IT Success!: Towards a New Model for Information Technology

9.3. Where to start

Given the scope and magnitude of the changes required to move to the new model – or, realistically, to start introducing the basics in parts of the company – it should come as no surprise if we say that we're looking at a long-term journey: 1–2 years before seeing any first results, and 3–5 years before seeing it institutionalized. Such a change management programme is clearly beyond the scope of this book (see 'How consulting companies can help' towards the end of this chapter), except to say that it should be triggered by the CIO and subsequently managed jointly by IT and the business as an enterprise-wide initiative.

In terms of where in the organization to start, there are basically three approaches. You can either focus on your pain points, or focus on those areas which are already working well – or you might have no choice in the matter:

• The first and most common approach is to focus on one or more pain points and address those. These pain points can be either ongoing, e.g. a department or functional area with a poorly performing application with unacceptably high running costs. Or it can be point-in-time, e.g. a failed project which had serious organizational repercussions. In general it is easier to institute major change in the second case, simply because the climate is right for change and there will be less opposition. For ongoing pain points however, it's more of a challenge, because things are still working, however badly, so there will inevitably ...