"How do we achieve more business value from our investment in our Information Technology department?" is the most commonly requested question by our clients. According to our experience, four important areas must be addressed to get the most out of an IT support investment:
Align business cases with the overarching strategy of the company.
The bulk of the time, the business case for IT investments such as software development or acquisition is unrelated to a well-defined business plan. Rather than directly addressing the capabilities required to achieve the organization's goal, IT expenditures are typically undertaken based on promised benefits that are rarely realized and are common of short duration.
You may begin to more successfully align your IT delivery to generate true business value by ensuring that each investment directly supports your business goals and by continuously analyzing the actual benefits produced by prior investments.
Evaluate your project management abilities.
Most IT departments are so overburdened by the rapid pace of technology development and the business's ongoing need for new capabilities that they lack the time and expertise to deal with project delivery difficulties. As a result, projects go over budget, are late, and fail to meet significant portions of critical business needs.
The bulk of these challenges may be avoided simply by following good project management principles and ensuring that the structure, procedures, and underlying methodologies are tested and applied consistently. This may be accomplished quickly by establishing a robust project lifecycle and then engaging experienced project management specialists to help with project governance and execution.
Accept accountability and responsibility.
Similarly, most departments are so consumed with keeping up with rapid changes in their markets and consumer expectations that they have little time to care about IT concerns.
Enterprises must accept full responsibility for information technology delivery. IT Support Sydney must be considered as a critical and integrated component of your business, with the company bearing primary responsibility for delivering IT value. Insist on active management involvement and engagement, as well as a focus on only the most pressing business concerns and a strong business rationale for each reform.
Utilize best practices.
Best practices in information technology and software development are widely accepted, confirmed, and disseminated. Unfortunately, the majority of IT Support Sydney teams operate on a procedural level that is many years behind industry best practices.
In this regard, the three areas listed below demand special attention:
Getting a Glimpse of the Business Needs:
Ensuring that business needs are recognized and understood can result in increased project delivery efficiency, as well as a reduction in costly rework and project time and cost slippage. Using industry-standard tools and notations, such as the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), can assist in bridging the communication gap that frequently exists between business process design and execution.
Estimating and following up:
Implementing and adhering to a strict software development lifecycle, in conjunction with project management oversight, will improve delivery predictability and early visibility of any deviations from the plan.
Architecture and the software lifecycle:
Effective business and application design, together with the right execution of agile development methodologies, contributes to excellent quality, maximum flexibility, and low support and rework.
