IT Services Causing Disruption to Your Business?

IT services causing disruption to your business - Have no idea what and where to begin

Problem Statement:

In IT we very often hear this statement from the business users and management, that IT services are not stable and create a lot of disruption to the business. For instance, email is down, or network is unstable and users can’t connect, the business application is down etc. Being IT head sometimes difficult to pick those points and struggle how to begin and what to fix first?

Solution:

There are many ways to look into this. This is also true that one size does not fit for all, so we have to list down each organization’s specific IT issues and then accordingly have to prescribe the solution. But in general here are 5 best checkpoints.

1: Examine your IT processes

Many IT operations involve processes that require the operation to run continuously however, some operations have a choice. A variety of factors should be taken into consideration and these have to be aligned with the business requirements when deciding on whether or not to run operations continuously / 24*7. So, this is the time to assess and examine your processes, update them or re-establish them if required.

2: Technology upgrade

Second important checkpoint to access if your IT technologies need an upgrade. Many of the legacy technology solutions which is not fit for today’s business demand may be one of the major factor of IT services disruption. For instance, running email system on-prem on an old server hardware which can’t be scaled-up and hardware capacity is creating the issue so is it better to buy new server hardware or even to think about to go for the cloud-based solution.

3: Recognize and respect your IT team

We are taught that people should not be treated like machines; however, if we thought of people as highly complex machines, we might have a greater respect for their limitations as well. We’re not designed to operate continuously around-the-clock, or on irregular schedules, or with consistent performance no matter the time of day or night. Human performance doesn’t occur linearly. Respect your team’ efforts and recognize them quite often to keep motivated and their morale up. This is very important.

4: Educate your workforce

When it comes to managing and resolving the IT problems for IT services delivery and continuous operations, their technical and situation management skills are critical. So invest in your team and assess if they need any technical training or any soft skills improvement is required. Keep one thing in mind, we need a team, a good team and a good team can only be established if their skills are up-to-date.

5: Business relationship

So far I have been discussing the checkpoints related and engaged to IT only. But there is another critical checkpoint which is the relationship with business. IT can’t perform in isolation until we have a good relationship with our business. This means close coordination, understanding their needs, suggesting them technology solution for their day to day working, keeping them updated about what is happening in IT department and what is IT future plans to support to business. One of the important role and responsibility of an IT manager or Head of IT to build a good relationship with business. Meet them very often individually or in the group. A close association and relationship with them will reduce half of the IT challenges.