IT Managers and Decision Makers, this was written for you.  

IT Departments come in all different shapes and sizes. There are however some key elements I would recommend for effective IT management.  It’s important to certainly have strategy.  

Here is my list:

Asset Management and Risk Assessment

Time and time again you will need to know what your on hand IT Assets are and associated Risks to those assets.  This is important and empowering knowledge to have to make recommendations or make decisions that can help add money back into budget.  Its always good to know how much time is left on your IT assets and when to retire them as well as getting the most you can in return for the sale of used equipment.  Understanding Risk is important so as to ensure your assets will be best protected and your interests are best met.  So there are different formulas for determining this, what’s important is that you have established due diligence toward this area to protect your  business from significant liabilities. 

Change Control

With technology advancing every moment, it is very important to limit risk when implementing changes to your infrastructure and technology.  It’s always good to have management on the same page when you are driving change.  Also communication to employees is key to increasing change awareness.  There are many aspects of change control, what is most important with regards to change is planning and communication.  If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.  And failure to communicate is a structural breakdown which will only drive distraction, confusion, and inefficiency. 

Active measures to reduce costs by going Green

Being Green is a buzz phrase we have been hearing a lot about.  What does it really mean to be Green?  In my view it means just being more efficient.  Does that mean working your employees to the bone with multi-tasking?  No, absolutely not.  You have the potential with building a Green working environment to motivate your employees without the pay raises per-se, ie. a dollar saved is a dollar earned.  With technology today this is very much possible from the front line all the way back up to the top.  There are a lot of ways to be Green and we certainly can help you do that, with the problems in today’s economy it is essential to save money in order to stay in business while maintaining your competitive edge.      

Release Readiness

Release Readiness is very important in the Change Control and Project Management aspects.  With there being a lot of change in technology its important to be ready to effectively implement those changes.  They can be hardware or software.   Its important to be proactive and provide due diligence in technology management, as the very efficiency you seek through it will simply go backward with immature or incorrect technology implementations. 

IT Security

As more and more companies go virtual, and data is their value.  It is important then that assets, availability, reliability, and performance all be examines and protected.  Threats can come from many different directions.  It is important to understand the threats and risks and take action to protect against them.  So there are many different types of measures to be taken when building a Security Baseline.  I listed this step later on because obtaining a full understanding of your IT Assets is key along with doing a Risk Assessment.  These two elements will help management understand what security measures need to be taken.  You are only as strong as your weakest link, also keep in mind your business is as valuable to you as your desire to stay in business.  There is a great deal of cyberfraud and startups that literally steal from their competitors.  If you value staying in business you simply cannot ignore IT Security and pure and proper implementation practices.  Saving money in a foolish manner can put you more at risk.  But doing things smarter will save you money.    As long as there are cyber criminals there will always be a need for cyber security. 

Effective Communications

Each of these are important as they develop well rounded focus as we tackle the most complicated and diverse IT issues.   It’s important to run a tight ship that collectively bears a scalable setup, and adaptable setup.  In my personal view innovative managers and decision makers can utilize effectively their abilities to keep their employees motivated while adding to bottom dollar.  

Let me know how you do, with giving your focus to these principles.