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Are Your IT Managers Stuck in the Iron Age?
By Gail Finger, November 5-11, 2001
The world of IT is changing while the expectations and practices of technically trained IT managers are not. We will look at this problem by giving an historical perspective and offering some advice on how to solve it in your organization.
Historically the focus of IT groups has been to develop solutions, from the ground up, for problems posed by technical customers. These customers, while not knowledgeable of computer programming or database management, had expertise in their particular fields. Solutions were expected to meet technical specifications and be accessible to expert users, or individuals trained to use them.
In addition, IT people have traditionally been very task-oriented, individual contributors – most comfortable working on their own piece of a project uninterrupted by the end users. Today’s decentralized IT systems make this work style ineffective.
IT systems are now used by a wide range of technical and non-technical people – most of whom are unwilling to accept applications that are not user friendly.
In addition, IT departments are doing less “ground up” development. They typically purchase solutions from large application developers and the key to successful implementation is the ability to customize the application to meet the specific needs of the business unit.
That requires an IT organization that is more responsive to users of all abilities – one that listens, proposes solutions and welcomes feedback.
In short IT has gone from:
- Application developmer to service provider.
- Depending on individual performance (e.g. a programmer) to a team based model that includes users and is client centered.
- An inward focus on the technology to an outward focus on the end user.
- A technology driven environment to one driven by business needs.
Start With Your Managers
These changes have created the need for a new kind management. Today’s IT managers must be more adept at change, quicker to respond and must measure success by looking at effectiveness, not just efficiency. To succeed, IT managers will need to learn communication, team building, conflict management, and coaching skills.
There are four key steps to ensuring that your IT department is efficient, effective, and contributing to the success of your organization:
I. Conduct an internal audit of your IT department; assess your department’s strengths and gaps, organizational structure and challenges; look at the best practices within your organization; and look at the problem areas.
Questions you might want to ask yourself include:
- Are there still “turf wars,” or have your teams begun to work together to solve customer problems?
- Is staff still stuck in an individual contributor mode of working, or has your organization moved into working in client centered project teams?
- Is there a particular manager or team receiving consistent praise for their customer service and timeliness?
- What do our stakeholders have to say about how well we serve them?
II. Plan the necessary changes.
Consider these important steps:
- Revisit your company’s mission and vision and rewrite them if necessary.
- Align the change goals for the IT department with the strategic business goals of the larger organization.
- List the specific changes required of the IT department, its leaders, managers and supervisors to achieve those goals.
III. Develop action plans for specific individuals key to the future success of the department. They should include the following:
- Desired outcome (behavior change).
- Benefits to the individual and organization when the outcome is achieved.
- What is at stake for the individual and organization if the goal is not met.
- Potential obstacles and potential solutions.
- Action steps, start dates and timelines.
- Name of coach or mentor and role he or she will play.
If you do not have people on staff who can assist with developing these detailed action plans and then provide the coaching and mentoring necessary to ensure that the goals are achieved, then it’s time to bring in an outside consultant. The consultant should be a psychologically trained behavior change specialist who understands team process, has effective conflict management skills, and is able to transfer much of his/her knowledge to your staff.
IV. Reassess and refine. Be sure to include periodic assessments of progress (at least quarterly). In order to do that, you will need to design a system for measuring success. This system might include measures of:
- Customer satisfaction/customer loyalty.
- Time it takes to complete a project.
- How many client focused project teams are in place at a given point in time.
- A survey of employee satisfaction.
- Amount of unwanted turnover in your IT department.
You should expect this change initiative to take six months to a year to complete, depending on the size of your department and the resources available. It is well worth the time and effort. When you enhance your IT management, you will gain a competitive advantage for your company, reduce costs, and increase productivity.
Read more on this topic in our white paper titled: Transforming Your Best Technical People into Great Managers and Leaders and have a look at the variety of Training and Development programs available for your managers.