Are You Important? Social Network Analysis says Maybe

There is a fundamental reason why any IT organization is successful and considered to be a valuable asset to the company. The quality of relationships that IT leaders develop with each other, customers, and other business units directly relate to the success that the IT organization achieves as a whole. The IT executive’s ability to build quality relationships and a bridge gaps between sales, marketing, and other lines of business can make or break IT’s success. IT value in the new economy is not about how fast an application responds, but the quality of personal relationships the CIO and IT management develop with other business units and customers. Pure technology is essentially black and white. It is the human interactions that makes or breaks many projects and initiatives. Consider an example of an IT project that you have mostly likely seen in your organization. A key IT initiative meant to drive efficiency in a critical business process is approved and started. This is cross functional and requires close interaction and input from several teams to be a success. As with many projects, eventually a show stopping issue is uncovered. When management of conflicting teams have a good personal relationship, and openly share information they come together, discuss the options, and mutually decide on a course of action and the project continues uninterrupted. When the same management does not have a good relationship the show stopping issue grinds the project to a halt. Finger pointing begins and each team begins trying to dictate their solution. Conflicting solutions are presented to upper management and an executive must step in to resolve the problem. Once the decision has been made, one or both teams feel the decision is biased against them and a negative attitude towards the project begins to develop. While the project might eventually be completed, the end result is probably not what it could be as the amount of physical and emotional energy required to manage the conflict detracts from the end result. So, how do you measure the quality of relationships developed within your team? Well, the good news is you already have a good idea who your top performers and bottom performers are without using a set of metrics to figure it out. However, introducing an analysis of relationship metrics could provide you with new insight into team members. As an executive, your interactions with a manager might be drastically different than how that same manager reacts with others in the management chain. Someone who is completely open and helpful to you might not be so upfront and honest with peers. You might also discover some managers are not held in high regard by their peers, or find that a manager who flies under the radar is one of your best assets. Traditional Relationship Metrics There are traditional methods of gathering relationship metrics that might be appropriate in your environment. The following are some methods you are likely familiar with are helpful in your management’s relationship evaluation. These include anonymous peer surveys, formal peer review, skip level meetings, self reviews, customer surveys, and post project reviews. Some areas to look for when using the above tactics to evaluate your manager’s relationship quality are: Teamwork, leadership skills, technical aptitude, communication, balance decision making, customer satisfaction, ethics, diversity, accountability, recognition, coaching and development skills, and inspiration to others. Social Network Analysis Another method of measuring the relationships your organization has developed with each other and with business units is Social Network Analysis (SNA). While Social Network Analysis is less well known, it can be a valuable tool in evaluating the organizational ties of groups and individuals within the groups. The goal of a Social Network Analysis is to find the structure of an organization which includes information on how organizations are run, how problems are solved, alliances, informal subgroups, and how well individuals achieve their goals. The foundation of SNA is based on viewing social relationships in terms of individuals (nodes) and relationships between individuals (ties). Each node can have many ties of varying types with other nodes in the network. To gather the node and tie information, a set of simple questions is administered to the individuals aimed at identifying their positive and negative connections. Examples are: Who do you look to for advice? With whom do you discuss personal matters? Who do you report too? Who are your most valuable subordinates? From whom must you obtain buy-in? Who is your most difficult contact? After gathering nodes and tie data within an organization, a social diagram is constructed showing a graphical representation of all nodes and associated ties. Once data is gathered, a social diagram can be constructed and analyzed. Valuable information can be found which can lead to a better understanding of who the key players are in your organization, who is holding the organization back, who holds influence with others, how decisions are made, how information flows, who trusts who, and who is in the decision making loop. Another key benefit of Social Network Analysis is that it can reveal how informal networks that are key to an organization’s success can differ from official reporting charts and how actual decision making processes differ from previous assumptions. Organizations who have used Social Network Analysis have reported that they discovered hidden assets that were playing key roles in their team, found individuals viewed as key players that were surprisingly isolated, identified anonymous workers that held powerful influences, and discovered workers who were gatekeepers rather than information sharers. There are many free and commercial software tools available to implement a Social Network Analysis within your IT department such as InFlow, Pajek, Keyplayer, and Netvis. Tools such as these can be valuable in gathering and analyzing data on the quality of relationship development demonstrated by your team. Information on these tools as well as others is readily accessible on the internet. Conclusion While an IT executive might already have an idea of who works well with others and who doesn’t, many do not try to quantify which leaders demonstrate good relationship development. Once you can quantify the relationship results, you can start taking action based on your findings. These results also give you another view into who your top performers are, who to reward, and who you can count on for critical projects. Often, efforts are made to evaluate relationship quality and to try and resolve teamwork issues only when a serious conflict arises. This is the worst time to build relationships as the parties are already in conflict. It is important to implement a relationship evaluation during non confrontational times to increase these skills in your management chain. Since relationship quality is key to an organization’s success, these metrics can provide you with another means to evaluate your organization and how to raise the bar with your customers. Good relationships also foster understanding of other group’s business goals and processes. It is the IT executive’s responsibility to understand the business and how business processes and teams integrate across the enterprise. An effective technology strategy cannot exist without business process understanding and quality relationships with other the business leaders. The best organizations have and retain the best people. By fostering an environment of teamwork built on quality relationships, your top performers will be happier, more productive, and enjoy the workplace. People happy with their environment are more loyal, work harder, and are less likely to look elsewhere for a new opportunity.