Everything is straightforward in theory: IT efficiently supports the company’s business processes and value chains by systematically adapting to the demands of the business model. But it looks completely different when it comes to practice: the business units are not satisfied, IT delivers the wrong functions or it delivers the right ones much too late. Alignment is evidently not as simple as you might think. Help comes from agile, adaptive principles which keep the alignment of IT projects under control.

Adaptive approach

If you ask managers about their approach to IT projects, you will often hear this answer: “We start by collecting the requirements, then an IT architect drafts a possible solution. The draft is implemented, tested, and put into operation.” This approach is also known as the waterfall model because every step follows the previous one like the water flowing down a waterfall. However, the waterfall model has been the object of criticism for many years because IT solutions based on this model regularly suffer delays before they go into operation, incur high costs, or never start up at all. There is one important factor which is responsible for the failure of these IT projects: inflexible response to incomplete, unclear, or additional requirements and objectives. The waterfall model is especially vulnerable to this problem factor. Naturally there are other risk factors; we have discussed the causes for the failure of IT projects in previous articles. They include the way complexity is handled and inadequate communication in the project (“The Value of Words”, DMR 3/2008).

As the IT world continues to become more and more complex, agility and adaptation to new challenges are components of a success strategy. Darwin discovered how this principle applied in biology a long time ago. Over about the last ten years, agile, adaptive procedures have been developed with the objective of improving the chances of success for projects. They originate from the ideas of lean management and lean production. Lean production is based on the analysis of production procedures created by the successful car-maker Toyota. A number of principles have been identified which can be applied strategically to many different types of situations. In addition to the key principles of customer and associate orientation, there is “muda” (avoiding waste), “kaizen” (continuously improving), and “kaikaku” (radical adaptation to need).