Business Acumen Isn’t Built in the Classroom — HANYS’ CIO Embeds It in Workflows
by Vivek Swaminathan | November 19, 2019 | Submit a Comment
Figure 1: HANYS Business Acumen Framework

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Reorient IT employees’ attention to business outcomes using indicators: HANYS identifies critical moments where engagement indicators with business partners have changed. These situations provide opportunities to reorient employees’ attention to business outcomes.
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Assess the business context with probing questions: HANYS asks questions to assess the current state, identify root cause problems and assess unknowns and changes to business objectives.
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Provide employees with a decision framework: HANYS identifies common failure patterns and maps out appropriate actions. This framework guides IT employees on how to apply business acumen to determine the best course of action.
Figure 2: Results: Percentage of Teams With Business Acumen

Recommended by the Authors
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“Help IT Employees to Apply Business Acumen During Critical Moments (HANYS)” CIOs can learn how to improve the business acumen of their teams by examining how HANYS reoriented IT employees’ attention to business objectives and guided them to make better decisions during critical moments.
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“8 Success Stories of Business Acumen in Midsize Enterprises” This poster illustrates eight business acumen success stories that help organizations achieve digital transformation initiatives. These stories help MSE IT employees and CIOs understand where better business acumen improves business outcomes.
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“Building Business Acumen for Midsize Enterprise IT Leaders” This video shows business acumen can be built through activities that occur along the IT leader career path. Activities can be tailored to the IT leader’s career background to build this critical skill and achieve the organization’s digital ambitions
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