IT industry experts and practitioners will come together this week to discuss if and how the nirvana of IT-business alignment can be made possible, potentially with the help of popular technologies such as cloud computing, agile development and social media.

Dipping your toes into the ocean of IT governance, Part 1
Dipping your toes into the ocean of IT governance, Part 2

Everyone working in IT knows the promise of IT-business alignment – IT projects prioritized based on business demand, supporting the business needs, to start – but most haven’t realized even the initial benefits of a true partnership between the two components because that type of evolution is just plain difficult for many to achieve. But the clock is ticking on such efforts within companies as it becomes more and more clear that technology drives the business and business leaders won’t be passive in technology decisions. For instance, the advent of cloud computing proves that companies can choose to get their IT from external sources if the internal providers can’t meet the business’ needs adequately or efficiently.

“IT can no longer say to the business, ‘It’s technical; you won’t understand it.’ There is a level of sophistication that the business now has and it’s time for IT to raise to the same level on the business side of the house,” says Steve Romero, vice president and IT Governance Evangelist at CA Technologies, who will be moderating a panel during the vendor’s IT Interactive Executive Forum, which will be broadcast Thursday from Pittsburgh to some 30 cities nationwide.