IT Quality

Dear Readers,
Here is the Paul’s list of great IT qualities (which I have edited) addresses both considerations.

1.The CIO reports to the CEO or, at least, the chief operating officer, giving the CIO clout and ensuring IT’s independence.

2.An IT steering committee, composed of C-level executives from the business units, makes allocation decisions based on a defined set of priorities and criteria such as ROI. The committee is necessary to ensure that investment decisions are made in the interests of the entire company and not just an individual department.

3.The organization spends an appropriate percentage of corporate revenue on IT, indicating the company’s level of commitment to IT.

4.A well-managed, highly visible security team is in place, since this is one of the most vulnerable areas of IT.

5.Disaster recovery plans and processes, involving users and a documented recovery plan, are well-established and tested regularly.

6.An ongoing commitment to training keeps IT staffers up to date. Organizations that don’t train IT folks and use lots of consultants are not sufficiently focused on in-house staff.

7.Rigid adherence to an appropriate system development life cycle, that both IT and the user community understand, is a priority. Documenting the selection process offers insight into the professionalism of the IT organization.

8.Well defined technical and managerial career paths let all workers achieve higher pay and status. This is the only way to retain top technical people who don’t want to manage others.

9.A monthly major IT project status report is widely distributed throughout the company.

10.The CIO participates in long-range, organizational strategic planning. If not, it’s clear the business views IT as an implementer and not a strategic enabler.

Thank you, Readers
JS