Has the ideal of IT/business alignment become the holy grail of IT leaders? The promise of IT/business alignment is to focus investment and activities, increase the value of IT, and integrate IT more closely with business initiatives. IT leaders...

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Once project proposals have been submitted and collected, establish a process to identify the highest priority project proposals. This will include maintaining an inventory of proposed projects, applying ranking criteria, and establishing the...

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One of the first steps in preparing for global data center integration is to gather a list of all inventories. A comprehensive inventory of applications and infrastructure at all global data centers is essential to determining what needs to be...

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Metrics give managers the ability to more accurately estimate projects and assess code quality, which are key factors to improving overall success. However, the perception that collecting metrics requires too much effort prevents many...

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Business stakeholders are not programmed to voluntarily present IT with their requirements and expectations. When the need for stakeholder management is heightened - at the start of projects and during periods of change - conduct structured...

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Help desk triage determines priority levels for problems reported by end users. Employ a triage policy to help the IT department set end-user expectations and effectively manage scarce resources.

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For many organizations, projects in IT environments are a critical part of daily operations. Constrained by budget, time frames, and personnel, IT leaders must carefully select the best projects to align with organizational goals and objectives....

The most popular areas to reduce IT costs are pretty predictable. However, many IT leaders are missing or avoiding major cost saving opportunities altogether. Move beyond low-hanging fruit and tackle more creative ways to cut the IT budget.

Enterprises are facing different cost reduction targets and timeframes, but that doesn't mean that these enterprises are adopting radically different cost reduction tactics. Understand current common practice to help prepare an informed internal...

Greater participation by IT leadership in decision-making processes has an influence on where enterprises choose to focus IT cost-cutting efforts. Perform a quick peer comparison to prepare for the opportunities and challenges.

Many enterprises are tackling the usual and predictable when it comes to cutting IT costs. However, many significant cost-reduction opportunities are being missed or ignored outright. Move beyond the low-hanging fruit and scrutinize in-house...

It would make sense that bigger enterprises would target different areas than smaller enterprises when it comes to reducing IT costs. However, measures of organization size, such as number of staff, revenue and budget, have little impact when IT...

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Establishing a process for collecting valid project requests is achieved through the completion of two main steps, which are establishing rules of engagement and collecting project proposals.

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After the preliminary ranking of projects, actual resource availability needs to be taken into account. In this stage, IT capacity for completing projects will be measured against the projects that have already been identified as high priority.

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When organizational or market factors fluctuate, project priorities may shift due to changing realities. Organizations that have multiple projects competing for limited resources face some key challenges.

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The first task in developing an Infrastructure Direction is to identify weaknesses and gaps. The health of current technical components and their ability to support the business as it changes strategically are critical elements of mapping a...

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Many companies focus exclusively on the technology aspects of the IT Strategy ignoring the fact that it is often the human factors that have a more direct impact on overall strategy success. Any time you develop an IT Strategy, consider how well...

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You now have a set of opportunities to improve the application portfolio, enhance technical infrastructure and strengthen the IT organization. You now need to turn those opportunities into action and describe what needs to be done.

Cost reduction opportunities are everywhere, yet many remain overlooked and unexploited. Know what these opportunities are and add them to the IT department's cost management priority list.

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All companies require a well written patch management policy to ensure that IT systems function optimally and that vulnerabilities are mitigated. Use this template to create your own customized policy.

An Info-Tech survey has revealed the IT service areas under closest scrutiny for cost reduction. Use this information as a reality check to gauge in-house decisions and actions, and to reassess the overall cost-reduction plan.

Despite heavy government intervention to allay further financial crises, many US and Canadian Information Technology leaders are anticipating budget impact from the downturn and should be preparing to manage with less, a recent poll by Info-Tech...

Help desks are the field hospitals of the IT world. When problems come pouring in, make sure help desk staff can assess what care they require with clear and efficient triage criteria. A help desk triage policy is a simple and effective way to...

Achieving and sustaining IT/Business alignment can be elusive. When considering a change to how IT resources and services are organized, IT leaders must consider how the company has structured authority, control and communications. A structural...

Developing a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is only half the battle. Without performance measurements, SLAs are ineffective. Know what to measure, how to measure it, and when to change it.

When deciding which initiatives to pursue, an IT leader is often caught between a rock and a hard place, forced to act as a mediator between competing interests. Prioritization is no easy task and requires the involvement of many organizational...

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Use Info-Tech's sample policy to launch software acquisition management efforts to the top of your priority list.