When you say “IT”, what does that mean in your organization? You might be thinking, isn’t IT just “IT”? And to that I would say, not so fast! Every IT department is different. Yes, at a basic level IT manages your Google and your Microsoft, responds to helpdesk tickets, and makes sure your internet works. The core stuff. But most IT departments (even departments of one person) handle a lot more than that.
Every IT team manages an assortment of functions and duties that’s dictated by the company’s type, size, budget, systems, goals, and org structure. If IT operates on an island disconnected from leadership, its mix of required functions is almost certainly not defined, its skills and resources are assembled reactively, and things can get pretty far out of alignment with what’s actually best for the business.
In new companies, it very rarely occurs to anyone to define a scope for the organization’s IT expectations. A charter, if you will. It is definitely a worthwhile exercise. If you don’t do this, you may have multiple very-important-people in your company who either A) have a different idea of what IT is supposed to be providing, or B) have never thought about it.
Heck, most IT Managers have never thought about it. Most IT Managers, being service-oriented professionals, come in with the attitude that, darnit, I will provide technology support in whatever way is needed. But if “whatever’s needed” is not quantified or communicated, you’ll have problems whenever undefined IT expectations aren’t met.
“We should avoid that!” you might be (correctly) thinking. If you do produce an IT charter, It’ll give you clarity on skills, staffing, and scaling, but more importantly it will provide a mechanism for IT and executive leadership to connect and agree on exactly what IT’s role and scope should look like in your company. This will ultimately go a long way toward avoiding those “how could we let this happen?” moments down the road.
Let’s unpack this a little further. To start with, what are the core IT responsibilities in just about every organization? The list is relatively short:
Core IT functions:
- Service delivery – managing applications, systems, workstations, user accounts
- Helpdesk – supporting the environment, fixing things when they break
- Infrastructure management – maintaining networks and servers
Beyond this, what else might IT be expected to own? This list is longer. Some functions that are integral to IT can be owned outside IT. And, especially in small companies, some functions will have shared ownership, or don’t exist yet, or have no defined owner.
Potential IT functions:
- Compliance – data security, privacy, audits, GxP
- Strategy – roadmapping, digital solutions & transformations, emerging technologies
- Business Systems – enterprise platform administration, integrations, data management
- Project Management – cross-functional projects, portfolio management, change management
- Procurement – budgeting, purchasing, vendor & contract management
- Web Environment – web infrastructure management, corporate website development
- Software Development – e-commerce & internal apps, DevOps, observability
- (And more…)
Looking at the above you might be thinking “of course IT does that” for some items, and “why would IT do that?” for other items. This is where expectation gaps can creep in. Why is the IT department especially susceptible to expectation gaps?
- IT supports every department, and departments’ tech needs (and expectations) can vary quite widely
- IT collaborates with many departments – Legal, Accounting, Engineering, HR, Marketing, etc. – which can lead to ambiguous ownership of cross-functional duties
- IT tends to lag behind other departments in organizational maturity; newer companies often lack a strategic IT leader and many rely on outsource providers
- Technical people, overall, tend not to be business people, and as a result they don’t always know how to take a higher-level view or ask the right questions
- Business people, overall, tend not to be technical, and as a result they don’t always have an accurate idea of what’s “doable” with existing resources
- Since IT is technical, a lot of core work is done behind the scenes that’s not easily understood by the rest of the company, which can lead to a “what is IT actually doing” perception
If all this seems like a lot to grapple with for a small company, this is where I mention I can help 🙂 I can analyze your current state against your planned future state and put together a charter to ensure your IT team is structured and resourced to meet defined expectations. The goal is to enable IT to scale for the future, provide required skills and outcomes, and mesh with complimentary functions throughout the organization.
