kh1

The generalists vs specialists discussion [1] for some reason reminded me of a question I had for a long time: how to bridge the gap between business and IT.

I work in finance industry, on business department side, and fairly tech-savvy (e.g. write Python every day and manage SQL database and linux machines). As such large part of my job is to "work with IT".

A project sometimes needs to be implemented by IT (corporate policy) and that's when I come in as well. The issue is that when business side, including myself, explains what has to be done, IT misses deadline, over-engineers the solution, and/or misses critical problem due to lack of the big picture.

I always say "ask us any question", but that hasn't worked well so far. Usually IT people take their own time to study whatever they need (I'm not saying this is a bad thing), but it's just not quick enough for business side.

This leads business people to think it's faster to work without IT (and it is from my experience because we do have enough technical skills), then the gap widens.

Presumably some folks here work for IT department, how do you deal with business requirements, or business people in general? What can I do to not widen the gap anymore between business and IT?

FWIW I didn't mean to rant here. I genuinely don't know how to improve the connection.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26395361