And so today I will challenge your thinking in a different way. I will propose a simpler yet effective strategy to progress toward better alignment and better governance. And I will propose it has to do with certain types of people who, judging by the landscape, are in short supply within most shops. So, now for something different and simple: Hire more right people.

Let's start with a quick test: Please count your business analysts (BAs) and project managers (PMs). But there is a small catch. I don't mean just counting warm bodies. I want you to count the really good ones–you know, those on your staff you assign to a job and can leave virtually unattended.

Now, please perform my first rule-of-thumb test. Add the major business units you provide with service and add all major projects you have to manage simultaneously. Next, compare. If the number of your good business analysts is lower than your count of business units or the number of your good PMs is lower than the number of projects, I can safely say you must be experiencing many sleepless nights. I also can safely add your business users must be a rather irritated bunch.

We just touched on one of those simple-yet-underappreciated immutable laws of IT: Communication and dependability trump technical expertise.

No amount of technical prowess in your shop ever will be a substitute for capacity to communicate and deliver as promised. They must come first and remain first on your list of priorities. Conversely, their omission leaves a vacuum filled by phenomena that lead to many suboptimal decisions.

Lacking credible guidance, many IT decisions are driven by business users who know little about technology. Often, they are driven by what I refer to as “gray noise.” In contrast to the “white” variety, gray noise disturbs, distracts, and detracts. All of you likely have experienced “the curse of the in-flight magazine.” This is the phenomenon in which some senior person is on a plane ride and comes across an article about a new technological cure. Or this executive happens to be on a golf course, where the trusted vendor rep whispers into his or her ear. Or when a trade magazine runs a cover story about a competitor's miraculous new software application, you just can hear the question: “Why don't we have this?”

So many companies are driven by IT organizations that are technology-smart but don't understand the real needs of the business. Or they cannot translate business needs into technology solutions. Many IT managers don't know how to present a business case for or against a particular technology. As a result, the entire conversation between business and IT is focused on issues that are strictly operational, at best tactical, and rarely touch a strategic level.

Yes, business-smart CIOs (of whom we luckily have more and more) can and will close some gaps, but on their own, they can do it only partially. What every IT organization needs is a much larger echelon of people who can converse intelligently with business on a daily basis. Periodic strategic planning meetings never will be a substitute and, in fact, may serve as a frustrating reminder of what's missing in the daily life of the organization.

All too often during the decades past, the opportunity for technology to support the insurance business in new ways has been translated into innovative opportunities to waste money. The principal cause of that waste has been twofold:

1. The lack of mutual understanding between business and technology; business professionals lacked the criteria by which to evaluate the suitability of any given technology for their operational needs, while technology people had little understanding of the complexity of the insurance business.

2. Mismanagement of project delivery.

There is some encouraging news on the latter point. The frequency and magnitude of project failures have drawn management's attention to the problem. This resulted in progress toward bringing the business and IT together through the hiring of business-trained CIOs and investments in project management capabilities. On the other hand, little has been done to raise the number and quality of BAs–perhaps the most important resource in closing the gap between business and IT.

Business analysts are people with technical and business knowledge complemented by strong analytical and communication skills. They can define business problems in technological terms during project definition and help manage the business implications of technology solutions during implementation.

Many analysts can and will evolve into strong project managers. It is a natural career move for many. It also would counter a regressive trend toward assigning people with good general project management skill but no business or systems experience to manage IT projects.

Outside of project work, business analysts act as consultants capable of confidently probing their client's needs, recommending solutions, and ultimately being able to impact a business positively.

In summary, competent business analysts must be capable to drive business requirements analysis, ensure requirements reflect true business needs, and translate business needs into project components. At the senior level, they should be able to perform basic process modeling and understand the principles and techniques leading to business process improvement. Finally, the best ones should be able to perform the project management role including ability to manage effectively the stakeholders' interests, respond to varied agendas, and influence outcomes with confidence.

As a point of interest, I'll mention some colleges (for example, Auburn University) began offering courses leading to masters certificate in business analysis.

As I once elaborated in the article “Project Management 101,” most successful project managers share a certain set of fundamental human traits:

o Attention to detail,

o Bulldog-like tenacity,

o Honesty and integrity, and

o Personal courage.

In turn, these traits manifest themselves in the context of managing projects as a set of behavioral competencies we like to describe as commitment, dedication, and leadership.

Hence, the advice I give has little to do with designations and certifications and everything to do with finding people with the above characteristics. That, I propose, should be a principal technique in finding and selecting PMs.

Attention to detail and tenacity in pursuing the minutiae are mind-numbing and unpleasant activities to most people. The best PMs seem to thrive on it. Whether it is driven by their overwhelming sense of responsibility or some cluster of perverse synapses in their brains, we may never know. But they do it and do it consistently.

Such behavior cannot be sustained without a serious measure of personal courage. Large, complex projects always involve political skirmishes, conflicts of interests, and cases of subpar performance–all of which have to be dealt with swiftly. It is the lack of such gut-level courage that often separates competent PMs from the best ones.

Honesty and integrity is the ribbon that ties it all together. Over the project's time frame, our PM-hero has to excel in performing a long list of relationship-based behavioral tasks such as asking, encouraging, cajoling, praising, rewarding, demanding, and manipulating. No one can survive this test intact without consistently living by the highest standards of sincerity. The PM's dedication and motivation to the singular mission, the success of the project, never can be questioned.

Now, let's consider other possible repercussions of shifting a numerical balance away from technical staff. There are some obvious and clearly strategic implications of building BA/PM strength that go well beyond the operational concerns, internal perceptions of value, and relationships between business and IT.

Having fewer programmers means higher flexibility in deploying coding work and less resistance to buying packages or ASP solutions. It is relatively easy to outsource programming to a group of smart people with access to electricity and Internet. And as most software vendors already have proven, they can live anywhere in the world. On the other hand, it is difficult to outsource project management and practically impossible to outsource business analysis. By definition, both of these roles must live in proximity to their clients to keep daily contact, build close relationships, and maintain up-to-date grasp of business issues.

Both BAs and PMs have profiles that make them natural candidates for job rotation between business and IT. They also tend to make better managers. Both of these factors not only add to IT's strength and–dare I say–alignment with the business but also make it a more attractive place for talented people interested in IT careers within an insurance company.

What is your ratio of PMs+BAs to technical development staff? The extremes I have seen range from 1:1 (shop with packaged apps) to about 1:8 (all in-house development). I suggest you should think really hard where on this spectrum you want to be.