Bevil Wood­ing

In­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy (ICT) busi­ness projects typ­i­cal­ly re­quire ex­ec­u­tive sup­port to im­prove the chances of suc­cess. IT prac­ti­tion­ers of­ten com­plain about how dif­fi­cult it can be to com­mu­ni­cate IT con­cepts, strat­e­gy and op­tions to se­nior lev­el ex­ec­u­tives. The chal­lenge is fur­ther com­pound­ed when the com­mu­ni­ca­tion has to be de­liv­ered in writ­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly when com­plex tech­ni­cal sce­nar­ios have to be de­scribed. Chal­leng­ing though the task may be, it is not im­pos­si­ble. When pre­sent­ing on ICT, it is wise to in­vest in some sim­ple strate­gies to en­sure that ex­ec­u­tives un­der­stand what you are propos­ing and its im­pact their area of fo­cus. You have to be able to ex­press in clear busi­ness terms the aim and ben­e­fits of your project, the ex­pect­ed out­comes and the im­pli­ca­tions of ac­tion and in­ac­tion-es­pe­cial­ly the fi­nan­cial ram­i­fi­ca­tions.

Know your au­di­ence

In most or­gan­i­sa­tions, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer and chief fi­nan­cial of­fi­cer are usu­al­ly the ul­ti­mate de­ci­sion-mak­ers al­though, de­pend­ing on the na­ture of the busi­ness, the chief op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer and chief in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer may be high­ly in­flu­en­tial. The CEO is pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned with the over­all align­ment be­tween the or­gan­i­sa­tion's macro-strate­gic agen­da and its im­pact on the bot­tom line. The CFO is con­cerned with man­ag­ing the fi­nances and man­ag­ing re­la­tion­ships with bor­row­ing in­sti­tu­tions, eval­u­at­ing merg­er and ac­qui­si­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties, over­see­ing ac­count­ing and in­for­ma­tion sys­tems, mon­i­tor­ing cap­i­tal equip­ment as­sets and bal­anc­ing tax­es and oth­er reg­u­la­to­ry risks to the cor­po­ra­tion.

A COO is re­spon­si­ble for over­see­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, prop­er­ty, plant and equip­ment, man­ag­ing the work force, pur­chas­ing and client ser­vices and in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy. CIOs and CTOs are re­spon­si­ble for es­tab­lish­ing and main­tain­ing cor­po­rate tech­nol­o­gy en­vi­ron­ment, in­clud­ing soft­ware and soft­ware sys­tems in­te­gra­tion, pro­cure­ment and util­i­sa­tion of hard­ware and soft­ware as­sets and sup­port for busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Un­der­stand­ing the na­ture of the com­pa­ny, the in­dus­tri­al and eco­nom­ic con­text in which it is op­er­at­ing, and even that of their main clients, can pro­vide a very nec­es­sary foun­da­tion for un­der­stand­ing the im­pact and im­pli­ca­tions of an ICT project.

Do your home­work

Don't be afraid to re­view an­nu­al re­ports, busi­ness analy­ses and sec­tor re­ports be­fore com­mu­ni­cat­ing with ex­ec­u­tives. If the com­pa­ny is pri­vate, look for press re­leas­es or com­peti­tors or re­lat­ed com­pa­nies that are pub­lic. Ex­am­ine what ar­eas of the busi­ness­es are work­ing or not work­ing. Chances are the pri­vate com­pa­ny will be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing sim­i­lar is­sues that can be used to en­gage your ex­ec­u­tives. The spe­cif­ic em­pha­sis will, of course, de­pend on the of­fi­cer's pri­ma­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Mak­ing an ICT project rel­e­vant to the cur­rent or fu­ture busi­ness de­mands of an or­gan­i­sa­tion is of­ten the dif­fer­ence be­tween ex­ec­u­tive buy-in or re­jec­tion.

Learn their lan­guage

Us­ing ap­pro­pri­ate lan­guage is crit­i­cal to cap­tur­ing at­ten­tion and con­vey­ing val­ue. Us­ing "IT speak"-vir­tu­al­i­sa­tion, IPv6 and cloud-com­put­ing-does not al­ways sound im­pres­sive. It can of­ten con­fuse, or worse yet, bore those you need to con­vince. In­stead, speak to the com­mon is­sues faced by se­nior ex­ec­u­tives and the so­lu­tions us­ing terms they recog­nise. Use prac­ti­cal ex­am­ples where ever you can. Rather than talk about "cloud com­put­ing ef­fi­cien­cy", talk about how IT solves the busi­ness col­lab­o­ra­tion and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty prob­lems the or­gan­i­sa­tion is fac­ing. Or how an IT so­lu­tion will al­low for in­stant ac­cess to re­ports from any­where, with­out hav­ing to wait for their ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant to ar­rive in the of­fice, find the rel­e­vant re­port and put it on their desk. Re­mem­ber, their pri­or­i­ty and fo­cus nec­es­sar­i­ly cen­tres around three key ar­eas: grow­ing the busi­ness, mon­i­tor­ing and align­ing cor­po­rate ob­jec­tives in­clud­ing growth and rev­enue tar­gets, and,main­tain­ing cor­po­rate cul­ture. The spe­cif­ic em­pha­sis will de­pend on the of­fi­cer's pri­ma­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Time­ly tips

The fol­low­ing tips will help you shape your mes­sage

Open with re­sults and out­comes. Make sure you can quan­ti­fy what you achieved or what you in­tend to achieve. Whether it is a so­lu­tion wor­thy of the in­vest­ment in hu­man and fi­nan­cial cap­i­tal is their con­cern, the specifics of how it's go­ing to be done is yours. Be pre­pared to ex­plain the how. Once your lis­ten­ers have been pro­vid­ed the re­sults in clear terms, be ready to face ques­tions about the "how." Strong or­gan­i­sa­tions seek ways to take pos­i­tive mod­els sys­tem wide, then repli­cate the ben­e­fits of strong re­sults in oth­er ar­eas. Make the ef­fort to de­scribe your IT sys­tem plans in terms that de­scribe the key steps for suc­cess.

Have the num­bers on hand. Be pre­pared to de­scribe in quan­ti­ta­tive terms the im­pact to be de­rived from your IT projects and the quan­ti­ta­tive im­pli­ca­tions of in­ac­tion. Be care­ful not to over­state re­sults or pro­jec­tions, as you risk your dam­ag­ing your cred­i­bil­i­ty if things don't work out as planned. Know­ing where the fo­cus is for each mem­ber of your au­di­ence, and do­ing your home­work by re­view­ing your com­pa­ny's strate­gic plans, an­nu­al re­ports and press re­leas­es will as­sist you in con­struct­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate mes­sage and boost­ing your con­fi­dence when com­mu­ni­cat­ing with se­nior of­fi­cers. So next time you are pre­sent­ing your IT plans, be sure to de­scribe things in terms that your au­di­ence can di­rect­ly re­late to. You will be re­ward­ed with more en­gaged and ed­i­fied lis­ten­ers.

Bevil Wood­ing is an In­ter­net strate­gist with the US-based re­search firm,

Pack­et Clear­ing House and the chief knowl­edge of­fi­cer at Con­gress WBN, an in­ter­na­tion­al non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Fol­low on Twit­ter:

@bevil­wood­ing, and

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