Mistakes are a part of life: we all make them. Some mistakes have very little effect while others have grave effects. In the wake of rapid advancements in the technological frontier, mistakes in the management of the IT infrastructure have far-reaching effects on a company.
In the world of IT where the stakes are high, the fallouts from mishaps in IT management can easily lead to retrenchment and even the folding up of companies.
Here are four common mistakes in IT management every company should endeavor to avoid.
1. Not Focusing on the Bigger Picture.
The typical IT manager comes from a technical background in either infrastructure or development. As a consequence, they tend to concentrate their efforts on getting the technical side of things ticking – sometimes at the expense of the overall goals of the business.
To be successful, IT managers must morph into business leaders and shift their focus and know-how to business issues and challenges first. Ultimately, IT management is about harnessing IT to ensure a business achieves its goals.
Thus, the business strategy of an organization should hold sway over all other departments and every strategy that is formulated – including IT strategy – must be aligned to the business goals.
So if you own or run a business, ensure that your IT department doesn’t become an island, instead, their vision and actions should be in sync with the direction of the company.
2. Becoming Complacent.
One of the critical tasks an IT manager and his team have to continually undertake is ensuring IT infrastructure is up and running without fault. They are also supposed to foresee challenges and make provision for backups.
Every so often, IT managers may become complacent and join the chorus of those who say “we’ve got it covered.” However, owing to the complicated nature of IT, the rapid evolution of hardware and software as well as the guile of hackers and threats, no IT team has truly got it covered.
It takes consistent assessment, evaluation, and analysis to ensure an IT system is operating and running at peak capacity. For instance, some IT management fail to conduct a disaster recovery test or test their backups. Thus, it is all too common to have a backup tried after a system failure only to realize the backup has faults as well.
To be able to properly manage your IT, planning is key. A comprehensive list of expectations for your entire IT department should be drawn. This could include critical projects, network and server performance, client satisfaction, etc. Verify the list to ensure inspection of all expectations on a regular basis. A checklist or a daily disciplines worksheet should be kept and followed daily.
This ultimately leads to proper planning, budgeting, staffing, etc. in tandem with the organization’s goals.
3. Not Asking for Help.
Everyone needs help, including the most proficient IT management team. Because technology is not a static sector, it keeps evolving. Mistakes made by IT technicians who go on one-man-voyage in solving problems are all-too-common.
That’s why every IT team must be big on upgrading, learning and changing with the times. In a similar vein, it is a good idea for companies to engage industry experts and consultants who can bring years of experience and expertise. A good place to start is to visit https://thinkwgroup.com/ to engage with experts.
Wrapping Up.
Mistakes are costly and IT mistakes, in particular, can have severe effects on a company. Therefore, companies must be willing to go every length to ensure mistakes such as lack of focus on the bigger picture, complacency and not asking for help do not cripple the goal of the company.
