To say that digital technology has changed the world is an
understatement. Digital transformations are revolutionizing entire industries
and reshaping every aspect of business. To stay competitive, businesses must
accelerate the delivery of digital products and services. To meet business
demand, IT organizations must accelerate the delivery of secure, high-quality
and reliable software features and functionality (DevOps).
The thing about any transformation, whether it’s the digital
transformation affecting the world, or the DevOps transformation affecting IT
organizations and their business partners, is that it’s never only about the technology. A successful
transformation requires shifts in peoples’ behaviors, mindsets, vocabulary,
roles and reporting relationships. It requires changes to processes and to
day-to-day operating procedures.
Perhaps most importantly, the ability to undertake and
achieve any transformation is determined by whether, or not, the company’s
leadership has articulated a clear business strategy and has fostered a culture
that embraces innovation, collaboration, and experimentation, taking risks and
learning from failure (The
Third Way).
Here’s where Business
Relationship Management comes into play. As a discipline, Business
Relationship Management embodies a set of competencies (knowledge, skills and
behaviors) that foster productive, value-producing relationships between an IT
organization and its business partners. As a role, a Business Relationship
Manager (BRM) is a link between a provider organization and one or more
business units. BRM(s) work with business units to understand their needs and
plans and to coordinate the delivery of IT services that meet those needs.
Ultimately, BRMS help move the IT organization from being viewed as an order
taker into a strategic business partner.
But herein lies the reality. Business unit leaders aren’t
going to be willing to discuss strategic plans with BRMs until they can trust
that the issues of today and this week (incidents, problems, changes, releases)
are being taken care of. The road from service provider to trusted advisor to
strategic business partner is built on a foundation of IT service management excellence.
The same can be said for DevOps. You sometimes hear that
DevOps and IT service management (ITSM) aren’t compatible (but that’s another
blog for another day). The reality is that organizations that are successfully
adopting DevOps practices such as continuous integration, continuous delivery and
continuous testing are performing
ITSM processes. Those processes are just so streamlined and, in many cases, automated
that people don’t even realize that they are executing ITSM processes.
Will excellence in ITSM guarantee the elevation of the IT
organization to strategic business partner? Not necessarily. But BRMs will
never get a seat at the table when strategic conversations are happening
without it.
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