Business/IT Alignment – A Fallacy?

Interesting viewpoint by Julian Browne in a comment on InfoQ:

Discussions about alignment are a by-product of the FUD put around by consultancies as the big enterprise integration initiatives of the nineties went off the rails. They created this mental model of something called the "business" and something called "IT" that need to be aligned. It's all the business. You never hear marketing talk about aligning with finance and yet they each perform distinct but complimentary roles that need to cooperate to make a company successful.

I’d go so far as to say that if alignment were possible it would ultimately be detrimental anyway, because the “business” at best would only get exactly what it asked for, without the chance to examine what it could have had if only it knew the capabilities available. To move away from requirements and into possibilities IT needs to grow up, take accountability for its own actions and stop seeing itself as the uninvited guest at the party.