Yes staff immersion seems to work as one engagement method. I'd be happy to post more on business immersion programs for IT professionals, if folk are interested.

Your point on strategic partnership is central to our reason for engagement. We need to be clear on who we engage with. Because we can't engage strategically with everyone, not purposefully and effectively anyway. We need to find the 80/20 approach to engagement and that means finding the key actors. I am drafting a post on how I've seen this work. We need to step out into the light with the right partners

With clear sight of these 80/20 strategic partners, then there are a handful of engagement methods that I have seen work with my clients, immersion being one. Generally they are about getting out there and getting involved with the business but they use different methods for different layers and different relationships. I have a rough outline of a post on a few of these methods, that I am planning for later in March.

Engagement is a necessary front-end part of the value we bring as IT professionals, but it is only a part.  We need it to be targetted and rewarding for it to be sustained, for us and our partners.

Comments welcome as usual, e.g. on which posts might be more useful or not.

Tend to agree wholeheartedly that staff immersion is key to a successful IT Division. Through immersive activities, staff will undoubtedly gain a greater understanding of 'business' objectives, develop a greater understanding of their issues, challenges and opportunities, and, in my mind, deliver a far superior level of service initially, but begin to develop a strong trust relationship, which leads to a strategic partnership.

Starting with the basics of immersion by encouraging all IT staff to talk with their customers, be they researchers, general academics, professional general staff, students or whoever. Don't dismiss the value of open discussion. Engage with then and gain the understanding.

I am interested in your comments around the  comprehensive immersion program and can see some real benefits in this. In our institution, we are only dipping our toes in the water but need to dive in deeper. A challenge for 2013 and beyond.

a great point

Immersing IT folk in the business of their organisation is a key part of helping them out of the shadows.

The insights they gain with just a few hours of direct experience in the business can have remarkable benefits - to their motivation, to the value they bring with their hard IT work, to the regard they are held in by the business.

One uni I know runs a comprehensive service immersion program for its IT staff requiring all of them to spend at least a few hours every year in some form of direct  uni service - on help desks, in the library, working with a researcher, helping a teacher adopt technology. The IT staff there are amongst the most motivated and tuned in to their work I have seen.

This kind of immersion has been standard practice in many service industries for middle and senior managers but I think it also needs to be extended to back office professionals like IT, accountants, lawyers .....

Technology is evolving, IT departments mostly not.  Businesses become more about everything else and less about IT unless IT finds out a way to be part of the processes.  CIO and IT directors need to think and live business not IT going forward.

For the past few years I have been involved with IT in the construction industry, and one of the things that the CIOs have been stressing is that IT personnel go out to jobsites. All too often IT stays at the home base and works with users in the field remotely. Actually going to these jobsites can make IT staff really understand how a construction company works and how dependent they have become with technology when it was not too long ago you would have never seen a computer, tablet or smartphone at a jobsite. 

I think you have outlined it well, Paul.  It is an evolution.

That is my distinction in the IT Pros, are those you will demonstrate leadership in the information technology and step up to that challenge.  Those are the Pros.  The IT team that stays in the "technology" mode alone, will not demonstrate that leadership and they and their organizations will be left behind.

DHagar

I think you are missing Neil's perspective here. No one is disputing the fact IT are hard working guys and that they bring so much to effective working of bith public and private enterprises. 

Neil is kind of like challenging you guys to move from the mentality of being the regular IT guy to considering yourself as been an integral member of the C-suite. In an information age like ours, IT will have to step up considerably to the leadership podium. You can argue that bin some enterpirses, the enviroment is not condusive to make this transition but many enterprises are now beginning to realize that IT has has gone past the age of the IT guy to occupying ammore central leadership role. Enterprises with this kind of mentality have thus provided an enablingh enviroment to integrate IT within the management circle.

"As Neil points out, the true IT pros need to exercise more of their leadership skills in applying technology and building a base of users that truly bring the value to life."

So how do you define true IT pros? Back to Neil's point, I think it is an evolutionary process as the IT guy transforms to the IT leader. I don't think we are there yet but as more and more private and public enterprises come to the realization that IT is no longer that guy you can just call to fix your computer when it is down, but in truth is an integral player in the overall management of the enterprise. 

In this age of information economy, I think it is just a matter of time before we see IT taking its rightful place in  leadership. 

Kicheko,

true, and the challenging does not look like it will abate soon. So IT must get ready for the long challengin journey.