Empathy ! You need first to understand and clarify what is driving the pushback: is it a conflicting project or strategy? Is it a persona that feels threatened and onboarding a whole department ? Is it the fear of change when benefits are not clearly explained? Meet the conflicting team half-way: If you engage yourself and your own team to understand what is the real reason, you can leverage the whole situation with the support of the stakeholders to re-assure (with a better action plan, a newly involved key persona, ... )

As estratégias de tecnologia precisam estar conectadas com a estratégia do negócio. Entretanto há iniciativas técnicas que precisam ser bem comunicadas para que os times de negócio entendam a importância e riscos que serão mitigados, exemplo disso são projetos de cyber ou de resiliência de infra-estrutura, para ambos é necessário o investimento a fim de mitigar impactos ao negócio por um eventual ataque cibernético que pode gerar parada da operação e até mesmo exposição de dados sensíveis.

All great points, but the biggest problem that everyone seems to miss is holding business stakeholders accountable for their roles and responsibility of being a business owner which includes, raising concerns in timely manner, as early as possible, be able to start visualizing their future roadmap with the new technology in place and have an open conversation about their needs due to the change in the technology landscape. The keyword is an "accountable stakeholder" - So before you engage, communicate and provide support to an "accountable stakeholder", make sure to "identify" the right one with the right mindset, authority and competency.

A TI (e por consequência a sua estratégia) não é um fim em si mesmo, mas sim um meio de suportar e acelerar a capacidade das organizações em alcançarem seus objetivos. Se a estratégia de TI está sendo contestada ou debatida, nada mais justo do que escutar os pontos divergentes e assim avaliar se eles são argumentos focados nos "objetivos" ou nas "posições" das áreas de negócios. Racionalidade, transparência e foco na agenda da empresa (e não apenas da própria área) tendem a vencer qualquer debate no médio e longo prazo!

Resolving pushback starts with alignment and communication. I engage business units early to understand their priorities and concerns, ensuring the IT strategy aligns with broader organizational goals. Clear, data-driven communication is key—I use metrics and case studies to demonstrate the value and impact of proposed updates. Collaborative workshops help address pain points and foster buy-in, while phased rollouts with measurable milestones build confidence. I also remain flexible, adapting plans to incorporate feedback without losing focus on strategic objectives. By balancing transparency, collaboration, and agility, I turn resistance into alignment and shared success.

Honestly not “simple” but the approach is fairly straightforward: 1) Ensure my IT Strategy was not developed in a silo; be able to connect the dots to the overall Corporate strategy (bus-dev, financial and operational); 2) Understand the “problems” the business needs to solve, the goals they set to achieve; 3) Be able to present “my” IT strategy in a manner that allows the business to recognize that “my” strategy will help them achieve their goals; and 4) Where platform, infrastructure, stack, etc. (aka “plumbing and wiring”) is hard to explain to the non-technical, I make sure I am able to show the value of these prerequisites that open the doors to innovation and strategic initiatives. Also, listen and be open to change.

There is nothing wrong with such pushback. They might have the view/issues for which they are doing so. We need to understand the viewpoint of the business units for their action and work accordingly for the company's betterment. The ultimate goal should be achieving strategic objectives with the collaboration of all the business units.

This is only natural. Any modern day enterprise is a bureaucracy and is driven by defined powers and objectives. Every unit is driven by its own objectives, just like IT unit. And hence the people with individual and team targets push back. Its not limited to IT strategy but with anything that is out of way from the defined objectives on which my yearly appraisals are going to be. For example, lets say you are in consumer electronics business, your objective would be sales targets and not IT. if IT can increase sales, all ears. As for conflict resolution, its a plain recipe. One needs to convince that the IT strategy is aligned with the business objective. Period.

Handling pushback on IT strategy updates involves listening to stakeholder concerns, clearly communicating the benefits and alignment with organizational goals, and providing supporting data. Engage key stakeholders early, offer training and support for smooth implementation, and address risks with clear mitigation plans. Be open to feedback, adjust where necessary, and showcase early successes to build momentum and support for the strategy.