What you need to know the head of the IT department?
We are slowly building our educational route on brand new places for us in the form of a new course: " Head of IT department ." Unlike conventional programming courses, here we decided to touch on a rather wide range of tasks related not so much to software and other things as management, finances and other things. These notes-questions are, rather, a brief statement of the course program, rather than an answer to a topic question, but we would be interested to see whether they, or rather the program itself, in any approximation is such a thing as an IT manual: is everything needed and everything Is there enough?
The flow of user requests caused by failures in the provision of IT services can be very large. By the way, do you know that there is a rather narrow range of numbers in which the average number of calls per corporate user per month lies (with averaging over a year)? Of course, this value depends on the stability and quality of the IT infrastructure, the level of user competence and much more. But the numerical estimate made by analysts, however, exists. And with a noticeable number of users, even in a stable infrastructure, the flow of requests will be quite large. And if to add incidents to the incidents, caused not by failures on the IT side, but, for example, by the need of users for consultation, or resetting the password, etc., then the flow usually increases multiply.
Obviously, to ensure predictable processing of this flow, and even taking into account the varying degree of influence of certain failures, the importance of certain requests, it is not enough for IT professionals to “just work well”. Additional managerial efforts are needed to cope with this load. And to cope so that it meets the expectations of the business.
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Any even the most advanced IT infrastructure is forced to change. Requirements of the customer and consumers change, technologies and abilities of IT service change. While developing a business, I often would like to test the practice of certain hypotheses in order to understand where to go next. Which requires new IT services and / or changes to existing ones. In some companies, change requests are almost continuous. For IT, however (if we consider not only the units involved in development and implementation, but also the units providing operation and support, that is, if we consider the entire service), such requests are not only an increase in the burden on developers (as well as analysts, testers and implementers), but also increase the risk of disruption of existing services. After all, the relationship of the various components of the IT infrastructure in a real organization is quite complex. And making any changes only increases the likelihood that something can go wrong (for good reason, they probably say: “if it works, do not touch”).
In general, how to build IT work in such a way as to implement changes quickly, in accordance with business needs, on time and at the same time avoiding or minimizing to an acceptable level the negative impact on the consumption of IT services that these changes can have.
How to make a business (or an external customer, if we are a commercial system integrator providing IT services to other organizations) to be satisfied with the way IT works (and was willing to pay for this work)?
We need to clearly agree on what they want from us, from IT. Of course, do not forget to clarify, and whether we can do this and the way that they want from us. But how to define and describe what is the result of IT? How to make this description understandable for the customer?
Moreover, even if we could agree, is it enough just to fulfill the agreement so that the customer is happy?
Almost always it is not. And not only because the wishes and needs of the customer change.
What else besides the fulfillment of contractual obligations does IT need to do in order to have good relations with a business / customer? And how to do it?
Both in the management of IT operations, and in defining agreements with a business / customer, an IT service provider has to act with an eye to its financial capabilities. In addition, in some cases, questions about why so much money is spent on IT, and why it cannot be cheaper, the business asks quite aggressively. Therefore, it would be nice to be able to assess how certain investments in IT are manifested in the form of results that are important for business. So that you can reasonably talk about the IT budget, the cost of IT services for the customer, as well as determine the plans for IT development.
To do this, it is necessary to build a model in accordance with which it would be possible to determine “how much IT costs” for each specific download (for example, a business unit).
The second important group of issues of IT service management is setting goals and determining their achievement. How do organization goals define IT service goals? How do the goals of the entire IT service define goals for each IT department that makes up IT? Or the goals of each process in which IT employees do their work?
THE END
As always, we are waiting for opinions, sneakers and suggestions.
IT operations management
The flow of user requests caused by failures in the provision of IT services can be very large. By the way, do you know that there is a rather narrow range of numbers in which the average number of calls per corporate user per month lies (with averaging over a year)? Of course, this value depends on the stability and quality of the IT infrastructure, the level of user competence and much more. But the numerical estimate made by analysts, however, exists. And with a noticeable number of users, even in a stable infrastructure, the flow of requests will be quite large. And if to add incidents to the incidents, caused not by failures on the IT side, but, for example, by the need of users for consultation, or resetting the password, etc., then the flow usually increases multiply.
Obviously, to ensure predictable processing of this flow, and even taking into account the varying degree of influence of certain failures, the importance of certain requests, it is not enough for IT professionals to “just work well”. Additional managerial efforts are needed to cope with this load. And to cope so that it meets the expectations of the business.
')
Making changes
Any even the most advanced IT infrastructure is forced to change. Requirements of the customer and consumers change, technologies and abilities of IT service change. While developing a business, I often would like to test the practice of certain hypotheses in order to understand where to go next. Which requires new IT services and / or changes to existing ones. In some companies, change requests are almost continuous. For IT, however (if we consider not only the units involved in development and implementation, but also the units providing operation and support, that is, if we consider the entire service), such requests are not only an increase in the burden on developers (as well as analysts, testers and implementers), but also increase the risk of disruption of existing services. After all, the relationship of the various components of the IT infrastructure in a real organization is quite complex. And making any changes only increases the likelihood that something can go wrong (for good reason, they probably say: “if it works, do not touch”).
In general, how to build IT work in such a way as to implement changes quickly, in accordance with business needs, on time and at the same time avoiding or minimizing to an acceptable level the negative impact on the consumption of IT services that these changes can have.
Interaction with customers (business units)
How to make a business (or an external customer, if we are a commercial system integrator providing IT services to other organizations) to be satisfied with the way IT works (and was willing to pay for this work)?
We need to clearly agree on what they want from us, from IT. Of course, do not forget to clarify, and whether we can do this and the way that they want from us. But how to define and describe what is the result of IT? How to make this description understandable for the customer?
Moreover, even if we could agree, is it enough just to fulfill the agreement so that the customer is happy?
Almost always it is not. And not only because the wishes and needs of the customer change.
What else besides the fulfillment of contractual obligations does IT need to do in order to have good relations with a business / customer? And how to do it?
Management and Finance
Both in the management of IT operations, and in defining agreements with a business / customer, an IT service provider has to act with an eye to its financial capabilities. In addition, in some cases, questions about why so much money is spent on IT, and why it cannot be cheaper, the business asks quite aggressively. Therefore, it would be nice to be able to assess how certain investments in IT are manifested in the form of results that are important for business. So that you can reasonably talk about the IT budget, the cost of IT services for the customer, as well as determine the plans for IT development.
To do this, it is necessary to build a model in accordance with which it would be possible to determine “how much IT costs” for each specific download (for example, a business unit).
The second important group of issues of IT service management is setting goals and determining their achievement. How do organization goals define IT service goals? How do the goals of the entire IT service define goals for each IT department that makes up IT? Or the goals of each process in which IT employees do their work?
THE END
As always, we are waiting for opinions, sneakers and suggestions.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/340266/
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