IT Management Slideshow: Six Decisions IT Employees Should Never Make
By Dennis McCafferty | Posted 02-25-2011Decision 1
How much to spend.IT employees tend to want to spend more than is necessary, even when it conflicts with business goals.
Advice:
Avoid overspending by defining concrete outcomes of tech purchases.Telling your team to simply "get a solution that will provide more information" can waste thousands of dollars spent chasing elusive benefits.
Decision 2
Defining the business processes that receive IT dollars.It's up to the CIO to decide which IT initiatives will advance business strategies.
Advice:
The downside of allowing your IT staff to define business processes? They'll get buried in the pursuit of irrelevant projects.
Decision 3
Whether to integrate an IT capability organization-wide.Centralizing IT capability can save money—but might diminish flexibility.
Advice:
It's up to the CIO to strike the balance between optimal flexibility and flexibility that becomes costly and dilutes departmental synergy.
Decision 4
How good do our IT services need to be?Your IT team will naturally seek a Cadillac when, sometimes, a Buick will do.
Advice:
It's up to you to effectively measure which bells and whistles are really needed. Determine how much reliability, responsiveness and data accessibility you need (not want) to have.
Decision 5
How much security and/or privacy risk is tolerable.Overemphasis on security can impact customer, supplier relationships and productivity.
Advice:
It's up to you to have a good handle on how much inconvenience other departments can tolerate in the name of security.
Decision 6
Who gets blamed for IT failures.You're the boss. You are responsible for assigning clearly defined roles and expectations.
Advice:
Establishing metrics for IT performance removes temptation of a blame game within your IT department and allows for objective post-failure evaluation.
