This past month, our IT department implemented a half-dozen new policies for security purposes. For a non-technical line-of-business employee such as myself, I experienced the usual mixture of frustration and resignation.
On one hand, it is always frustrating to have new rules and bureaucratic processes slapped on my work for no immediate reward to my team. On the other hand, I am not knowledgeable enough about IT or our infrastructure to put up any sensible argument against new policies, processes or procedures.
When it comes to IT, it seems like we've all universally accepted this relationship.
IT makes and understands the applications and processes, so they make the rules. After all, we don't understand IT processes to the same extent of the teams that are actually entrenched in them. However, the interesting thing about most companies is that line-of-business owners experience a similar concoction of frustration and resignation even when they are intelligently trying to get applications and processes built for the express benefit of their own teams.
I can't claim to know what's best in terms of IT policy and process, but when it comes to marketing operations, I shouldn't need to spend time putting a master class together just so that I can explain why I need a solution and what it should look like to IT. If I can build something myself then I should build it.
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Nevertheless, for a majority of teams, getting a new application or process requires making a compelling case for why you are asking for precious IT resources. This is one of the main tensions between IT and non-technical teams in that the non-technical line-of-business teams know what processes and applications they need in order to do their jobs, but IT is almost always the only group that can build those processes and applications.
That is one of the reasons why you've probably never heard the words "be creative" from your IT department (at least not in any sincere way). There's no room for creativity, agility, or experimentation when requesting new applications and processes in the typical company. It's an uphill slog fighting for priority with other business teams, giving presentations about ROI and politicking to get solutions through the gauntlet.
So what can be done?
Providing the tools for non-technical business teams to do the same work has been impossible until very recently with the advent of no-code and low-code application platforms. If you are a line-of-business owner and want the freedom to innovate internally with applications and processes and if you know what you need accomplished and understand the dramatic productivity boost that building your own applications can provide, then look into no-code and low-code platforms.
If you are an IT leader and want to put your team towards more mission critical tasks, then empower your business teams with an application platform so they can get creative while still abiding by your organization's security and governance standards.
ALSO READ: What & Who Are Low-Code Business Application Platforms For?
