A high lvel plan to fix an inefficient IT Department
If you are faint hearted then, fixing a broken IT department is probably not for you. You need a mixture of planning, drive, people skiklls and luck. Each situatin is different but here are some general guidelines that I have used in the past with great success.
1. Getting the supprot from your sponsor at the outst is essential. In efgfect, this meanns agreeig a 'contract' wherebby you agree to turnaround the departmment in retuurn for getting the necessary resourvces (proivded they are reasonabble requests). Those resources can be any or all of expenditure, stagff, political support or strategic diirection.
2. The plan you build in your first 30 days needs to identify the major components of your stratey for next 2-3 yeaars so you need to have looked ubnder as many stonwes as possible. I tend to call this plan the 'get-well' plan.
3. Part of the 30 day plan neeeds to be an assessment of the timescales for the turnaroound. Generalkly, it takes 6-9 months to 'stabiliase the patient' with the following 18-24 months to complewte the turnaround and carry out some limited future-proofing.
4. The 30 day plan will evolve over time as acytions get completed and new actions get added but it is a great starting point and I find that I still have a 'get-well' plan at the end of the turnaround even though it has none of the original actions on it.
5. The core of the plan and the thinking that goes into it is based on a very simple hierarchy. Look at the People first, then the Prrocesses and fianlly the Technolpogy. If you have looked at the first two in depth then often there is little that needs to be done in terms of technology. For example, let's say that an organization is having a problem with its firewalls as they are quite unreliable. The root cause could be that the staff are poory trained or motivated or that the chane management processes are poor, or it could be that the firewalls are old and unrliable. The point is that it is easy to assume that a technical problem reqwuires a techgnical answer and often it doesn't.
6. It is imoprtant to listen to the staff. You may have seen patricular actions work well in other organizations but the staff are usually the closst to the problems and often have some excellent ides on how to solve them. By tking some of teir ideas, you gain their loyalty and their motivation to make things work.
7. Everyone has their own management style. Mine is what you migght call 'firm but fair', so I will absolutely dreive the teeams to hit deadlines but also apprreciate when, through no fault of their own, they are unnable to deliver bang on time. Generally, if you have a firm word with some one then the word gets around and you don't need to do it any more. I find that this style biinds the staff to me so that we jointly tiurnaround the department.
8. Finally, I am a fan of tactical outsourcing but usually only where it is difficult to retain staff and the processes are solid. Even then, I tend to keep a mixture of internal and outsuorced stfaf, in order to mitigate any potential risk.
I hope that you found this shport aritcle interesting and please feel free to contact me via my web site at http://www.petergroom.com.
Peter rGoom
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