5 ways to make your IT department more likable

On the other hand, IT departments are accusing the business of “having unrealistic expectations”, ”never knowing what they want”, “constantly changing their requirements”, etc.

Nevertheless, today, the importance of a professional and innovative IT department has never been bigger. As all businesses are working to some degree on digitalisation, they heavily depend on their IT department not only for technical support (infrastructure, integration, security…) but also for adequate input about how innovative approaches will help them in their digitalisation journey.

And innovative approaches are not limited to new technologies. The Agile movement is an interesting example. Created by IT people, the concept has been successfully adopted by an increasing number of Business departments.

But, ironically, while Agile projects are now forcing IT and Business people to interact daily – which is a good thing, what I see today is that these people are still facing the same relationship difficulties as before.

Adapting new attitudes and acquiring new relational skills are fundamental for the success of Digital or Agile projects .

1.      Business people should have a better IT awareness and treat IT professionals as equals. What are the typical pitfalls in a project, why are things in IT more complicated than expected, what kind of detailed information does IT need from me and why, etc…? They should really learn to understand the IT concerns and set their expectations at a realistic level.

2.      IT professionals should have an open-minded and adaptive attitude and not a defensive attitude when the business is making changes in their business requirements. This will make it easier for them to add value into the daily conversations. Hiding important internal IT information only creates suspicion and distrust.

3.      IT professionals should change their thinking framework, listen more carefully to the real business idea behind the project and learn to think with the business about features, functionalities and solutions that really help them drive better results for the company.

4.      IT professionals should be more confident, transparent and express themselves better in what they do, what their concerns are and why they do things in a certain way. ‘Avoid misunderstandings’ and ‘stop assuming’ are 2 crucial skills that really will boost the quality of the communication between Business and IT.

5.      Last but not least, IT and business leadership should facilitate an agile way of working by creating the right environment and culture for their project teams.

Conclusion: Not only has the role of the IT department changed during the last years, but also the role of its people. They have to interact more frequently and in different ways, with business people, with partners, with cloud providers and other stakeholders. This is requiring a new skillset that can and should be learned in order to become a ‘likable’ IT partner during the digitalisation journey of the company.