As one who has undergone the challenges
of migrating diverse data sources, I am all too aware that data
migration is a business issue, as well as a technical challenge.
However, getting the business and IT to share the problem, as some
experts recommend, is easier said than done.
In many enterprises such a cosy, amicable position
is as likely as a flying pig, and instead there is classic finger
pointing.
The business often believes, sometimes reasonably,
that it reached the point where it had to develop its own, often
niche, systems because IT had been unable to do it for them.
Reasons for this will range from lack of timely resources to the
high cost of developing applications that have to fit within the
enterprise’s central infrastructure and data model.
The business may have been unable to justify high
expenditure on an IT system to fit in with the enterprise’s
environment, whereas it felt it could cobble together a cheap and
cheerful application of its own using Microsoft Access or
Excel.
Causes of misalignment
This approach can be symptomatic of either weak IT
governance, a misunderstanding of the long-term cost implications,
or that forward plans and IT policies are unclear or not cascaded
through the enterprise.
This leads to the broader issue of the perceived
importance of the IT department within the business. With IT being
as fundamental to an enterprise as it is, the CIO must be in a
position to have peer influence with the heads of all the core
business functions, which is logically at board level.
This confers the CIO with the seniority and clout to
ensure that uncoordinated solutions, which can lead to issues such
as migrating diverse sets of data back into the enterprise model,
are restricted in the first place.
Total cost of ownership
Development of any IT solution ideally requires the
total cost of ownership to be understood and factored into the
planning. This includes the when and how of decommissioning
technical solutions, along with what happens to the associated
data.
The latter can be difficult to plan, bearing in mind
that plans can change, but it nevertheless must be
managed.
As a member of the board, the CIO can influence
board members of the core business areas to communicate to those
managers contemplating ill-considered developments that unless
there is truly no impact on the company’s core business, they will
be given short shrift and will have to pick up the bill for
subsequent corrective action.
This will be eased if those managers who sponsor
unauthorised developments are fully informed of the company’s
business direction so that it encourages them to only consider
solutions that support it.
Alan Smith started his career as a programmer
with ICL, and has since worked on a wide range of IT projects. He
is currently a project manager with the RSPCA where he is
implementing a mobile IT system
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