Finance & IT Couples Therapy Guideline #5: Promote Strengths

Our recent webinar “Couples Therapy: Getting IT & Finance to Play Nice” discussed how organizations can apply the lessons from a completely different field–marital counseling–in order to bridge the finance-IT gap.

 
In previous blog posts, we’ve discussed each of the four initial steps for healing the divide: changing your view of the relationship, modifying your dysfunctional behavior, improving your communications, and decreasing your emotional avoidance.

This final article in our five-part series will concentrate on how you can effect lasting change by promoting the strengths of both finance and IT during their interactions.

Focus on Strengths

IT: “As much of a nag as your team is, that Oracle software you all use is really complex. I give you credit for using it every day.”

Finance: “And I know it gets cold in that datacenter, which is probably why you are cranky all the time. If you knew the software better, it might be easier for you to troubleshoot.”

IT: “Yeah, I know. And if you knew the hardware and network on the back end, it might make more sense when things are sluggish.”

Finance: “That’s fair – we should try to work better when it gets stressful. We used to work really well together before all the acquisitions.”

IT: “We should start fresh.”

Finance: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship…”

While you’re not going to find the conversation above in the next hit romantic comedy, this dialogue is a good example of how IT and finance can reach across the aisle and find some common ground for positive interactions.

So much of the advice for improving the finance-IT relationship (and your marriage as well) can be boiled down to one simple tip: be charitable to one another by recognizing each other’s skills – not just their weaknesses. Even though they may have very different outlooks, everyone in the organization is trying to do their best in order to move the business forward.

Maximize Technology

With the right software such as Datavail’s Accelatis, both finance and IT can make use of their strengths, turning the relationship productive rather than antagonistic. Accelatis makes it much easier for both IT and business users to gain insights into what’s going on in your environment and assess its performance over time.

Suppose that your employees arrive on Monday morning to find that something has broken down in the environment. Performing regression testing with Accelatis allows you to discover what has gone wrong.  And in many cases, probably before your users even have a chance to notice.

Once you’ve pinpointed the root cause, both IT and finance can bring their skill sets to the table, collaborating in order to troubleshoot and fix the problem faster.

Conclusion

If you’re having problems with your finance-IT relationship, the good news is that the partnership isn’t damaged beyond repair. With the five steps we’ve discussed and the help of tools like Accelatis, you can begin to heal the divide between finance and IT.

Want to learn about the full five-step process from start to finish? Check out Datavail’s webinar “Couples Therapy: Getting IT & Finance to Play Nice.”