In a survey of IASA members conducted by the industry organization and Robert E. Nolan Co., nearly nine out of 10 respondents vouch for the value of IT, but almost 40 percent find the performance of their own IT shops lacking, citing performance as either fair or poor.

Rod Travers, senior vice president of Robert E. Nolan Co., is surprised by the low ratings, since in his view as a management consultant, there are more accepted management practices in place in IT departments and there is more transparency. "Practices are becoming much better on the IT side with companies subscribing to CMM [capability maturity model] practices or project management institute methodology," he says. "In structure or in practice, the IT folks are improving their management practices. That's a positive, because historically IT was viewed as a black box and you never knew what was going on in there."

In keeping the results in perspective, Travers points out those carriers not satisfied with IT often are more willing to speak up than those that have enjoyed good relationships with their technologists. "We still see a chronic disconnect between business and IT, but overall our sense is things are improving, and one of the real ways to advance that improvement is for the business-side folks to step up and engage more proactively with the IT folks," he says. "The business people are the process owners. They are closest to the impact of the results of automation. The process owner is the one who feels the heat when a project is not successful."