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IT Metrics - Managing IT Organisations, the dilemma


Today’s management requirements for any IT organization have been rapidly changing alongside with business requirements and market challenges.

Most of the professionals working in the IT arena have to be prepared to come with pragmatic ideas in order to respond to new business needs, whether these are technical or processes based. IT is not anymore a support function that can be relaxed by just reacting to different business requirements but proactively looking at offering new added value solutions.

This new way to understand IT related matters begin at people management level as the IT people has to shift the paradigm from pure technical skilled professionals towards a more cross management oriented specialist.

As such the new CIO / CTO / IT Director has to focus a significant part of his/her daily time to manage and develop highly professional teams, balancing IT skills with strong Managerial capabilities. The people working under the IT umbrella has to be as competent on product activation, financial management, people management, change management, etc. as they are used to be as technicians or IT specialist.

To find the right balance between the required technical skills that any IT organization has to hold and the management related competences that will help to bring this people to a new level of efficiency is a key success factor for the new era’s CIO.

This is undoubtedly not a simple equation to be solved as there are many aspects to be considered (company market positioning, HR policies, Business strategy, Service delivery offering, etc). However the CIO/Head of IT has to lead this discussion and come back to the Company Management Board with a clear proposal on the new IT organization and its way forward.

As I pointed out in one of the blog sections, Innovation is a key in everything we do in IT. Therefore Innovation in the Organisation management layer is not going to be an exception, very much on the contrary. To reach a certain level of maturity were you have your team very much oriented to innovate, even at daily basis and for basic operations is something has to be driven by example. The management team has to play an important role on both, changing people's mindset and rewarding innovation initiatives. 

   

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