IT Value comes from speaking business language

I was at a seminar recently that was focused on helping new immigrants to integrate into our society. You may ask why this has anything to do with computers.

It is probably the major issue and the reason why many business people get frustrated with IT staff and suppliers. The issue is communication.

Despite the proliferation of computers in our society and in business, the reality is that maybe 20% of people are comfortable with computers. Many of those people are comfortable with the games, but not any more comfortable with business use. When I speak to small business owners, and many staff, they are often frustrated with computers. This is a result of computer speak and lack of focus on the business issue.

Most business owners know they have to use computers and want to, but when they speak to the technicians, all they get is computer talk. They are told all of the great things that computers can do for them, but in terms of the software or hardware, not in terms of their business.

Getting back to the seminar, one of the things that was stated was, "In order to make new immigrants productive and effective in our society, you have to make connections with them, speak to them in their language". This doesn't mean that they don't have to adapt. However, the more stressful that you make the interaction, the slower they will be to adapt to their new environment.

This is also true for people who are uncomfortable with technology. If you force them to speak the new language, and they don't see how it helps them, they grow frustrated and "tune out". The only reason why technicians don't speak their language is often that they don't know the language of business, even though they profess to know it by their selling approach. The sales pitch talks about solving business problems. However, the implementation approach seldom does.

This is the primary reason why IT projects fail. The steps go as follows:

• Define the business goal
• Develop the technical implementation plan.
• Train staff of the functions of the software
• Implement the software
• Have people figure out how to use the software to do their business functions
• Find new ways to address the functions that can't be done by the new software.

If we change our approach, we get:

• Define the business goal
• Describe the business process that will help us achieve the business goal.
• Define how the software will help improve the process to achieve the business goal.
• Define the process and technical implementation plan.
• Train people how to use the software to implement the process improvements
• Implement the software
• Support people in their learning how to improve the process using the software.

In this case, all of the focus is on improving the process to meet the goal. The software is simply the tool that helps, and there should be no confusion as to why you need to learn the software. You also don't waste time on learning parts of the software that don't help improve the process.