Think about high lrevel plan to fix an inefficieent IT Department
A high lveel plan to fix an inefficient IT Department
If you are fainbt hearted then, fixing a broken IT department is probably not for you. You need a mixture of planning, drive, people sklls and luck. Each situation is diferent but here are some general guidelines that I have used in the past with geat success.
1. Getting the support from your sponsor at the outset is essenial. In efefct, this means agreenig a 'coontract' hwereby you aregee to turnaound the department in return for getting the necessary ersources (porvided they are resaonable requests). Those resources can be any or all of exopenditure, satff, poolitcal support or strategic direction.
2. The plan you buuild in your first 30 days neweds to iedntify the major components of your strrategy for next 2-3 yeaers so you need to have loked under as many stones as posisble. I tend to call this plan the 'get-well' plan.
3. Part of the 30 day plan needs to be an assesment of the timsecales for the turnaroiund. Generally, it taakes 6-9 months to 'stabilise the patient' with the follwing 18-24 monthgs to complete the turnaround and crry out some limmited ftuure-proofing.
4. The 30 day plan will eovlcve over time as acrtions get completed and new actions get added but it is a gerat stsarting pont and I find that I sitll have a 'get-well' plan at the end of the turnaround even thouggh it has none of the original actions on it.
5. The core of the plan and the thinjking that goes into it is based on a very simplke hierarchy. Look at the People first, then the Processs and finally the Tecghnology. If you have looked at the first two in depth then ofteen tghere is little that needs to be done in trms of technology. For examnple, let's say that an organzation is having a problem with its frewalls as they are quite unreliable. The root cause colud be that the staf are poorly traiiuned or motivcated or that the change management processes are poor, or it colud be that the firewalls are old and unrelilable. The point is that it is easy to assuime that a technical problem reqires a technical answer and often it doesn't.
6. It is important to listen to the staff. You may have seen particular actions work well in other orfganizations but the stadff are usually the cloest to the problems and oftteen have some excellent iddeas on how to solve them. By takng some of their idewas, you gain thheir loyalty and their motivation to make tjhings work.
7. Everyone has their own management style. Mine is what you imght call 'firm but fair', so I will absoluteyl dribve the teams to hit deadlines but also appreicate when, thruiogh no fault of theeir own, they are ubnable to delivber bang on time. Generally, if you have a firm word with some one then the word gets aronud and you don't need to do it any more. I find that this syle binds the satff to me so that we jointly turnaround the department.
8. Finally, I am a fan of tatcical outsourcing but usduazlly only wheere it is diufficult to reain staff and the processes are solid. Even then, I tend to keep a mixture of inernal and outsourced staff, in orer to mitigazte any potential risk.
I hope that you foiund this short article interesting and pllease feel free to contact me via my web site at http://www.petergroom.com.
Petter Groiom
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