How IT leaders can say yes without killing projects — or their careers

Last December, when discussing the hard truths of the CIO role with CIO.com’s Mary Pratt, West Monroe managing partner Marc Tanowitz observed: “The great CIOs always say yes. They say yes to what the business wants, but they say, ‘But here are the implications. … You have to be OK not doing these other things.”

It’s a conversation IT executives are all too familiar with, especially now, with technology moving at ever faster speeds and paradigms like citizen IT, low- and no-code apps, agile, and IoT taking center stage, often without guardrails and other IT quality assurance checks.

Yet, business itself is also moving increasingly fast today — and technology organizations must not only move with the business, but lead it through digital transformation.

How do you produce the new solutions that business initiatives that come seemingly out of nowhere demand, without falling behind on your own IT strategic plan? Here are a few approaches to accommodating new urgent asks, starting with turning them into an opportunity to advance foundational IT work.

Best choice: Make the most of a bundling opportunity

I’ve always found “bundling” to be a great operating strategy when unforeseen projects with screamingly high priorities come out of nowhere. In fact, by bundling, I found it was possible to accomplish longstanding IT wish-list items that never gained approval in annual budget meetings.

Here’s how it works using three examples:

The company decides to open a manufacturing plant, warehouse facility, and regional office in a new geography because so much business is coming from that area and the CEO and board want to expand operations to be proximate to this customer base. The company will need to add IT to that new site, making this the perfect opportunity to factor in infrastructure upgrades you’ve been asking for over the years. Upgrades to internet services, cloud services, networks, servers, and storage can all be bundled into the project.

Or, the company’s ecommerce platform is taking longer to process orders, and business executives see this as potentially costing the company thousands of transactions per minute — along with the revenue they bring. You’ve wanted to upgrade the underlying hardware, along with the transaction processing software and database for years, but this was always perceived by the CFO as a “nice to have” infrastructure project that was a good idea but not pressing. The revenue-loss concern of the new demand to address the ecommerce platform is a great opportunity for getting those longstanding foundational requests funded.

In a third scenario, the company wants to move more operations to remote edges of the enterprise, and the C-suite and board understand the importance of strong security. In the past, you’ve argued for investments into zero-trust networks, user authentication track-and-trace technologies such as IGA (identify governance administration), and automation that will enable IT to remotely track, fix, upgrade, and shut down devices. But again, these have seemed like “extras” to the CEO and CFO. Now with new edge IT deployments, there is a real opportunity to get a green light for these upgrades. 

Bundling is often how foundational data projects — like breaking down data silos or improving data governance — are achieved. Viewed often as costly projects not specifically tied to revenue opportunities, they can be incrementally introduced alongside more obviously revenue-focused initiatives, for example, as essential support projects for digital or AI transformations.  

Standard practice: Renegotiate project cycles or ask for additional resources

New projects don’t always offer the opportunity to bundle, so another strategy for keeping IT projects active is to run them at a slower pace. This will push back project timelines and likely affect the number of personnel you can keep on those projects — but at least the projects will stay active.

But it’s essential to present to upper management and stakeholders the impact that will be felt in projects placed on a slower track — and to renegotiate timelines and deliverables. The conversation would go like this: “I understand the urgency of new project ABC, but to do it, we will need to shift resources. This impacts the delivery of project XYZ, which will be delayed until [some future point in time].”

It’s important to get management’s buy-in on this, and to document the agreement on adjusted timelines in writing. An alternate approach if management still wants the original project to stay on schedule is to ask for the additional resources needed to do both the new and original projects without altering timelines or deliverables.

Fail-safe: Put projects on hold and reevaluate the business shift’s IT impact

If strategic IT projects can’t be sustained due to new business priorities, the original projects will need to be placed on hold or be reevaluated for relevance to determine whether the business shift puts the project far away from original goals.

When business strategies shift dramatically, the entire IT strategic plan may require revision.

If the business shift and its impact on IT are so extreme that the IT strategic plan requires revision, it’s time to get in front of the board, stakeholders, upper management, and staff to explain how the business shift impacts IT strategy, and how IT strategy and priorities will need to shift, too.

CIOs like to avoid this drastic step, because when you start realigning strategies and changing direction, it not only affects the flow of strategy; it also has the potential to undermine the morale of your staff, who, if they see priorities constantly shifting, will begin to wonder how strategically sound their management is.

There are several things CIOs can do to help insulate themselves from sudden business shifts that can impact IT strategy.

First, if you must defer projects, place them “on hold,” and don’t outright cancel them. The exception to this is if a project truly becomes irrelevant because of a business development — for example, you’d planned to upgrade your ERP system, but you’ve just learned your company is getting acquired by another company and you will be moving to that company’s ERP system instead.

Second, when possible, structure projects with shorter timelines that can be deployed quickly. By containerizing infrastructure components, writing more applications using agile methodologies, low-code and no-code tools, and the tools and methodologies of your vendors, it’s possible to do some of this. It also gives projects in motion at the time of a business shift a better shot at finishing.