Thought-leaders have advocated various techniques to align IT with business. Suggestions have included: improving communication between IT and business folks, seating both groups at the same location, etc. These approaches don’t seem to have cut it.
The alignment problem continues for several years now. It is number two in Gartner's Top 10 CIO Strategies for 2009.
In my opinion, the problem will continue . . . Unless we're willing to build a solution into the software development practice itself. A business process centric approach to software development is a practical solution to the alignment issue.
By its "nature," a business process centric approach keeps the software team's focus on business strategy and process performance. By using a practitioner who uniquely combines business analysis and design skills, the approach ensures that "requirements" (including strategy) are in fact translated to desgin without a fundamental change in perspective or priority, which is common where there is a handoff. The approach also suggests process and other changes, if any, required to make that strategy happen.