I am a business side guy who came into IT about 15 years ago as a manager, so I tend to come at all this from a "user" rather than a technologist point of view.
I am trying, trying, trying, to build a customer-centric, rather than technology-centric service delivery model, by engaging with the business leaders directly and having them engage in jointly setting IT priorities and objectives.
The current process identifies investment options, which are then all collected and reviewed by a central senior management team (President, CFO, CIO, CAO).