When you look back on the major IT projects you've been in charge of over the years, to what degree were your business colleagues involved in getting them sold? The best way to sell your IT plans is by developing a process in which the business folks automatically do it for you, advises Marc J. Schiller, author of 11 Secrets of Highly Influential IT Leaders.

For the vast majority of CIOs, it takes more than a little work to get the business side to carry its load, Schiller writes in a post at CIOInsight. The worst part is that CIOs are so used to having to coax and cajole the business people for support that they have come to believe that it's part of the job. This may have made sense when IT was viewed strictly in a service and support role, but it doesn't make sense anymore. If the business side isn't expected to play an active role, it calls into question IT's business value and it underscores the perception that IT is supposed to chase after the business folks for their cooperation.

Schiller suggests that there is a way to change all of this, and it requires just a few modifications in your mindset. You start by deciding that from now on all IT initiatives will entail "a measure of business criticality," which you can determine based on a rating system he sets forth. Then you ask the CEO and CFO to make the criticality index a component of the budget approval process. 

"From personal experience I can tell you that CEOs and CFOs absolutely love this," Schiller writes. "They feel as if you have suddenly given them a whole new level of control over the IT budget. You get instant hero status."

After that, you make sure that the business units understand that any IT requests must include a criticality measure or they won't be considered. "All of a sudden the game changes," Schiller writes. "No more taking anything IT does for granted. Laptop upgrades, new reports, iPhone support, whatever. If it's something the business community wants, they have to put a number on it. And they have to be able to back it up."

In other words, if business colleagues want something, their proactive support for it is automatically "baked into the process."  

For more:
- see Marc J. Schiller's post at CIOInsight

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