In fact recent unemployment trends in the US have been on the rise with the weak economic conditions.  However, information technology jobs have fallen at only 60% of the national decline.  That’s great news for techies!

Yet, with all this possible growth and excitement around the information technology sectors, and possibility of higher job security, women are generally not seeking out degrees in computer sciences nor are they applying for information technology roles at corporations.  In fact, in a recent study by the Association for Computer Machinery only 32% of high school girls considered computer science or information technology to be a “good” career choice compared to 74% of high school boys surveyed.  Only 9% of girls, but 28% of boys listed computer science or information technology as “very good” in the same poll.  Interesting indeed!

As a man, I look at our field as highly challenging, highly motivating, and a very stable career choice.  What’s not to like actually?  Other than on-call and 24/7-365 support, which many careers in information technology are free from, I truly don’t understand why more women are not pursing careers in IT!

I think we need to work hard as computer science and information technology professionals to encourage young women to pursue IT careers.  It’s simply time for this perception to change. Not just for the sake of the many young women who would likely enjoy IT as a career if encouraged, but also for the industry as a whole.  Just think how the industry could change and grow if more women showed interest and joined our field.  Women tend to be creative in ways that men are not.  More women in IT could spark inspiration in companies who’s products are targeted at well, women.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m sure it is time for this to change!

This can be a slow process to get past, and in some cases may require outside help from your superiors and/or your Human Resources department.  In most cases however, all that is required is a little time and communication from both parties.  This starts by building a relationship with your team.  Talk to each person, both in public and private.  Learn their talents and recognize the contributions.

Politics at Work
Many new managers will immediately find the political landscape in their new role, whether they mean to or not.  Projects and corporate goals create political landscapes and as you make decisions in your new role, you are helping to shape that landscape.

It is important to recognize that while some managers (or non-managers for that matter) do their best to stay out of politics in the workplace at all costs, other managers thrive on it.  Politics can come in many different forms, from turf wars over who manages a department or project down to something as simple as what color a company logo or shirt is.

The point is, politics are at every company and you as an IT Manager needs to be aware of it.  Some politics are necessary.  Anytime humans are involved in a decision making process there are going to be non-objective considerations that have to be made.  For example:  Jim is being promoted to a new management role, but Cathy is against it because Jason is Jim’s best friend.  She believes Jim will play favorites with Jason while hanging her out to dry.  This is part of human nature and has to be dealt with.

The roles of an IT Manger can vary from company to company.  In some companies the IT Manager is responsible for strategic direction and planning, while at other companies the IT Manager may fulfill a purely technical leadership role.  Be sure you fully understand this role at your company or during the interview when changing jobs.  Also, be aware that as companies grow and change, the roles of the managers will grow and change with it.

This large variation in responsibilities and the constant change in IT organizations and responsibilities can be a great thing for your career.  This allows you to start out in a role more suited to your abilities and grow into larger ones.  It also means that as the company grows, so must you.  Information Technology (sometimes referred to as Information Systems) is a career that requires continued learning and adaptability.  New technologies, systems, and processes are created almost weekly.

The bad news is that the role of an IT Manager with all of these key skills and the ever changing landscape is quite often a thankless job.  One Director of Fortune 500 retailer was once quoted telling her boss “If everything is working the way it was planned and architected, no one knows I exist.  However, when it breaks, everyone knows my name.”  That is to say that even the best IT Managers get the wind knocked out from under their sails on occasion.

Keep in mind that to many people an IT Manager can mean many different things.  Each department within the organization will have a slightly different perspective of what they believe your job and your focus to be.  This also applies to your boss, and his/her superiors.

The Definition of a Manger
The AMA president defined the role of a manager as “Getting things done through other people.”  Answers.com defines management as “Authoritive control over a person or group of people.”  As you might notice, these definitions are at somewhat different ends of the spectrum.  The first represents collaboration while the second the represents control.  While both are accurate descriptions, it will be your job as a manager to use the right definition or combination thereof at the right time(s).

The truth is most likely that you, as a manager, will fall more heavily into one of these definitions that the other.  You should take some time to evaluate yourself and your style.  Then, be cognizant of the style you are most likely to swing to.  This will save you some time down the road as you learn to manage others and conflicts arise.

The catch is that most likely, as you grow in your career and job you are likely to change your style to suit the company and/or culture you are in.  So which style will you be?  It’s hard to tell.

There are many tales of managers who change companies and are shocked to find out that their style of management is completely incompatible with their new company’s culture.  One example might be a manager who directs her employees to execute a step by step plan for the rollout of a new application.  However, the company culture is very collaboritive and the team she is now leading expects to be part of the decisions, planning and direction of the project.

1. Thinking That You Know Everything
If you were just promoted to Applications Manager, you may feel you know everything about programming. Even if that were true (and trust me, it isn’t) you sure don’t know everything about the most important part of your new job, managing people. Listen to the people around you. Ask for their input when appropriate. Keep an open mind.

2. Showing Everyone Just Who’s In Charge
Trust me, everyone in your group knows who the new manager is. You don’t have to make a big show about being “the boss” or “the man”. You do, however, have to demonstrate that, as the boss, you are making a positive difference.

3. Immediately Change Everything
Don’t re-invent the wheel. Just because the way something is done isn’t the way you would do it, it isn’t necessarily wrong. Learn the difference between “different” and “wrong”.  Change wrong immediately.  Don’t change different until the time is right, which could mean NEVER.

4. Being Afraid To Do Anything
Maybe you didn’t ask for the promotion. Maybe you aren’t even sure you can do the job. Don’t let that keep you from doing the job the best you can. Upper management wouldn’t have put you into the job if they didn’t have confidence that you could handle it.

5. Not Taking The Time To Get To Know Your People
Maybe you worked alongside these people for years. That doesn’t mean you know them. Learn what makes them excited, how to motivate them, what they fear or worry about. Get to know them as individuals, because that’s the only way you can effectively manage them. Your people are what will make or break you in your quest to be good manager. Give them your attention and time they deserve.

6. Not Spending Quality Time With Your Own Boss
Since he/she just promoted you, surely he/she understands how busy you are and won’t need any of your time, right? Wrong. Your job, just like it was before you became a manager, is to help your boss. Make sure to budget time to meet with him/her to both give information and to receive guidance and training.

7. Not Worrying About Problems or Problem Employees
You can no longer avoid problems or hope they will work themselves out. When something comes up, it is your job to figure out the best solution and get it done. That doesn’t mean you can’t ask for other’s input or assistance, but it does mean you are the person who has to see it gets taken care of.

8. Not Letting Yourself Being Human
Just because you are the boss doesn’t mean you can’t be human, that you can’t laugh, or show emotion, or can’t make an occasional mistake.

9. Not Protecting Your People
The people in your group will be under pressure from every direction. Other departments may want to blame you for failed interfaces. Your boss may want to dump all the unpleasant jobs on your department. HR may decide the job classifications in your area are overpaid. It’s your job to stand up for your people and make sure they are treated as fairly as possible. They will return the loyalty.

10. Avoiding Taking Responsibility For Anything
Like it or not, as the manager you are responsible for everything that happens in your group, whether you did it, or knew about it, or not. Anything anyone in your group does, or doesn’t do, reflects on you. You have to build the communications so there are no surprises, but also be prepared to shoulder the responsibility. It goes hand-in-hand with the authority.

Alignment
If you work for a for a manufacturing company such as DR Horton Homes as an Applications Manager, your goals might be to help the organization manufacture quality homes at a reduced cost through developing software and analytics that reduce waste at the job sites by ordering the right quantity of timber already pre-cut to the right lengths.  If you work for a non-profit charity feeding the hungry as a Desktop Support Manager, your goals may be to help save money by forcing PCs to sleep at night thus saving electric costs.

While we firmly believe it is your boss’s responsibility to communicate the corporate goals to you, it is ultimately your responsibility as a management professional to seek them out and align to them.  If your company makes widgets for the widget retailers, are you doing everything you can to support them in selling their widgets to said retailers?  Is the manufacturing line in need of newer more efficient software?  Can a simple code change increase the efficiency of the robot injection molders?

The Value of an IT Manager
IT is the new world of corporate growth and strategies. Most executives are now proficient with Excel, Word and PowerPoint as well as Blackberries and SmartPhones. However, most of these executives are not familiar with the intricate details of how these or other systems work below the surface. They see IT as magical and complex, producing great rewards and having lots of risk. Executives need and pursue IT Managers who can help them understand and execute their IT goals and manage their risk while keeping the underlying technicalities to a minimum.

One mistake many new IT Managers make is putting their interests and desires ahead of the company’s. It should be your goal to make sure that the company’s goals are first, and yours second. Does this mean you can’t accomplish your goals as well? Absolutely not! Often by putting the company directives first in your priorities and accomplishing wins for the company and yourself you’ll find the company will be more open to your goals and interests in the future, as your relationship strengthens together. A new Change Management system for example may really help your department be more efficient in the future, but will it help sell more widgets today?

Tales of political sabotage, power plays and turf wars are part of any organization’s history. Nonetheless, political competence is the one skill everyone wishes to have more of—but no one admits to it.

Political competence is the “ability to understand what you can and cannot control, when to take action, who is going to resist your agenda, and whom you need on your side. It’s about knowing how to map the political terrain and get others on your side, as well as lead coalitions,” according to Prof. Samuel B. Bacharach who wrote Getting Them On Your Side, 2005.

Many individuals have good ideas that, if implemented, could yield positive results for their companies. Sometimes these ideas fail because the leaders who propose them cannot gain support from key people.

Defining Political Savvy
It’s naive to suggest that all office politics are destructive and unethical. If you define politics in such a narrow and negative way, you overlook the value of political awareness and skill. When political astuteness is combined with ethics and integrity, it can produce positive results for you, your team and your organization.

By avoiding or denying its existence, you underestimate how political behavior can destroy careers, a company’s reputation and overall performance. If you define politics in only negative terms, you are naively under-political, which leaves you vulnerable to overly political, self-serving individuals.

Three Phases of Political Competence
Political competence can be developed in an ethically sound way with this three-phase process:

1. Map Your Political Terrain

First, identify all stakeholders—anyone who has an interest in, or who would be affected by, your idea—and how they will react. Some resistance is inevitable. You must anticipate others’ reactions, identify allies and resisters, analyze their goals, and understand their agendas.

2. Get Others on Your Side

Build your coalition—a politically mobilized group committed to implementing your idea because doing so will generate valued benefits.

How do you win support? You need to be credible. You communicate credibility by letting potential allies and resisters know about your expertise, demonstrating personal integrity, and showing you have access to important people and information. Through informal conversations, meetings and office drop-ins, you need to explain your position.

3. Make Things Happen

You must win others’ buy-in by making it clear there’s a payoff for supporting your effort and drawbacks for not joining your coalition. Show how implementing your idea will ease their workload, increase their visibility within the organization, or help them cut costs in their unit.

Once you’ve persuaded people to join your coalition, you’ve established a base that will legitimize your idea. Coalition members will then use their networks to evangelize for you.

Mastering only certain parts of the three identified phases will not yield success. Some people sabotage themselves by failing to complete all three phases when attempting to generate and implement change.

Reducing Risk through Politics
There are risks with any course of action you take. You sometimes have incomplete or inadequate information when making a decision. Building a coalition through dialogue with its members pushes valuable information to the surface.

You are open to criticism and politically vulnerable whenever you make a decision. Politically competent leaders reduce risk by getting as many people as possible on their side. Building a coalition is a search process for the best solution.

Building a coalition, bringing people together and solidifying/expanding your base will leave you less vulnerable to criticism. It’s more difficult to attack a leader who has built a large base of support throughout the organization.

Be a good listener
The first step in effective communication is to be a good listener. You must pay attention to whatever your employee wants to talk. This encourages the employees to talk any problem or explain his/her ideas to you. If your employees feel that you are not a good listener they won’t express their ideas or discuss their problem with you. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with your employee or not, let him/her speak. If they don’t communicate with you it will result in much trouble as the employee may keep it aside with him/her. So try to become a good listener.

Arrange regular meetings with employees
You have to arrange frequent one-on-one meeting with your employees. This is another important step which helps the employees feel you are putting enough time to know their problems and opinions. Sometimes if you are not able to conduct weekly meeting you can arrange it twice a month. If your employees are working at different places meet them by phone and show them you provide full attention for them. Provide enough time for them to speak about their ideas, problems, needs, or even about how to improve the business etc. This makes a felling that you are hearing their words and they will try to express their ideas.

Give regular feedback
Provide your employees with regular feedback of their work or performance. This ensures them that you are always checking their outcome and they will try to perform even better to make you satisfy and earn any hike. Also gave them a chance to speak about their work. Ask them if they need any help or whether they are satisfied. This ensures a better communication between you and the employees.

Be efficient in speaking to groups
You must be efficient in speaking not only to individuals but also to a group. This is important as you have to speak well in front of employees group. If you can’t perform well you will lose credibility as an employer.

Don’t hide behind emails
Emailing your employees is a good way of communication. But if the topic is an important one you have to discuss directly with your employee. If you are not able to meet your employee directly, you can al least call him and discuss the matter. This is because talking in person will help to show the emotions behind the subject. Hence try to talk important matters in person and not through mails.

These are some of the best ideas to communicate with your employees. For any healthy organization effective communication is a much needed thing.

As you develop your plans for your area of responsibility, you have to address “first things first”. The best way I know how to develop this idea with you is to use an example of an IT manager that becomes a CIO for a company. With the CIO position, you have to take all aspects of the technology support delivery for a company into perspective. We will go through a high level thought process that a CIO has to work through to develop an overall strategy for the company.

We spent a lot of time discussing the assessment phase of developing an IT strategy, or plan. Getting as clear of a picture of where you are and where the company wants to be is as important as anything you can do. It’s very hard to hit the target if you don’t know what you’re shooting at and what tools you have to shoot with.

And remember, there rarely exists a straight line “from here” to “the objective”.

The objective of the assessment was to:

• determine where the company wants to go
• the goal determine the state of technology services today
• the starting point begin identifying the issues that must be addressed to achieve the goal
• the plan

As we discussed earlier, the manager must start with a very tactical (30-90 day) plan that puts the organization into position as quickly as possible to take on larger objectives that lead to reaching the goal.

At a CIO level, the entire technology requirements of the company must be reviewed, analyzed, and a plan developed for each area that supports every part of the IT organization leading to the overall objectives. There will be competing needs for IT resources from the company, and possibly even within the IT organization. When a CIO creates his/her plan to develop the IT services needed for the company’s overall objective, there is a hierarchy that must be followed.

We looked at this hierarchy earlier. Let’s take a closer look: When a CIO does his assessment, there is a long list of items that are discovered:

Client service capability
Size of company
Change management process
Growth plans
IT services being provided
Business requirements of the future company
Quality of IT services being delivered
Key technology advances required
Growth capacity of IT services
Differences in future client needs
Staff strengths and weaknesses
New product or service lines required
Staff skill gaps
Productivity gains facilitated by technology
Infrastructure status
Cost of IT as a per cent of revenue
Data center security
User capability in using technology
Support desk status and issues
Support problem trends and issues
Problem escalation procedures
Business applications status
Business application needs
Project management capabilities

This is by far a ‘short list’ of all the issues that will be discovered. The point is that the assessment includes a very disperse set of issues. In order to achieve the goals of the company, most, if not all, of these issues must be addressed to compliment the overall plan that will lead to success. It will be virtually impossible to take care of all issues simultaneously. An effective CIO will establish a set of priorities that follows the hierarchy we showed in the IT Project Hierarchy.

The goal of any real CIO is to work on strategic projects (the part that sits atop the pyramid structure in our diagram). Those projects might be the introduction of totally new products or services that have a major impact on productivity of the company or it might be to assimilate the technologies of acquired companies. Either way, the CEO and other senior managers are eager to get to the part that helps really improve or grow their business.

It would be nice to be able to just go straight for the “gusto”. Unfortunately, it’s not normally a straight line as mentioned now at least 4 times.

The reason we spent so much time on assessment is that the assessment makes up the very foundation that you will build all your objectives on. You will tweak those plans over time but the major pieces of the plan will probably stay intact if you’ve done a good job in assessing the situation.

OK, the race is on! We want to get to some strategic projects (the top of the pyramid) as soon as possible. We also want to be able to have a very sound foundation by which to develop and support new technologies, one that is not only stable but scalable.

It works like this:

• You can’t fix or improve anything if you don’t know what the issues are. (Assessment)
• You can’t make changes if you don’t understand the problems, have capable staff to do the work, and have a sound change management process in place. (Staffing, Support Desk, and Change Management)
• It’s very hard to develop software applications without solid systems infrastructure. (Systems Infrastructure Strategy)
• Before taking on strategic projects, you need to have stable applications in place. (Business Applications Strategy)
• Finally, we get to strategic project work.

This does not imply that many parts of this hierarchy cannot be worked on at the same time. In fact, much of it does get worked on simultaneously. What is emphasized is that before you develop your Business Application strategy, you should have put your infrastructure game plan together. It’s also important to note that when you develop the Infrastructure Strategy, you must consider elements that will be required for your business applications such as:

• what the business applications and technology services will be
• number of users that will be using the applications
• locations of the users
• security implications
• etc.

A strategy, as I define it, is creating the high level plan on how you will achieve the objective. You don’t have to know how you will achieve your Business Applications Strategy needs when you create your Infrastructure Strategy, but it certainly helps to know what the applications and services are that will be needed for the infrastructure to support. If you are not sure, it should automatically tell you that your Infrastructure Strategy must be somewhat open in order to add critical applications determined at a later date or to scale in size to support an undetermined user base.

Let’s take a closer look at each layer of the IT Project Hierarchy illustration:

Assessment – As mentioned over and over, this is a critical stage to insure that you are directing IT resources in the right places to:

• achieve company goals
• fill resource gaps
• position systems for growth and stability
• establish a quality delivery of services
• complete projects that have value for the business

Support Desk, Staffing, Change Management Process – This layer focuses quickly on three key areas that are important for any successful IT organization:

Support Desk – It’s critical that the CIO establish a quick process to provide base level support for infrastructure (systems) issues and business applications issues. Creating a functional support desk (assuming none exists) to support user challenges and needs in these two areas does two important things:

1. Improves day to day support
2. Starts gathering information that will tell you what the problems are.

Staffing– Start sizing up staffing needs right away to resolve issues such as:

• capacity
• skill gaps
• bench strength (backup) for key skills

Hiring new staff has to be balanced with budget availability and your ability to define the job. A good CIO is always lining up the staff needed to move the organization to the next level and knows well in advance of hiring the skill sets that will be needed.

You always want to try to hire proactively in a manner that anticipates needs of the company. You should try to avoid hiring defensively or in a reactionary manner.

I also recommend that you hire strong, motivated candidates. I would always prefer to manage a few senior level people that are very capable, may make a lot of money, and outperform a staff that’s 25% larger. It’s usually cheaper and a lot more fun to manage because you’ll be more successful.

Much more is discussed in Building a Successful IT Organization which is part of the IT Manager Development Series.

Change Management Process – If you are to implement change to the company by completing new projects, you must have sound change management processes in place.

Even if the goal is simply to maintain existing systems and applications, you still need to manage changes effectively. Otherwise, the support delivery of your IT team(s) will be unpredictable and will likely incur a good bit of breakage.

Infrastructure Strategy – Define your plan for each part of the company’s infrastructure and the timing of each key project. Infrastructure requirements include addressing each of the components listed below. As you build a game plan for each, the plan should include elements that address capacity, functionality, security, backup, recovery, redundancy, support, scalability, and standards.

• System server needs (for business applications)
• Network server needs
• E-mail standards and address naming convention
• Remote connectivity architecture
  • dial-up
  • wide area network (WAN)
  • local area networks (LAN)
  • other connectivity
• Network monitoring and support
• Internet connectivity and usage
• Intranet connectivity and usage
• IP addressing standards
• Data center
• Security
  • systems
  • networks
  • applications
  • physical facilities
  • remote access
• PC’s & supported PC application software
• Printing standards
• Fax server
• Printing distribution capabilities
• Backup and off-site storage
• Data center operations
• Disaster recovery
• Phone systems (voice)
• Support desk and escalation procedures
• Change management process
• Infrastructure systems diagram & maintenance
• Technology assets inventory
• Software license inventory and compliance
• Systems tools

Business Applications Strategy – Addressing functionality needs of business departments and/or your external clients are very important. I don’t need to tell you that, though. As you begin developing and implementing plans on the lower levels, you may also be getting into needs of this layer as well, especially if there are urgent needs or key gaps in your business applications.

In most cases, the resources that focus on the business applications are different than those that work on networks, and hardware issues. This makes it very reasonable to focus resources on both layers at the same time. The key is that the infrastructure team has to be laying the groundwork for the business applications to have adequate systems and connectivity to function as needed.

It’s sort of like laying the rails before the train can move down the track.

Laying groundwork is not the most exciting or fun work to do, but just as the train has to have the track, business application enhancements have to have the infrastructure that supports them.

Strategic Projects – The quickest approach to implement key projects that provide excellent return for the company is not necessarily, nor normally, to go right to the strategic project and begin implementing. OK, already; that’s the last time I mention the ‘straight line’ concept. I promise.

Always remember that if you build your foundation on wobbly legs, the full success of implementing a strategic project is going to be minimized.

Let me explain a bit. Let’s assume that a strategic objective is to assimilate acquired company technologies as soon as you can. An IT manager can definitely begin an assimilation day one if he/she so chooses. However, without a solid systems infrastructure (hardware and network) in place that has the additional capacity or the ability to increase capacity easily to accommodate the new business, the ability to manage a technology assimilation is complicated by other issues required to address infrastructure scalability. You will go much faster and smoother if you have the infrastructure foundation already in place that supports growth easily and predictably.

Strategic projects as defined here are IT projects that add significant, new capability to the business. In my acquisition assimilation example, any major technology conversion (opposed to simply continuing to maintain the existing technology) would be considered a significant change requiring a major project focus.

The real objective is not just to complete strategic projects. It should be to work on strategic projects in as productive a manner as possible so that the company can achieve the desired results with minimal problems and as cost effectively as possible.

Reacting to issues that have not been anticipated in the lower foundation levels discussed earlier when you are in the midst of a strategic project can add complexity, cause damage, and add costs that are otherwise avoidable.

If you expect your short term plans to compliment and to support a longer range vision, you have to have one. Otherwise, you will implement projects that conflict with the long range plan.

Did I say, “stated destination” ? You bet I did!! No plan is worth much unless you clearly state your destination (objectives) and document them.

Also remember, there are no rules as to how long it should take to stabilize your part of the IT business before you are able to take on strategic projects. Depending upon the situation, it may already be very stable and waiting for you to ‘go’, or it may take several months to clean up a real mess.

“Whatitis,,, iswhatitis!!”

By stating your 12-month (or more) plan objectives, you are also giving senior managers and clients the opportunity to validate your objectives. One of the worst things an IT manager can do is to work in a vacuum and avoid communicating where he is going and what he’s working on. We see this time and again and it probably has as much more to do with dissatisfaction with IT organizations than any other thing – even above poor performance.

You will hear me say this over and over, but I’m convinced that managing the client’s expectations is the key to successful IT performance.

All right, the first step is to define two things.

1. Define where you are.
2. State where you want to be a year or more out.

Step 1 – Defining where you are is essentially quantifying the issues that exist as you have conducted your assessments. You should also do a quick inventory of your organization. A simple list will do – hit key items that are important for your particular responsibility. Over the years, I have found the list included in the table below to apply to most situations.

Step 2 – Defining where you want to be a year or more out has a lot to do with what you’ve heard senior managers tell you in the assessments. It should also include input from other senior IT manager’s insight into what you’re going to need to have the organization positioned for in the future.

Developing strategic IT plans requires experience, an understanding of the business, and vision. Many find this difficult. It certainly can be, but I believe that it has more to do with the necessity to sit down and to think through the issues more than anything else. Planning takes time and proactive work. Real work !! Most of us are more comfortable reacting to issues than being proactive. It’s easier to react but it makes it harder to have a successful organization.

Companies and people want and need leadership. Proactive planning, stating your vision, and executing from a plan shows real leadership. Try it and I can assure you will see positive results because most of your counterparts are working reactively, not proactively.
Depending upon the situation you have with your organization responsibility, this plan will vary considerably. If you are a programming manager, it will likely deal with application functionality to a great extent. If you manage the infrastructure of your company, it will include projects that continue to add stability, capacity, additional services and security of your systems. A CIO should include all parts of the IT business responsibility.

Need a picture ? The following is an example of a 12-18 month plan that was developed to help a company move from a manual billing company to an automated billing company. This particular part of the plan includes elements of business applications and infrastructure. “The names have been changed to protect the innocent.”

Several points are worth mentioning:

• This plan includes mostly strategic projects
• The plan could not be embarked upon until many stabilizing projects were previously completed.
• Many of the projects are taking place simultaneously as you can see. The key is to insure that projects are addressed in such a way as to compliment each other and to anticipate other project needs.
• I broke the plan into 6 major projects. Sub-projects are identified as well.
• This particular plan impacts many departments and will require significant planning, coordination, and communication.

Why do you create a visual plan ?

There are actually several reasons.

1. Define the plan to others.
2. Gain agreement from ‘stakeholders’ that this is the appropriate plan.
3. Establish with others that it involves quite a bit of effort and commitment.
4. Shows dependencies and a requirement of coordination.
5. Helps clients and IT employees see and understand your vision.

The best way I have seen to manage other people’s expectations is to put your plans on paper and to cover it with them. It provides the perfect way to gain concurrence or to get input that allows you to change the plan as needed to meet their expectations.

I recommend you approach planning the management of IT resources in two distinct ways. There are short term, immediate issues that should be addressed and long term issues. My first set of objectives will always be a 30 – 90 day plan. This short term plan will also always be approached in a manner to support long range objectives.

It’s important to make a note here. You will know more about the long term strategy needed after a few months. The best assessment will not provide you with enough insight to develop a bullet proof long term strategy ‘right out of the gate’. Planning is an evolving element and not just a static thing.

This is not to suggest that plans are so dynamic that they are constantly changing radically. However, they do change and should as the business dynamics evolve and as you become more attune to the needs of the company.
How do you go about developing your first 90-day plan ?

With time and experience, it actually becomes a second sense as to what the priorities need to be after going through the assessments. For this exercise, we will take a little more structured approach.

First thing to do is to establish where you believe the organization you are responsible for is today and where it needs to be in 12 – 24 months. As mentioned earlier, any short term plan has to support a long term plan. Otherwise, you may have to pull pieces out or rework them because you did not approach the short term issues in a way that supports your long term goals.
To do that, refer back to the elements that you needed to be looking for and understanding in your assessments. They are:

• Infrastructure
• Business applications
• IT staffing organization
• IT processes

And your assessment of these major IT components need to be viewed in context of:

• Company goals
• Client needs
• Available capita

There are many factors surrounding or affecting any planning that you need to do. For example, the graphic below shows there are diverse issues that have to be accounted for as you develop your plan.

All of these elements have a bearing on how you put your plans together. As mentioned before, every IT management situation has different dynamics. While most situations require planning and solid execution to be a success, every situation is unique as you look to develop the first 90- day plan.

By the way, this certainly is not all of the issues that can influence your planning.

You should also know that there will be many different routes that you can take to reach your objective. There are many ways to “skin a cat” as they say.

Let’s say you’ve inherited a Client Support Desk as the new manager. As you went through all the interviews and reached your assessment, you identified 10 issues that needed to be addressed. And let’s say that 3 of those issues were all very important and you aren’t sure which needs to take highest priority.

If possible, start them all assuming the resources are available. If one is a prerequisite to other issues, then that more or less dictates that it has to be a higher priority. You also should be validating your initiatives with stakeholders of the company so you know that your priorities are their priorities.

As you go through the assessments for your particular situation, there should be some very specific needs identified that are on the critical path. It might be finishing an active project, adding capability in a software application, or simply getting e-mail in place.

Regardless of how you approach it, there are a few “influencers” that should always take priority. Client needs, company plans, and expense influences must always be at or near the top of your evaluation. If you have a lot of immediate challenges, you have to break them into pieces and to establish priorities that buy time by hitting the most urgent needs of the client and/or company first.

In general, there is a hierarchy within IT that must be followed to be truly successful. If you build your business on a weak IT structure, it ultimately topples with growth. This is such an important issue that we devote a whole section to it titled First Things First. Normally, I would wait to get into that section but part of the concept needs to come out here.

Developing a 90-day plan and a 1-year plan has to tie to a basic understanding that you must develop a strong and stable framework before you focus on the strategic projects. If the company does not have stable, reliable systems in place, placing strategic projects on top of them will only cause the crash that ultimately happens to be louder and quicker.

We need a picture:

As a CIO, I have always managed from a principal that to achieve consistent results, you have to insure you have a solid foundation to work from. Look at the pyramid example above to better understand. The approach I highly recommend, is to begin at the ‘ground floor’.

In this publication, we have spent time so far in discussing the first layer – assessment and identifying the issues. The next layer has to do with IT processes and the IT organization’s ability to support the technology of the company.

Follow with the systems infrastructure and the business applications layers and then, and only then, are you really prepared to go after real strategic projects. In the section you will read later titled First Things First, we will go into more detail. The point I’m making here is that you should have this concept in the back of your mind as you’re developing your 90-day issues list and developing priorities for them.

If you think back to the Support Desk example we used, the real objective that we wanted to get to was to position the organization to support a major new application that was to be released in 6 months. As we assessed this part of the IT business, it also became apparent that we would be short staffed and that the current support approach needed improvement. So, our plan actually went through many steps just to get to the part we wanted to get to – developing the new application support plan.

Going straight to the strategic task that we want to accomplish without having a solid foundation only creates a bigger challenge to fix later on. Remember the old Bardahl oil commercial, “Pay me now, or pay me later.” ? This message is very true in managing IT resources.