Discussion 1:

What are the recommendations for improving business-IT communication?

To improve business IT communication:

· Make the importance of effective communication visible: Good communication helps set expectations. It provides transparency and reduces conflicts.

· Work with HR to develop new skills expectations and roles: New roles like IT managers can help understand business requirements to IT and create goals that will be towards achieving business unit.

· Develop communication skills both formally and informally: Communication like setting employee expectations, self-assessment and communication with respect to project planning will help managers to make decisions and create project plan accordingly. Presentations to stakeholders will help them understand IT needs and investments needed.

· Increase the nature and frequency of communication: Frequent communication help managers track progress. Mentoring is a good way to make employees understand tools and help them work efficiently

· Spend more time on communication: Communication helps resolving politics amongst teams in the organization. Creating an environment of transparency helps business and IT work together.

Do you agree with the list?

Though communication is an important part to developing business-IT relation, I think building trust is equally important. Trust is built and strengthen by achieving goals, accomplishing rewards keeping promises.  Building trust helps set expectations and sense of accountability for completion of the project. This helps delivering on IT value.

Reference:

James D. McKeen, Heather A. Smith, IT Strategy: Issues and Practices, Third Edition. Pearson, 2015, ISBN-13 978-0-13-354424-4.

Discussion 2:

Recommendations to improve Business -IT Communication

1) Make the importance of effective communication visible: Good communication skill is the most important skill for having a good relationship with business and that is why nowadays companies are making it must-have skill for every IT employee.

2) Work with HR to develop new skills expectations and role: Companies are creating the jobs having titles such as “technology relationship manager”, “IT Business Analyst” and “business technology specialist” where the titles suggest that the main focus of such titles is IT-Business relationship. One another way companies are trying to adopt is moving IT employees temporary for some time in business so that they can learn the business and enhance the relationship with them.

3.)Develop communication skills both formally and informally:Formal communication is communication through pre-defined channels set by organizations.It is backed by organizational procedure, and it is necessary to fulfill the goals of the organization.Informal communication is more relational than formal. It is not backed by any pre-determined channels and can happen anywhere within the organization.

4.)Increase the nature and frequency of communication: Establish regular communication processes that happen on a schedule: weekly conference calls, monthly online newsletters, quarterly employee reviews, etc. Habitual communication eliminates time wasted searching for information that should be forthcoming and transparent.

5.)Spend more time on communication: The primary goal of this messaging is to preserve and establish relationships with colleagues and superiors and subordinates.

I agree with the list because proper communication helps the imformation flow from the business to be transparent.