Peer to Peer Magazine

PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGA ZINE OF ILTA 56 by changing what you measure. I suggest you avoid the trap of measuring return on investment, perhaps the most easily manipulated of all project justification devices. Rather, begin to ask IT management to help improve profitability in a discrete area of practice. Given the rise of fixed fees and the need to develop efficiencies in areas of practice previously insulated from that need by the billable hour, there should be ample opportunity to do so. Treat that as the thin end of the wedge and try to broaden the impact over time. 3. IT governance Much has been written about IT governance. Perhaps the most provocative recent discussion of the subject is Peter Hinssen's 2011 book "Business/IT Fusion: How To Move Beyond Alignment and Transform IT in Your Organization." He urges us to ignore everything that has been said about IT governance. Conventional wisdom has focused on developing a monitor and control culture for IT. The problem with that approach is that it creates a bureaucratic, compliance- focused culture that is the antithesis of the flexibility and creativity necessary for IT to truly become a participant in the business of the firm. What is required is a fusion of the strategies of the IT group and the organization. CIOs must become entrepreneurs rather than compliance officers. The success of the IT organization can be measured as much by its degree of connection to the firm as by its impact on profitability. We can find many good examples of such connections. One of the foremost comes from the consulting world. Accenture is, as you might expect, very focused on key performance metrics. However, when it undertook to transform its learning management technology and culture, it was faced with a unique challenge. How could it take something as prosaic as training and use it to drive profitability? And how could it measure the results? The tale of how Accenture did that is captured in the book "Return on Learning: Training for High Performance at Accenture" by Donald Vanthournout. Accenture managed to reduce its budget for training dramatically, yet at the same time achieve a measurable impact on profitability more than three times its investment. The secret to Accenture's success was that its learning initiatives program was highly "interleaved" within its management structure. Dozens of business units had a hand in its success, and executives from every level of the organization acted as stakeholders for various components of the project. This deep connection philosophy is embodied in its V-Model graphic. As is evident from the graphic, the program used sponsors and stakeholders at every level of the organization. The same approach works in other settings, including law firms. SOURCE OF INNOVATION Once you ensure your IT organization has appropriately entrepreneurial leadership and a mandate to innovate, don't squash their initiative with a compliance-heavy approach to governance. Rather, strive to broaden its degree of connection to critical projects. Multiply real stakeholders and sponsors and let them interact with the IT group. The more you do that, the more lawyers, managers and others inside your organization will come to see IT as a source of innovation rather than a source of frustration. The V Model for Alignment at All Levels Plan Analyze Design Deliver Evaluate measure and evaluate measure and evaluate measure and evaluate measure and evaluate Business Need Performance Capability Performance Support Requirements Performance Solution Business Results Capability Impact Participant Impact Design and Delivery Process Status ROI Copyright 2010 Accenture. All Rights Reserved. This article was first published in the May 2013 issue of Managing Partner (www.managingpartner.com) and is reproduced with kind permission. FEATURES

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