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IT Management Store

Information Technology enables every process in your business, but managing IT feels more like an art than a science. Let’s think through a vision for information technology in your company:

• IT provides competitive advantage, particularly through supporting excellent decisions
• IT costs are under control and at a best practice level
• IT customers are happy with IT
• IT staff know their roles, their goals, are good at what they do
• Technology change occurs in a manner and at a pace that is appropriate
• The organization is ready for the new technology when it is implemented

To achieve this vision may require actions in several areas. If you select any of these, it will take you to a vision and further explanation.

• Project and program management
• Organization change to achieve performance improvements (Change Management, Engineering Organizational Change)
• Customer Relationships
• Technology architecture
• IT staff efficiency and effectiveness
• IT Assets and IT Costs Managed
• IT Security including behaviors

Program and Project Management

• Vision for programs and projects: (1) a portfolio of opportunities is maintained and prioritized, (2) Business management participates in project prioritization and selection, (3) a Program Office oversees multiple connected projects, (4) Project Management is disciplined and consistent, (5) Projects pass through clearly identified stage gates where owners and IT management make go, no go decisions and set directions; (6) Projects achieve projected benefits by including organizational change components in the project plans

• To achieve this vision may require actions such as the following:
  1. Implementation of program offices and program management functions when there are several linked projects
  2. Development and implementation of Project Management methods and tools including web based guidelines, forms, and templates (the Project Management Institute is the foundation for Holland & Davis, LLC project management methods)
  3. Providing training to project managers and members of project teams (See the Institute of Change Leadership)
  4. Including change management components in all projects (see link to Change Management)

• Holland & Davis, LLC resources can work along side your teams to improve your program and project management capability.

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Change Management: Organization change that parallels technology change

• Vision for change: Each time a change occurs, all the elements of change are synchronized and work together to achieve the desired performance improvement.

• To achieve this vision may require actions such as the following:
1. Including change management components in all programs and projects
2. Following a structured methodology for change such as the ‘Engineering Organizational Change Toolkit’ or ‘Change is the Rule’
3. Achieving rigorous discipline to assure that all the moving parts change together and everything is ready prior to implementation (see linked list for an overview)

• Holland & Davis, LLC resources can work along side your teams to assure that major changes are coordinated to achieve the desired benefits

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Customer Involvement, Customer Alignment, Customer Relationships

• Vision for customer interactions: The customers of IT (1) have the tools they need readily available, (2) are comfortable with and respect the providers of information technology, (3) know what to do if there is a problem, (4) feel that IT is open to their ideas and involvement, (5) understand the value of standardization. In addition, business management understands strategic alignment with the IT function and have incorporated IT strategic directions in their business strategies.

• To achieve this vision may require actions such as the following:
  1. Creation of IT councils and committees with well defined roles and interfaces.
  2. Annual interchanges between IT management and business management to exchange, develop, and align strategies.
  3. Implementation of a defined process for order fulfillment that efficiently gets the right people involved at the right time (see diagram).
  4. Regular use of customer satisfaction surveys and publication of the results.
  5. A regular program of communication to customers using a variety of media. In addition, special communications for times of technology or structural change.
• Holland & Davis, LLC resources can work along side your teams to improve the ways your IT department interacts with customers and customer managers

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Technology Architecture

• Vision for technology: (1) A well defined, standardized infrastructure is in place, (2) standardization, consolidation, and simplification contribute to operational efficiency (3) the application architecture contributes to business success, (4) a defined process is operational for technology evaluation, selection, and introduction;
• To achieve this vision may require actions such as the following:
  1. Application rationalization with the discipline to eliminate older, little used applications
  2. Creation of an architecture team that includes business representatives and has the authority to set standards
  3. Developing and implementing a defined process for technology evaluation that considers implementation and support costs and business benefits
  4. Instituting projects for technology consolidation and simplification
• Holland & Davis, LLC resources can work along side your teams to implement processes that will help manage and maintain your technology architecture

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IT Staff Efficiency and Effectiveness

• Vision for IT Staff efficiency and effectiveness: (1) The entire IT staff must work together as a single organism even where components of the organization are sourced from different companies, (2) The routine activities of the IT staff are efficiently completed, (3) Work generated by customer requests is acknowledged, prioritized, and completed efficiently and effectively
• To achieve this vision may require actions such as the following:
  1. Goals for the entire organization must be established and clearly communicated
  2. Group and individual goals must be established and explicitly linked to the goals for the entire organization. Periodically, performance must be measured against the established goals.
  3. Clear processes must be identified, documented and communicated
  4. Clear roles must be identified, documented, and communicated
  5. Procedures for all routine staff actions must be developed and stored in a shared repository for use by all IT staff
  6. IT staff must be trained in their roles, the processes, the procedures
  7. The processes, roles, procedures must be routinely refreshed and maintained
• Holland & Davis, LLC resources can work along side your teams to develop processes, procedures, roles, goals, and training to move the IT staff to greater integration and success.

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IT Assets and IT Costs Managed

• Vision for IT Assets and Costs: (1) IT assets are known and managed, (2) IT costs are understood and managed, (3) Customers understand in general, and are comfortable with IT costs
• To achieve this vision may require actions such as the following:
  1. An asset management tool must be acquired an implemented, probably using technology links for continuous updating
  2. IT costs must be analyzed from an activity perspective so that shared costs are distributed to products and services that add business value
  3. It may be attractive to implement IT unit prices for products and services and charge customers on a usage basis
  4. Long term strategies should be developed to reduce IT costs while maintaining or improving customer contribution
• Holland & Davis, LLC resources can work along side your teams to implement cost analysis and management approaches that will be in place long after the project team has been disbanded.

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IT Security Including Behaviors

• Vision for IT Security: (1) An overall strategy to achieving the right level of IT security has been developed, (2) IT staff have very clear guidance on things to do and things to avoid for maintaining IT Security, (3) IT users know why IT security requirements are imposed, know what to do, know what never to do
• To achieve this vision may require actions such as the following:
  1. IT Security strategies should be developed a communicated. While the technology selection is important, it is not a core strength of Holland & Davis, LLC
  2. A process view of IT Security should developed with clear accountabilities
  3. Detailed procedures should be developed where the following of those procedures contributes to the hardness of the environment.
  4. All IT staff roles in IT security should be clarified and the individuals in each of those roles be trained.
  5. A communications program should be developed an implemented that assures that IT users understand the value of security, the importance of security, the specific actions they must take to maintain security, and the specific actions they must avoid to maintain security

• Holland & Davis, LLC resources can work along side your teams to make IT Security awareness and compliance part of the culture.

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		Holland & Davis IT Store Contact For more information on how your organization’s Change Management success can be improved, contact Eldon Sheffer or Gary Skarke at 713.877.8130.

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