Author Description

Kyle, the IT manager in the company, found he spent most of his time trying to explain what information technology could and couldn't do as he created a patchwork of applications to solve individual problems. As soon as upper management heard that Matt, the operational manager, had found a way to shave a day or two off of order fulfillment with a new application idea, Kyle knew they would tell him to drop everything and make it happen. However, Kyle needed answers to a list of questions (requirements) before he could help. Unfortunately, despite his competence, Matt couldn't answer the majority of his questions, and had absolutely no clue when it came to IT. He was angry that Kyle made it seem like a monumental task to take a simple Microsoft Word document that the sales department already had, and just speed up how soon his production planner received that information via an application to pull it from sales. At the conclusion of their meeting, both parties walked out feeling they had accomplished nothing. Creating yet another specialized application would ultimately generate future problems for both Kyle and Matt's departments, and yet these two well-intentioned managers were about to spend thousands of dollars in application development, man-hours, training, and productivity. The problem was, they were speaking different languages. If Kan had been present at this hypothetical meeting, "I could have interpreted between the two functional areas," he says, "but only because of my background in operations and IT management-a background most people on either side do not have. I have been on both sides of the table, as an IT manager like Kyle, administering IT projects and resources, and as an operations manager like Matt, helping businesses reach the next level of operational effectiveness. I have worked with fledgling start-ups and with companies employing thousands of people, in industries as diverse as e-commerce, manufacturing, and government. My