The role of the IT manager is dependent on several factors, with the top three being organisation size, industry sector, and geographic distribution. The detailed IT Managers checklist for each of these would be widely different, but for the purposes of this article I would like to concentrate on the common threads that should appear in every IT Managers checklist.
As an ex IT manager of a small/medium sized enterprise (<250 staff, finance industry, 3 locations) my own checklist had four items at the top level, and I think that this was a good starting point which helped me to prioritise and concentrate our efforts.
Legal/Statutory
These are the must do things that ensures your organisation stays on the right side of the law. Within the IT world there are an ever increasing number of legal and statutory requirements. A good IT manager should have a working knowledge of them and know how they might affect the company they work for.
Operational/Support
Operational encompasses the scheduled and regular tasks that should be done in order to maintain a stable and available set of IT services. Support deals with services that are not working properly.
Project/Development
Projects are intended to achieve a specific benefit or business objective, and most IT development, coding, infrastructure improvements, etc., would fit within this category.
Strategic
Here I would include IT finance and budgeting. Work on policies and procedures, awareness of emerging technologies. But most importantly the IT manager should understand the business direction and drivers, and determine how IT can assist in the success of the company.
As an IT manager this helped me to keep the big picture in mind. But what about you, and bearing in mind the high level, is there anything else you would add to this checklist?
Later in Part #2 we’ll put a little more flesh on the bones.
Tags: IT manager, checklist
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