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So how are these and other IT organizations able to do such interesting, unconventional work under the strictest financial constraints? They pick their spots, producing world-class solutions for only a focused set of business goals. The Big IT Project may be dead or on hold, but the Big Idea needn't be -- so long as it's implemented in more measurable, manageable chunks.

Former Chrysler vice chairman Robert Lutz, in his management bestseller Guts, calls them "category busting" products and services. "But keep it simple," Lutz advises. "Don't fall prey to the 'dilution solution.'"

What pulled Chrysler out of its rut in the 1980s wasn't a massive injection of R&D or a gorilla marketing campaign, but guerrilla innovations like the minivan, the Viper and "cab forward" designs, many of them driven by specialized "platform teams" of engineers, marketers, financial mavens -- and IT pros. Chrysler didn't reinvent the car business, but its talented people redefined excellence in certain key slices of it, even with very limited resources. Meantime, their strategic innovations elevated the profile of the entire company. Chrysler slumped back into financial trouble only after the Daimler acquisition, when management stopped taking product-development risks, resorting instead to modest model updates and cost-cutting schemes.

Don't misunderstand. This isn't an argument against fiscal discipline in IT and business. It's an argument against strategic stagnation.

Forrester Research reports that control of IT decisions has tightened over the past 18 months, with 58 percent of North American companies moving to a centralized IT model, compared with only 17 percent at the beginning of 2001. That trend is fine so long as this organizational discipline doesn't marginalize IT. But it appears that many companies are shunting IT back into the back office. "At best," observes AMR Research consultant Bob Parker in a recent report, "IT is credited with improving accountability for processes but gets little acknowledgement for improving performance."

Wake-up call to IT: Get noticed for more than tightening a few belts. Add muscle to the top line. If you're not contributing in some way to your company's revenue-generating, category-busting innovations, you're not living up to your potential as an IT professional. Writes Lutz: "Betting on a category-buster takes guts." Do you and your organization have what it takes?