Everyone thinks they are serious about running their business efficiently until something like the current economic client rolls in on them, and then the panic sets in and suddenly budgets which previously seemed balanced and reasonable are on the chopping block, and operations which were previously judged the height of efficiency are scoured for lingering bloat or hidden fat. This is a time of particular worry for CIOs, whose purviews are filled with costs that are little-understood and frequently viewed with some skepticism by other parts of the company.

This aura of mystery has always been a double-edged sword for the IT department. On the one hand, it has allowed a considerable degree of freedom in the past, when times were good, without outside executives satisfied to let well enough alone as long as things ran well. In hard times, though, the attitude can turn to resentment and then the torches and pitchforks come out, and good IT projects are strung up along with the bad by cost-cutting executives who don't understand either.

Recession or not, it's time to change this state of affairs. Business/IT alignment has been a mantra among the enlightened CIOs for a few years now, but it's no long enough to simply ensure that your department is aligned with the primary interests of the business: now you have to demonstrate that alignment and educate the rest of the organization as to the efficacy of your efforts.

Forrester lists their "Five Essential Metrics for Managing IT" and while I don't think they are a panacea, they're not a bad place to start if you're serious about making this effort.

• Alignment of IT Investments to Business Strategy


• Cumulative Business Value of IT Investment


• IT Spending New to Maintenance Ratio


• Critical Business Services Availability


• Operational Health

The last two have always been more or less available outside the IT department and they are probably the most important factors, but the first three are the ones that describe how you are getting to the last two, and that's where you demonstrate your efficiencies. You not only have to justify your performance, but also the precision of your expenditures in achieving it.

Exposing these metrics may be a painful process, both in terms of educational efforts and the simple fact that a lack of clarity may well have resulted in some embarrassingly inappropriate expenditures, but it's time to come clean and get your executive leadership on board before they restructure you without your cooperation. As Forrester puts it:

The risk is that cuts in IT's budget are seen by the CIO's peers as "IT's problem to solve" - but these same business peers will see cuts in project delivery or IT service levels as yet more proof that the CIO's organization isn't capable of supporting their needs.

It's time for IT to be both understood and supported by the entire business, not just the IT department. Technology is now integral to most business efforts, and it is a significant disadvantage accruing to those companies which have not developed a broad understanding of IT both at the executive and staff levels. If the CIO hopes to remain relevant as this integration inevitably occurs (and I suspect the recession will accelerate this trend, for a variety of reasons), he or she needs to lead the charge, not be dragged along at the back of the pack.