Communication
Establish mechanisms for dialogue with stakeholders such as IT colleagues, other business units, and third parties.
Improvement Planning
Practices-Outcomes-Metrics (POM)
Representative POMs are described for Communication at each level of maturity.
- 1Initial
- Practice
- Rely on the best endeavours of available personnel.
- 2Basic
- Practice
- Translate the more technical language into business language to ensure the business understands what IT is saying.
- Outcome
- Communication between IT and other business units improves and targets start to become aligned.
- Metric
- % of IT-related problems arising from misunderstandings between IT and other business units.
- Practice
- Encourage some bi-directional communication within the IT function.
- Outcome
- Some staff can communicate their concerns towards management and feel recognized.
- Metric
- % of IT managers who get feedback from direct reports.
- 3Intermediate
- Practices
- Establish a functioning bi-directional communication process within IT and between IT and most other business units.
- Ensure a basic, top-down process and a feedback (bottom-up) process are both in place.
- Outcomes
- Misunderstandings due to using technology-specific terms are rare.
- Feedback is encouraged, and may be applied in some instances.
- Metrics
- % of IT-related problems arising from misunderstandings between IT and other business units.
- % of IT and other business unit managers who get feedback from direct reports.
- 4Advanced
- Practice
- Consistently align communication between IT and all other business units.
- Outcome
- There are no issues due to misunderstandings with respect to the use of technical language.
- Metric
- % of IT-related problems arising from misunderstandings between IT and other business units.
- Practice
- Consistently share and act upon any feedback received in relation to the bi-directional communication processes.
- Outcome
- New techniques in communicating internally can be put in place.
- Metric
- % of IT and other business unit managers who get feedback from direct reports.
- 5Optimized
- Practice
- Continually review and optimize the bi-directional communication processes in terms of precision, understandability, and relevance.
- Outcome
- IT and the rest of the business learn mutually from one another's way of communicating messages.
- Metric
- % of IT-related problems arising from misunderstandings between IT and other business units.
- Practice
- Introduce new techniques, tools and surveys to support bi-directional communication when required.
- Outcomes
- Communication is seen as a major success factor within IT leadership.
- The bi-directional communication process is improved as required.
- Metric
- Frequency of introduction of new techniques, tools and surveys.