Hiring the Wrong IT Staff to Achieve Your Goals?

by Dr. George E. Strouse

May 12, 2008 —

Are you having problems with alignment? Is your IT staff unable to provide
the business with the support it needs? Does it seem like your IT staff just
doesn't understand the business? Perhaps they don't.

For years, authors and top-ranked CIOs have complained about business and IT
alignment. CIO magazine articles like Why
Is Business-IT Alignment So Difficult, How
to Close the IT-Business Alignment Gap and The
ROI of Alignment, coupled with the ongoing presence of alignment as one
of the top ten information management concerns every year, indicates that the
problem of aligning information technology with business goals and processes
is much deeper and more fundamental than we realize.

The real problem underlying the IT
business alignment conundrum is that we're not hiring the right people in
IT. The right people need strong backgrounds in both business and technology.
Most IT hiring managers place too much emphasis on strong technology backgrounds.

A recent CIO.com article, Why
Business Analysts Are So Important for IT and CIOs, depicts how critical
it is to have a meaningful combination of business and information technology
know-how. The article states that the most successful business
analysts (e.g. the ones who most effectively apply IT in business environments)
possess the ability to "communicate, facilitate and analyze" not technology,
but business. In addition, the article propounds that these positions "tilt
more toward business functions such as operations, marketing, finance or engineering."
Although the article hits the nail directly on the head when identifying the
capabilities that will enable your staff to "turn business-requested, IT-delivered
applications into tomorrow's dynamic business applications," it fails to
address why these individuals are so difficult to find.

The reason? These people are hard to find because businesses are not asking
for them.

Computer Science Versus Information Systems Degrees

Job announcements for business
analyst and business-related IT positions specify that the candidate should
possess a degree in Computer Technology or Computer
Science. The problem with that degree requirement is that computer science
and technology degrees do not require business courses. How can you expect alignment
to occur between business and IT when the technology staff has no business training
or background? You can't.

There are two broad areas of computer-related degrees: One is computer science,
and the other is information systems. Although the two are often lumped together
under the heading of computer technology, they are vastly different at both
their core and their objectives. Simply stated, the computer science degree
focuses on the science and development of technology, while the information
systems degree focuses on how to support business through the application of
information technology. The table below compares information system degree coursework
to the requirements for a computer science degree. You can see that the degree
requirements are very different. While the information systems degree is replete
with business courses, the computer science degree has none. You can't expect
alignment of IT with business needs when many on your IT staff may never have
had even one business course.

Information Systems	Computer Science
1st year	1st year
Analytical Writing Applied Calculus (Business) Intro to Data Management Human Communication Lab Science	Analytical Writing Calculus I Calculus II Programming & Algorithms I Lab Science
2nd year	2nd year
Principles of Economics (Macro & Micro) Financial Accounting Managerial Accounting Business Statistics I & II Principles of Management Software Engineering I & II Principles of Marketing	Discrete Mathematics Programming & Algorithms II Differential Equations Computer Engineering Software Engineering & Design Introduction to Networks Human Communication
3rd year	3rd year
Operations Management Business Law Managerial Finance Advanced Programming Introduction to Networks Operating Systems International Business	Probability & Statistics Analysis of Algorithms Computer Science Elective Computer Science Elective Programming Language Design Elective Elective
4th year	4th year
Systems Analysis & Design Advanced Networking Database Management Business Strategy & Policy Information Systems Elective	Operating Systems Database Management Senior Software Project Social & Professional Issues in Computing Computer Science Elective

An IT staffer who doesn't know the difference between debit and a credit transactions
can't be expected to support accounting and finance. Similarly, IT departments
can't align and support extended value chains when the staff has never heard
of CRM, SCM
or JIT. If IT professionals have never had a management, marketing, accounting,
finance or operations course, it isn't hard to understand why they don't understand
your business needs. When examining the requirements for the computer science
degree, exactly where in your business alignment needs do you fit the requirement
for not having a solid understanding of business?

Graduates holding either degree have many
opportunities for employment in a wide variety of organizations and positions.
In fact, Bill
Gates recently asked our government to raise
the H-1B visa quota due to a lack of qualified technical expertise in the
United States. Whether or not one agrees with Mr. Gates, enrollment
in computer-related college programs is down. If Mr. Gates wants more "qualified
technical expertise" then Microsoft
should be advertising for, focusing on and hiring people with computer science
degrees.

Similarly, if you and your organization want business and IT alignment, you
need IT people who have a strong understanding of business as well as information
technology. You should be hiring IT professionals with information systems degrees
for those positions. If the demand for information systems degrees begins to
appear in job requirements, the supply will surface to accommodate the need.

To be clear, I am not advocating that businesses only hire people with information
systems degrees. Many positions require strong computer science backgrounds,
such as those in process control, computer integration, networking, telecommunications
provisioning, artificial intelligence and some Web and graphics applications.
However, organizations of all sizes need information technology people who can
communicate in business terms, elicit business requirements, develop and implement
business systems, support business analysis (financial, marketing, operations/production
and forecasting, for example), understand market segments, conduct statistical
business assessments, be able to analyze business opportunities for risk and
impact on operations, and above all, understand business well enough to attempt
alignment.

To increase the probability of alignment, to optimize your opportunity for
business success and to reduce the gap between business and information technology,
you need your best assets-the right people. Don't continue to decry IT's inability
to understand business needs, their inability to deliver functionality on time
and within budget, and most of all their inability to understand business strategy
and alignment unless you have actually hired the right people for the right
positions.

Dr. George E. Strouse is a professor of information systems at York College
of Pennsylvania. He is a former CEO, CIO, business owner and consultant.

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