Summer Interview Series #1 - A Recipe for Marketing and IT Harmony From Peter Kretzman

It's summer, and I wish that I could say I'm doing interviews instead of solitary blog posts because I'm on vacation.  But actually, I'm doing them because I'm really busy, and because I know some terrific talents in the e-commerce space that I always enjoy talking to.

One of them is Peter Kretzman.  Peter and I worked together when he was CIO at Classmates Online.  He has over 25 years of leadership success across a wide variety of industries and platforms, including wireless, social networking and enterprise software.   I always learn from him, both as a technology leader and as a seasoned executive.  You can check out Peter's blog at http://www.peterkretzman.com

Getting marketing and IT teams to see eye to eye is a challenge in a lot of  organizations.  Why is that?

It can be a challenge.  Here are the factors that I tend to see again and again:

• Business expectations are always sky-high,  not to mention market pressures in an increasingly competitive world.
• Trade-offs (functionality needed vs. time alloted, or project vs. project) are not well understood, or simply not accepted.  Most organizations regularly bite off  far more than they can chew. 
• Communication (from IT) on "what it will take to deliver" is usually deficient.  Communication on what's needed to "keep the lights on" and "support the last project that we launched"  is usually deficient.

What is it like when it's working well?  What kinds of processes and communication disciplines are in place?

I'll step on one of my favorite soapboxes here: it's absolutely critical that projects be viewed as a portfolio rather than one by one in terms of the level of effort and time line required.  That requires a systematic examination, at regular intervals, of all projects in the immediate pipeline, and a slating of what will get worked on and what won't.  When this works well, (usually via a major quarterly planning session, along with a high-profile weekly recap), everyone understands that project success is a team effort and the mutual trust starts to build:  IT understands that everyone is pushing hard for launch, that the intentions or success criteria aren't going to change underneath them, and that we'll all  deal with issues and roadblocks jointly as they come up.  Equally, marketing folks understand that there's a wealth of complex detail, trade-offs and that their contributions are as critical to delivery as anyone else's.

The "portfolio planning" concept is hard for business people to accept, as it appears it will slow them down - but it can actually help things get done more efficiently, right?

A portfolio planning approach doesn't just "help", but is actually essential to get things done efficiently and with some degree of predictability.  Projects can't be dealt with  serially, one at a time.  We all need to work on multiple things at once in today's complex business environments.  So: if we're not working on projects in a serial fashion, and we want to meet delivery commitments, then we all need to understand the whole of what we are working on, and we need to have this mix stay fairly constant for a time period (in my experience, a quarter is a good time envelope here).  Every shift of this plan causes ripple effects that can end up derailing just about everything.  As the saying goes: plan the work, then work the plan.

So, for marketing and e-commerce leaders  who want a better relationship with their IT teams, what are some of the things they should start doing differently?

• Include the senior IT leader as much as possible as a colleague in all business planning.  She leads a service organization for the rest of the business, but she's not just an order taker.
• Don't question the estimates you're hearing just because you want it faster.  Instead, ensure that all terms and objectives are clearly and jointly understood, and then probe about alternative approaches that could be taken to change the game.  Get the IT people to embrace one of my favorite adages:  Don't tell them no.  Tell them what it'll take to say "yes".
• Adhere to your own commitments and deadlines on the project (i.e. the things that you need to deliver to IT before launch).  They're on the "critical path", which means if they slip, the whole project is likely to slip.
• Never suggest that simply adding resources will solve delivery time line problems.  It won't, because of interdependencies and communication issues.  Read The Mythical Man Month by Frederick P. Brooks.
• Don't try to get everything into a first release.  For follow-on releases, it's your responsibility to follow up and prioritize the subsequent functions to be built rather than assume this will happen automatically.  Recognize that the upcoming quarterly planning process will need to prioritize it against all the other wishlist items you have in mind.
• Recognize that there's a high cost to switching the game plan (e.g. abandoning or deferring a project in progress so that you can shift to something which now seems more compelling).

Peter and I welcome any thoughts on other "best practices" out there - let us know what works for you.