How do we, as IT (information technology), interact with the business? This is where I see companies failing quite a bit lately. We just can’t seem to create a good way of communicating with the business people. The business people don’t quite understand IT processes, and we (IT) don’t understand why they are so interested in the IT processes. I encountered this same problem not too long ago, and luckily enough got a new person to be the liaison with the business people. Here is what we did to remedy the situation:

First, we created a subject area data model to help the business people understand the data. The subject area data model helped us explain how one subject (such as customer) intersects with another subject (such as product). At an enterprise level, this helped the users understand the significance of such a model. They understood it was not just the customer.

Second, at a high level, we scoped out the conversion and migration process (at 50,000 feet) so they could understand what data can be converted and what data cannot be converted. This helped A LOT for the business user who likes visuals.

Third, we went into the matching logic for conversion, and swayed the business user to approval of the error reports. By looking at the error reports, and correcting the data, the whole process becomes part of their daily work flow.

We involved the business user, took the time to explain the processes and data, and now rely on them to handle the errors.

JOB DONE!