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Building Trust Between IT and Management (part 2)
Corporate management in general is interested in achieving corporate goals typically related to growing market share, increasing profits, acquiring and retaining customers, etc. On a daily basis they are interested in programs and projects related to achieving those goals.
IT plays an important role in some projects, but that’s it. Outside that, the management is interested in IT only when there are serious problems or when IT becomes too expensive and when no one can really explain the costs. And that’s how it’s supposed to be! If the CEO starts getting interested in IT’s mobile phone service, he is lost. But, does this mean that standard IT is irrelevant? No. It only means that it’s not the management’s issue.
But when you’re asked to present IT’s status to the management board, you should be prepared to do the following:
1) Present IT’s current status. In a way that business understands.
2) Show IT’s goals and how they relate to the company goals.
3) Show the plans you have to achieve those goals. Roadmaps.
IT’s Current Status:
1) The organizational structure and team sizes to help explain what goes on in IT
2) The current service offering divided in business services, standard IT services, and infrastructure services
3) A coarse breakdown of costs to help explain where the money goes
4) Things that are working well
5) The biggest challenges
IT’s Goals:
1) The main long term goal that you are truly working towards: cost reductions, standardized processes, organizational structure, increasing competence, etc.
2) The goals related to the business services
3) The goals related to the standard IT services
4) The goals related to the infrastructure services
Plans and Roadmaps:
1) An overview of the most important actions/projects aiming towards the goals
2) On-going and planned projects related to the business services
3) On-going and planned projects related to the standard IT services
4) On-going and planned projects related to the infrastructure services
One important issue: how you present these plans is as important as the content. I would present all the above with only 8 slides.
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