How rigid is your tech team?

One of the fastest ways to improve how much value the tech team creates is to ensure they are doing relevant work.

Let’s call that improving tech/business alignment.

How do you know the alignment is bad?

You look at the disconnect between the business’s top priorities and the actual resources spent on the problem.

If the absolutely most important thing for the business is to fix onboarding, but only one person on the dev team is actually working on it part-time, well, there’s a bit of a disconnect.

You may think this is a silly example, but I see this happen all the time.

If you talk to the CEO, they think the problem is getting solved, and it’s all hands on deck.

Where there is a will, there is a way…

To fix this issue, the first requirement is to improve communication and planning between business and tech. This can mean between the CTO and CEO or between Tech/Product and marketing.

Everyone needs to be crystal clear on the objectives and the “why” behind the project. Conflicts regarding priorities need to be solved.

Then let’s talk about the objection: “We don’t have free resources to dedicate to this project.”

If you run a successful business, you never have idle resources to put on a project.

Everyone is always busy trying to provide value. But that does not mean you don’t have options:

Here are a few:

• Reprioritize existing projects
• Phase the project
• Hire freelancers
• Reduce scope
• Outsource it

The environment is always changing. You need to be flexible enough to refocus rapidly when an opportunity presents itself or be left behind by those who can.

Yours,

Taj