MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Solving the Problem of Siloed IT in Organizations

To break down information barriers and drive transformation, business leaders must engage directly with technologists and ask the right questions.

I asked the CEO: What was the IT team’s explanation for the rewrite? Why is it needed now, and what alternatives were there? “I have no idea,” came the reply. “And I couldn’t possibly ask them — I’m a business leader, not a coder!"

The company was in trouble, the CEO was falling into an all-too-common trap. In fact, this conversation happens so often in our consulting practice that we have a name for the pattern that underlies it: the technology walled garden.

Keeping the technologists in this comfortable silo can wreak havoc on strategic priorities and trigger a cascade of effects throughout different parts of the organization.

About the Author

Douglas Squirrel (@douglassquirrel) consults with technology organizations of all sizes to create dramatic productivity gains. Jeffrey Fredrick (@jtf) coaches CTOs, runs the London Organizational Learning Meetup, and is managing director of TIM Group, an Acuris company. Squirrel and Jeffrey are coauthors of the recently released book Agile Conversations (IT Revolution Press, 2020) and cohost the weekly Troubleshooting Agile podcast.

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