One role that IT serves is maintenance inside of the organization. The role of the CIO/IT Director many times is speaking and educating individuals within the organization on why certain IT decisions are made. These are not siloed decisions but are instead collaborative and fully vetted from the business side. Sometimes they look unnecessary, but in reality they are. Most IT departments have more work than they can handle and are not looking to add on additional unnecessary work onto their plate. Which means that when specific IT initiatives are being pursued, you can rest assured that they have been thoroughly analyzed.

Now that we have somewhat of an understanding, there are business initiatives that proper IT departments might not agree with. This usually plays into budgets or maintenance categories. When collaborations break down internally, the only logical conclusion that the department can expect is to lose IT support for that particular product. For example, let’s say that finance is looking into a particular system. They’ve gone around IT and contracted a company to help them create custom integrations into their ERP system. After completion, IT is brought in and given the “here you go you maintain it” speech.

This is when IT departments need to push back, kindly. Specify that currently there is no talent on your team that can handle this task and that you’re going to need to hire for it. See how well that sits with the budget approval process. Also encourage that department to get a maintenance agreement with the company that built the customization since your team will not be able to maintain that software. Specify the need for Cybersecurity maintenance/upgrades. The last thing that you want is to get hacked because of some unpatched system.

Although this looks like IT not wanting to collaborate with others, it’s just realism. IT is composed of problem solvers. Normally, when a problem is presented it’s in the nature of the IT individual to solve it. However, that’s not fair to the team. Burnout is real. Respect and collaboration needs to occur from both sides. If IT is to be involved afterwards, IT should be involved from the beginning. If not, get ready to lose your IT department.