What do you do if you're an IT manager facing critical strategic decisions in executive roles?

From my experience, it’s crucial to identify the worst-case scenario. Understanding the full extent of what you’re facing is key. Often, problems may seem critical, but once you comprehend their maximum impact, you can equip yourself accordingly. Leverage your problem-solving strategies, such as the divide-and-conquer approach, switching to different technical tools, or adopting more advanced technologies to tackle the issue. Underestimating the problem could lead to a metaphorical tsunami of consequences, which is something you’d want to avoid.

Avoid being the "IT guy that holds me hostage" to your CEO/Board. I recommend you build a document that outlines 4 or 5 "risk bands" from "Production down, company is actively losing money" to "Single user impacted". Put each of the systems/services that you are responsible for into those bands. Start at the top, and build process to deal with the worst case scenario. What do you need to recover those top systems from nothing? What are situations that could allow this to come to pass? This allows you to present solutions that will decrease recovery time, and think ahead to mitigate the risk that could occur. This also helps you develop clear and well communicated SLAs for these items.

As an IT manager facing critical strategic decisions in executive roles, prioritize understanding the organization's broader objectives and aligning IT initiatives accordingly. 1. Engage with key stakeholders to gather insights and perspectives, fostering collaboration and buy-in. 2. Conduct a thorough analysis of current IT infrastructure, capabilities, and potential risks to inform your decisions. 3. Develop a clear roadmap outlining strategic goals, milestones, and timelines. * Cultivate a culture of continuous learning and adaptability within your IT team to stay ahead of industry trends and challenges. !!!!Lastly, communicate transparently with your team and stakeholders throughout the decision-making process.

Every strategic decision involves a certain degree of risk. IT managers must carefully assess the potential risks and opportunities associated with different courses of action. This requires a comprehensive analysis of factors such as technological feasibility, financial implications, regulatory compliance, and potential impact on stakeholders. By conducting thorough risk assessments, IT leaders can make informed decisions that balance risk and reward.

This is huge. Your CEO, CFO, CMO etc., mostly hear jargon out of us technology folks, if you're not in the tech sector. Sometimes even then. You need to find a way to listen to your stakeholders, and agree on standards in such a way that there can be no doubt what was agreed upon. My strategic planning sessions start with goals, in order: My goals for safety, security and data protection. Projects that will contribute to sustainable growth and process based automation. Additional goals/projects that will affect large groups of people. Additional goals/projects that will affect small but impactful groups of people. Once that's outlined, define each project, and who will be affected, even in a small way. Communicate with everyone listed.

I've been asked to layout the IT Roadmap of the coming 5 years of the company. It is critical to the business since this roadmap is key to the growth of the business. Therefore, I need to gather inputs within the IT team what technology should be adopted. However, I found it even more important to invite the involvement of all business stakeholders for their input. No matter how strong your technology tools are, if they do not align with the business goals, they are merely expensive techie toys.

From my experience, it's essential to define what's truly relevant for your decision before you start gathering input and analyzing data. Avoid relying solely on the data that's already available in your organization; instead, incorporate external data to widen your perspective or produce the required input based on your decision needs. Establish clear decision-making criteria and outline the process steps in advance. This approach ensures that your decisions are based on a solid factual foundation and helps prevent cognitive biases.

I would prioritize data analysis to guide my choices effectively. By the help of advanced analytics tools, I dive deep into KPIs and feedbacks. By interpreting this data, it is possible to uncover valuable insights and estimate potential outcomes.

In my experience, considering the trends of technologies is not the only thing that we need to think about. I would put these 2 considerations in mind: 1. the technology is useful and cost effective to the business. 2. the technology is flexible to change or at least integrate with other systems if business environment is changed in a few years.

Once the show is on the road, it's your job to make sure it's on track, and delivered. If you've done your job correctly, there shouldn't be a reason to pull back. Keep your people focused on the tasks at hand to accomplish the goals, and make sure to communicate clearly with all of your stakeholders. Communication throughout large projects is absolutely crucial. If the worst case comes to pass and you and your stakeholders decide you need to cut your losses and retract the project... Do it quickly, and with extremely clear communication. If possible, explain why you're pulling back, and be honest.