Effective IT Communications

Empower IT employees to communicate well with any stakeholder across the organization.

Analyst perspective

There has never been an expectation for IT to communicate well.

Brittany Lutes
Research Director
Info-Tech Research Group

Diana MacPherson
Senior Research Analyst
Info-Tech Research Group

IT rarely engages in proper communications. We speak at, inform, or tell our audience what we believe to be important. But true communications seldom take place.

Communications only occur when channels are created to ensure the continuous opportunity to obtain two-way feedback. It is a skill that is developed over time, with no individual having an innate ability to be better at communications. Each person in IT needs to work toward developing their personal communications style. The problem is we rarely invest in development or training related to communications. Information and technology fields spend time and money developing hard skills within IT, not soft ones.

The benefits associated with communications are immense: higher business satisfaction, funding for IT initiatives, increased employee engagement, better IT to business alignment, and the general ability to form ongoing partnerships with stakeholders. So, for IT departments looking to obtain these benefits through true communications, develop the necessary skills.

Executive summary

Info-Tech Insight
No one is born a good communicator. Every IT employee needs to spend the time and effort to grow their communication skills as constant change and worsening IT crises mean that IT cannot afford to communicate poorly anymore.

Your challenge

Overall satisfaction with IT is correlated to satisfaction with IT communications

The bottom line? For every 10% increase in communications there 8.6% increase in overall IT satisfaction. Therefore, when IT communicates with the organization, stakeholders are more likely to be satisfied with IT overall.

Info-Tech Diagnostic Programs, N=330 organizations

IT struggles to communicate effectively with the organization:

• CIOs are given minimal time to present to the board or executive leaders about IT’s value and alignment to business goals.
• IT initiatives are considered complicated and confusing.
• The frequency and impact of IT crises are under planned for, making communications more difficult during a major incident.
• IT managers do not have the skills to communicate effectively with their team.
• IT employees do not have the skills to communicate effectively with one another and end users.

Common obstacles

IT is prevented from communicating effectively due to these barriers:

• Difficulty assessing the needs of the audience to inform the language and means of communication that should be used.
• Using technical jargon rather than translating the communication into commonly understood terms.
• Not receiving the training required to develop communication skills across IT employees.
• Frequently speak at organization stakeholders rather than engaging through dialogue.
• Beginning many communications from a blank page, especially crisis communications.
• Difficulty presenting complex concepts in a short time to an audience in a digestible and concise manner without diluting the point.

Effective IT communications are rare:

53% of CXOs believe poor communication between business and IT is a barrier to innovation.
Source: Info-Tech CEO-CIO Alignment Survey, 2022

“69% of those in management positions don’t feel comfortable even communicating with their staff.”
Source: TeamStage, 2022