‘Align IT’ - book review

‘Align IT’ by Richard Wyatt-Haines, published by Wiley

This is the second book on the management of IT that I am reviewing as part of course development for a client.  The first was criticised for being too generic and lightweight, criticisms that could not be applied to this book.  This is a much more substantial work - over 400 pages - and is constantly relating points to IT; but it is not an easy read and I would expect most of those who buy it to use it for reference rather than to read through.

The first section of the book provides a good overview of strategic thinking and uses a simple framework to summarise the concept of strategy - the questions ‘why, who, what, how’.  It was pleasing to see lots of references to IT and some good, relevant examples from top companies like Kodak, Sony and Walmart.  I particularly liked the references to competitive advantage and the ways in which this can be enhanced by IT, not just as support but often leading the way. 

The second section covers the ways in which IT can and should align with the business strategy and the three approaches of leading, enabling or following are well explained, along with the context in which each of these three styles is most appropriate.  The author introduces a number of simple frameworks - mostly taken from business school gurus - and these are generally powerful; I particularly liked the 2 x 2 matrix with user acceptance and strategic fit as the two dimensions.  I also liked the strategic cascade, taking the strategy down from corporate to individual level in five stages.

However, as I read through the book, I started to suffer from ‘framework overload’ as the three chapters in this section began to show more and more matrices, processes and checklists.  I began to get the feeling that the author was trying to bring in every possible business school framework - Levitt, Kaplan, BCG - without always making clear their links to each other or their relevance to IT.  There was also too much detail on performance measures; the whole idea of key performance indicators is that you prioritise and focus on a few key metrics but this chapter contained several pages of lists.  After a while this becomes repetitive and difficult to absorb; reading the book was like talking to someone who has to tell you everything.

This tendency became more obvious during the third section which provided more detail on the skills involved in leading, enabling and following.  It would have been better to have some general principles to follow and in-depth coverage of a few skills; instead we had several pages of different lists.  For example within three pages we had 8 skills for leading change, 7 skills for engaging leadership, 10 skills for working, 11 for relating and 8 for thinking.  And in the following chapter there were 9 ways of building effective relationships.

On the credit side this chapter has some good content on shareholder mapping and on dealing with CEOs.  I was particularly interested and amused by the framework which shows the extremes of CEO attitudes towards IT, from the ‘Hypocrite’ who claims to support IT but does the opposite, to the ‘Believer’ who walks the talk and provides necessary support.

So overall, this is a difficult book to rate.  At first sight it seems practical, with lots of applications to IT; but when you get into reading it, there is an impression of too many concepts, with insufficient selectivity and inter-connections.  Part of my approach to reviewing management books is to look at the author’s biography, to assess practical experience.  This perhaps reveals one problem; the biography states that the author ‘draws on every ounce of his facilitating and speaking experience’ and the book also mentions his MBA at Warwick Business School.  My impression is that this may be someone from an academic background who is trying too hard to provide a theoretical approach which is getting in the way of the practical applications.

As I am not from an IT background, I would be interested to hear what IT specialists think of this book.  If I were to recommend it to others, it would be selected chapters, particularly in the first two sections, rather than the whole book.

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