The Operationalization of Strategic Alignment: Driving IT Value through Business-IT Dialogues

Abstract

Information technology (IT) as a strategic asset urges organizations to establish strategic alignment between business and IT stakeholders to maximize the contribution of IT. Yet, they still struggle to effectively communicate the strategic perspective and the business value of IT. In three organizational settings, we conduct action design research to effectively communicate IT business value. We develop a structured end-to-end process with four steps: initialization, stakeholder identification, strategic dialogues, and consolidation & analysis. We derive eight design principles to design and implement this business-IT dialogue format that strengthens mutual understanding and strategic perspective. Hence, this paper provides guidance for organizations to establish strategic conversations between business and IT stakeholders and advances research on operationalizing business-IT alignment.