What is the difference between efficient and inefficient IT management? The former acts consistently and proactively, while the latter only cares about “putting out fires”. What is the reason for this differentiation? More than ever, this is a critical issue for modern IT industries. As technological innovations become increasingly determinant for a business’s success, making management more efficient has become absolutely indispensable. Going a little further, an abandoned and reactive IT management usually costs a lot more than a well-maintained IT.
In this article we try to share some key points on how to make your IT management of your company much more efficient, so that you can actually make IT a strategic growth factor. Good reading!
Set clear and doable goals for the IT industry
It is essential to set clear and feasible goals for the IT industry, as well as clarify to the team what the company’s expectations are from it. This understanding gives focus and helps shape priorities.
Without a well-defined role, the IT sector has no direction. In this way, your team cannot be “efficient” because its members do not understand what that means in the company’s business context. In general, the IT team’s actions lie between two ends of a continuum.
On the one hand, it must act operationally, focusing on the most efficient and/or least cost processes to provide minimum services to the business. On the other hand, the team should act as a facilitator, concentrating on enabling solutions for internal clients.
Disconnection occurs when IT management fails to ensure that this dual function is performed. In other words, in operational terms, the industry continues to incur high costs which, in turn, prevents the offer of effective solutions.
Define appropriate metrics
You can only improve what can be measured, right? Effective IT management is not limited to setting clear and feasible objectives for your team, but also is concerned with measuring your results. After all, having clearly defined goals helps you better understand which metrics to use.
Indicators for you
So instead of focusing on “vain” indicators that make your team look good in the eyes of management, you should find metrics that fit your priorities directly. In this context, the ideal is to define few metrics. Thus, your team can focus on priorities that are both solid and comprehensive at the same time.
This prevents your employees from distracting themselves with secondary ideas and ensures that they maintain a steady pace to complete smaller tasks, as well as simplifying the collection of telltale measures of their progress. From this point on, it is easier to continuously train employees to move more quickly and efficiently.
Build relationships with other business leaders
To be efficient, IT management must understand two essential principles: first, the importance of being actively involved in the decision-making process, and second, the fact that there is no way to deviate from its basic responsibilities. By acting in accordance with these principles, you will be more likely to gain the credibility to take your own steps and act on your convictions.
Once you build your reputation, it is advisable to build relationships with other leaders in order to understand your problems and how you can overcome them. This is a decisive step to safely enter the decision-making process.
This holds true whether you operate in a large company or in the case of owning your own business. After all, if the IT industry is not involved when it comes to overcoming problems, it will be more complicated to implement solutions that work with the company’s current systems. Usually the IT industry is seen with a support tool while it could be at the top of the business success priorities as important as finance or marketing.
Focus on causes, not effects
IT departments often suffer from overwork and lack of staff. Many employees complain that they spend most of their time putting out the fires and dealing with help tickets. How can your team do anything else when urgent problems take up all of your time?
In other words, to spend a smaller percentage of time dealing with urgent problems, it is necessary to understand and address the roots of a problem, not just the “symptoms”. Okay, but how to effect this?
The best insights come from the people who really work on the front lines. However, they need management support and encouragement so they feel comfortable to take a step back and reflect on the causes that lead to recurring problems. In this case, take the time to talk more to the end user. During an on-call call, worry about asking people about your needs and ideas for solving IT problems.
Search for specialized help
We know how much it costs to maintain an efficient IT team. Having good analysts, able to lessen the recurrence of technology problems and still be strategic agents in your business, can come out more expensive than your budget allows.
As an alternative, an outsourced IT company can be an interesting solution, simply for that reason: the profit of an IT service provider is totally tied to its service efficiency. That is, instead of hiring more employees and paying them by the hour, you can hire an IT partner who will deliver results to you because this partner will use all the resources to make your IT as efficient as possible – will have a profit on the service contract.
If you are interested in better understanding how it would work if you hired a third party to take care of your IT, contact people for a non-committal conversation.