ABSTRACT
Quality information and effective information systems are vital to the success of the modern enterprise. But the magnitude of IT spending on ill-conceived or poorly implemented IT projects is staggering. Business responds to change every day. Customers increasingly want more choice, speed, and quality, all at a lower total cost, while competitors wage a perpetual battle to steal market share. The business and IT organization each have a long list of concerns and challenges—pain they feel every day. While Lean thinking stresses that every problem is an opportunity for improvement, business and IT stakeholders often have difficulty finding common ground, or even speaking a common language. Information, information systems, and the IT organization are tightly interwoven within the fabric of virtually every business process of the modern organization. Once improvement efforts gain momentum and the low-hanging fruit has been harvested, business and IT stakeholders work together to address the tougher issues that align strategy with daily activity throughout the organization.
