How to Build an IT Department - A Point of View

After 13 years of being an IT Manager and nearly 19 years in information technology industry I carved the stone of information technology management and uncovered what I can call a road map to build a successful information technology department.

It really does not matter how large the firm you are working for or the industry your company works in , the real important thing is to understand that information technology department not only a service department to other departments but it became to be the heart of doing business inside the firm , the old myth saying that information technology is a cost center is no longer exists , simply ask your fellow employees , managers and owners for how long they can do work without email , ERP system , smart phones or even business portals … they will start looking back to each other and they will all come to a long silence that really reflects the importance of information technology in real world , information technology has become to be the backbone of our life .

Importance does not give justification for having budgets to run information technology departments , achieving objectives & accomplishments do .

As an IT Manager stepping to a new company to work in is a tricky thing , situations varies , you can join a company that has no information technology department and in need to build one or you can join a firm that have a working information technology department with its skeleton of human & materials in place ,,, always start with evaluation ,, failing to make proper evaluation is the golden key for failure and is really the biggest mistake a manager can make even at fields other than information technology .

Evaluation is big word and can take skills , expertise , knowledge and time to be accomplished , evaluation is the first step of planning a successful information technology departemtment , evaluation starts with identifying who are stakeholders , stakeholders are human beings or entities that will affect or be affected by information technology department and this always starts with high level management ( owners or board of directors ) , knowing and understanding the vision and expectations of the people who are going to finance you is very important , information technology tools are simply the collections of business procedures to increase efficiency and effectives meaning increasing profits or lowering costs , IT Managers must understand this from day one , we are not building information technology systems just to have them but to serve the business’s need , having business’s vision and expectations under sight lays down high lines for making information technology a success .

After having full understanding of high level management’s needs and expectation we need to check with middle management’s vision and expectations too , those are the people who are going to work using information technology systems ( mostly ) so their vision and field needs are very much important to be understood to build practical expandable and yet economical business systems , having a complicated business system will make users un-happy and at no doubt reduce efficiency , this is not good way to do business .

After having visions and information from your owners / management – finances – and middle management – users , you need to start thinking about the type of information systems needed to run this business successfully , you need to specify if you need email system for instance and ask yourself on what scale to go for and what are economical way to start with ,, take in consideration that starting big can - in many cases – be most economical specially on the long run ( 5 years or more ) , having an email system hosted in a public cloud for more than 100 users can in some cases be more expensive than having your own email platform ( if you have big email traffic ) , evaluation again is the golden key , options of outsourcing can be tricky to have or in some cases a must to have ,, it is all yours to decide .

After having systems designed on paper you have to start calculating human capital needs to run systems you saw that you are in need for , human capital management can be hard to manage , having the right skills in time for long time at an affordable cost is a major challenge but not impossible one .

Budgets and risk assessment / management should be an ongoing task for successful information technology managers not only a one time task at planning / evaluation phase , after information systems are up and business is depending upon them no user will accept down time , disaster recovery and clusters are no longer a luxury in an era of 24/7/365 so they should be taken in consideration and planned for .

After preparing all your plans and costs estimates you need to be convinced within yourself with the benefits of what you are proposing to high level management and also be ready to turn it to reality ,, business owners does not pay for IT systems , they pay for having benefits , and these benefits must be permanent and profitable , by ONLY this way you can win high level management’s support and build a strong world class information technology department .

And this is going to be your first step …..