During my interview for the company for which I now work, I was asked, “How would you create an IT strategy?” That's easy because we're not a technology company, we're an insurance company. There is no “IT strategy,” just an IT element of the business strategy.

I've been a part of initiatives driven by IT that were technology for the sake of technology. For example, an “AS/400 Java new core systems” project was great technically, but didn't solve a pressing business problem (result? FAIL). On another project, we were building some amazing components using very cutting-edge technology. The only problem is that we weren't delivering business value (FAIL).

Now before you walk away from this blog post thinking I'm a complete failure in life, I've learned a lot from those failures. Most importantly, IT is a business support function first and a technology function second. The IT cart can never come before the business horse.

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