We have an interesting culture at my present engagement.  The business comes to IT and wants them to develop their KPI's.    I have seen this in the past but never to this extent.   Industry wise, I think we are in this culture now of Business involvement all the way through the development process, IE Agile/Scrum.   Lets involve the business through our sprints and they set the direction of the work from IT.  Not so in this case.

So let me take this time to rant.  The business and IT must be joined together.   Collaboration with the business is key and of the utmost importance.  When I started this blog, I talked about the importance of the Business Analyst.  That person who stands between the IT and the business in order to help both sides work in harmony.   The problem is that for whatever reason, the business sometimes doesn't want to pay for that role.  Then they end up with problems. Let me say that this role can be picked up by others but the BA acts like the SME of the group.  Someone who can direct the business down the proper path for executing the best results.  If the business understands the work load, then they can help with prioritization, necessary approvals, business goals and knowledge of where they need to go as a company/organization.