with business on adaily basis. Periodic strategic planning meetings never will be asubstitute and, in fact, may serve as a frustrating reminder ofwhat's missing in the daily life of the organization.

All too often during the decades past, the opportunity fortechnology to support the insurance business in new ways has beentranslated into innovative opportunities to waste money. Theprincipal cause of that waste has been twofold:

1. The lack of mutual understanding between business andtechnology; business professionals lacked the criteria by which toevaluate the suitability of any given technology for theiroperational needs, while technology people had little understandingof the complexity of the insurance business.

2. Mismanagement of project delivery.

There is some encouraging news on the latter point. Thefrequency and magnitude of project failures have drawn management'sattention to the problem. This resulted in progress toward bringingthe business and IT together through the hiring of business-trainedCIOs and investments in project management capabilities. On theother hand, little has been done to raise the number and quality ofBAs–perhaps the most important resource in closing the gap betweenbusiness and IT.

Business analysts are people with technical and businessknowledge complemented by strong analytical and communicationskills. They can define business problems in technological termsduring project definition and help manage the business implicationsof technology solutions during implementation.

Many analysts can and will evolve into strong project managers.It is a natural career move for many. It also would counter aregressive trend toward assigning people with good general projectmanagement skill but no business or systems experience to manage ITprojects.

Outside of project work, business analysts act as consultantscapable of confidently probing their client's needs, recommendingsolutions, and ultimately being able to impact a businesspositively.

In summary, competent business analysts must be capable to drivebusiness requirements analysis, ensure requirements reflect truebusiness needs, and translate business needs into projectcomponents. At the senior level, they should be able to performbasic process modeling and understand the principles and techniquesleading to business process improvement. Finally, the best onesshould be able to perform the project management role includingability to manage effectively the stakeholders' interests, respondto varied agendas, and influence outcomes with confidence.

As a point of interest, I'll mention some colleges (for example,Auburn University) began offering courses leading to masterscertificate in business analysis.

As I once elaborated in the article “Project Management 101,”most successful project managers share a certain set of fundamentalhuman traits:

o Attention to detail,

o Bulldog-like tenacity,

o Honesty and integrity, and

o Personal courage.

In turn, these traits manifest themselves in the context ofmanaging projects as a set of behavioral competencies we like todescribe as commitment, dedication, and leadership.

Hence, the advice I give has little to do with designations andcertifications and everything to do with finding people with theabove characteristics. That, I propose, should be a principaltechnique in finding and selecting PMs.

Attention to detail and tenacity in pursuing the minutiae aremind-numbing and unpleasant activities to most people. The best PMsseem to thrive on it. Whether it is driven by their overwhelmingsense of responsibility or some cluster of perverse synapses intheir brains, we may never know. But they do it and do itconsistently.

Such behavior cannot be sustained without a serious measure ofpersonal courage. Large, complex projects always involve politicalskirmishes, conflicts of interests, and cases of subparperformance–all of which have to be dealt with swiftly. It is thelack of such gut-level courage that often separates competent PMsfrom the best ones.

Honesty and integrity is the ribbon that ties it all together.Over the project's time frame, our PM-hero has to excel inperforming a long list of relationship-based behavioral tasks suchas asking, encouraging, cajoling, praising, rewarding, demanding,and manipulating. No one can survive this test intact withoutconsistently living by the highest standards of sincerity. The PM'sdedication and motivation to the singular mission, the success ofthe project, never can be questioned.

Now, let's consider other possible repercussions of shifting anumerical balance away from technical staff. There are some obviousand clearly strategic implications of building BA/PM strength thatgo well beyond the operational concerns, internal perceptions ofvalue, and relationships between business and IT.

Having fewer programmers means higher flexibility in deployingcoding work and less resistance to buying packages or ASPsolutions. It is relatively easy to outsource programming to agroup of smart people with access to electricity and Internet. Andas most software vendors already have proven, they can liveanywhere in the world. On the other hand, it is difficult tooutsource project management and practically impossible tooutsource business analysis. By definition, both of these rolesmust live in proximity to their clients to keep daily contact,build close relationships, and maintain up-to-date grasp ofbusiness issues.

Both BAs and PMs have profiles that make them natural candidatesfor job rotation between business and IT. They also tend to makebetter managers. Both of these factors not only add to IT'sstrength and–dare I say–alignment with the business but also makeit a more attractive place for talented people interested in ITcareers within an insurance company.

What is your ratio of PMs+BAs to technical development staff?The extremes I have seen range from 1:1 (shop with packaged apps)to about 1:8 (all in-house development). I suggest you should thinkreally hard where on this spectrum you want to be.