In this Newsletter
- Basics for IT Management Metrics
- Social Networking Policy Needs to be Defined
- CIO's Role Has Changed
- IT Infrastructure Impacted by Technology Changes
- Security Policies and Procedures Compliant with Mandated Requirements
Basics for IT Management Metrics
Defining Metrics - First Steps CIOs and IT Managers Need to Take
Business strategy and technology drive new direction
Most IT metrics efforts lack relevance to the business and are not well linked to business outcomes. They tend to be IT focused, such as WAN availability or server downtime. It is difficult for the business to understand how these measures relate to its objectives, and they provide little insight into the value that IT delivers.
CIOs must create a scorecard and service level agreements that:
- Relate to the enterprise and its management team. Server availability, network throughput, help desk call volumes, capacity utilization, and other IT operational metrics are not relevant to business executives. These types of metrics need to be translated into something enterprise management understands, such as availability of business applications or the cost to support a business area. The IT-operational metrics should be kept within IT unless they can be put in enterprise terms.
- Relate to the enterprise strategic and tactical objectives. Enterprise executives are concerned with introducing new products and services, improving customer loyalty and satisfaction, increasing gross margins, and growing market share. IT metrics must be linked directly to these enterprise objectives, specifically demonstrating how IT initiatives contributed favorably to improving them.
Balancing Key Business Needs
Managing the IT environment is a complex challenge that requires attention to three primary business metrics: cost, service, and risk.
Cost
IT Staff salaries account for the major direct cost of the IT Organization. The IT staff performs a specialized role in most enterprises and is generally well compensated as a result.
Enhancing the productivity of the IT organizational team is essential to maximizing cost effectiveness. Tools that automate tasks via an intuitive user interface are often the first step toward improving IT productivity. For IT staff managing critical applications and databases, productivity is widely measured by the number of applications and databases they can manage while maintaining service levels.
Service
IT applications and databases carry a service expectation that is either implicitly understood by the administration teams or formalized into a service level. Service levels are usually defined by the application team and passed on to the administrators of each asset in the application stack. Given the vital role of the applications and databases, the service level the IT team inherits is aligned to application criticality and is typically measured by availability and response time.
Risk
The centralized nature of applications and database relative to the other components in the application stack makes it highly sensitive to change – and with change comes risk. Moderate-risk changes are small and incremental (e.g. operating system upgrades, application and database patches and regular maintenance tasks like backup, data archiving, and object reorganization).
When larger changes are required, however, the risk to application and database stability is much higher. Significant upgrades to server hardware often require downtime, but upgrades to the application code or to a new major release of the database carry the added risk that application performance may become slower as a result of the change.
Balancing these factors requires intuition, good judgment, and accurate data. The CIOs biggest challenges is to justify staffing and spending levels as they strive to improve IT efficiency. When assessing comparative benchmarks, it is hard to know which metrics to start with. The Metrics for the Internet, Information Technology and Service Management HandiGuide helps CIOs to understand and pick the appropriate comparative benchmarks to justify staffing and spending, improving IT operations and demonstrating the value of IT to the business.
IT Employment Picture Continues to Improve
10,000 jobs added to IT sector or 18.5% of the total job growth for the month
For the 5th month in a row IT employment improves
The BLS report shows an increase of 10,000 IT related jobs in May. The greatest increase, as a percentage, has been in jobs that are related to the IT support functions as companies are beginning to hire staff positions that were cut earlier in response to the recession. These jobs tend to be the "lower paying" ones within IT’s infrastructure.
The CEO of Janco, Victor Janulaitis said, “There definitely are some positive signs in the IT employment market. Companies are starting to fill positions that are open in support functions and where there are critical needs.” He added, “The flood gates have not yet been opened for general hiring as CIOs are still being cautious in keeping cost down while trying to improve overall service levels.”
Social Networking Policy Needs to be Defined
It is Time to Gain Control of Social Networks
Policy Template is the must have tool
Social networking is going corporate. The popular technology used by millions of people to share ideas and photos is catching on at companies to improve productivity and communication among workers. Private, internal social networks make sense as companies grapple with a slumping economy that has made travel cost-prohibitive even as workforces are spread out as never before.
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn are all very popular social networking platforms. Most companies today have discovered many business advantages to using social networks as a critical tool for communicating and interacting with their customers, suppliers and employees. But with this convenience comes the difficult task of regulating usage and keeping employees productive with all the recreational temptation these platforms represent.
The Social Networking Policy Template is an ideal resource for any company that wants to establish or revise its policies pertaining to the use of most social networking platforms. It helps you define clear rules for contributing to company social networking initiatives and provides guidelines on usage of personal accounts while at work.
IT Infrastructure Impacted by Technology Changes
iPads and Tablets Challenge CIOs
As Users Acquire New Technologies Existing IT Infrastructure is Pushed to its Limits
With the explosion of technology into every facet of the day-to-day business environment there is a need to define an effective infrastructure to support operating environment; have a strategy for the deployment and technology; and clearly define responsibility and accountability for the use and application of technology.
In most companies, CEOs need a CIO who can be a true business partner, someone who can not only drive out costs from day-to-day operations, but strategically manage IT to enhance revenue and profits.
If the CIO is stuck in tunnel vision they may be scrambling to buy and implement one application after another and execute on programs and projects without a clear sense of strategic priorities; wasting resources on applications and projects that are redundant; and carefully depreciating hardware to keep the accountants happy.
Managing Critical Steps in Infrastructue Definition
Defining Your Optimal IT Infrastructure is a critical task that can no longer wait with all of the changes mandated by Sarbanes-Oxley and changes to your operating environment. The template helps you:
- Understand and explain what infrastructure is, enabling you, your constituents, and the executive team to manage the organization's technology environment more effectively.
- Analyze the current state of your infrastructure so you know where it works well and where to focus improvement efforts.
- Justify infrastructure spending, using the template's comprehensive definitions and ready to use examples to link IT infrastructure and your company's bottom line.
- Prioritize your resources with a prescriptive tool-set that lets you focus your efforts.
Security Policies and Procedures Come in Standard - Premium - Gold Editions
Not only can you get the template in easily modifiable Microsoft WORD but you can get full multi-page job descriptions when you order the Premium or Gold Editions. Read on...