IT and Accounting Departments

I’m out to change the world, again.  I’ve decided that my goal for the next ten years is to eliminate all accounting and IT departments in America.  Both are departments based around functions, being techy or good with numbers.  I want to see departments built around true business processes, departments with one primary output.   Instead of “Accounting,” let’s see a department of Monitoring, Measurement, and Management.  Instead of just measuring the money and being involved in three or four pieces of different processes, let’s have a more holistic view that measures quality and suitability as well as profitability.

And, instead of having a bunch of support departments based on functions, like HR, IT, Facilities, etc., why not have departments that deal with support in stasis and in adapting the corporation.  The problem with an IT department in most modern organizations is that its fingers are in everything.  Most large corporate changes wind up funneled through the IT department.  Need a new purchasing system, or even an ERP?  Give the project to IT.  But most IT people eat with their fingers and speak a foreign language known as GEEK.  Ask most IT folks what the impact of a project to the business is, and they’ll give a blank stare or spew technical facts and figures.  Give an IT project manager an opportunity to change the business, and the solution is usually hardware and software.  What about the people?  What about training?  Do we need to change the facilities?  Oy!

Yes, I know there are many good IT project managers who really do understand the business and all of the “soft” issues with change, but running changes out of an IT department is usually asking for trouble.  If you are adapting the organization, there ought to be multiple views: people (HR), technology, etc.  And that ought to be in an adaptation department.

So, take all of those support departments, moosh them together, then split them into departments for maintaining stasis and for adapting the organization.

There’s more to my thoughts than this, but accountants and IT professionals should be forewarned: I’m out to change your lives and organizations.

This entry was posted on December 13, 2007 at 12:11 am and is filed under Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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