Information Technology Management Procedure | ITAD101

Information Technology Management Procedure

The IT Management Plan Procedure will help your company increase overall productivity and performance, achieve greater efficiency, and realize positive returns on technology investments.

The information and technology management procedure links the IT department’s goals with your company’s strategic vision to assure that your company continues to meet customer requirements. The IT Management Plan Procedure applies to your company’s IT Department. (12 pages, 2520 words)

The IT field is constantly changing, so that no document can claim to capture every possible issue, policy, or procedure and still be current. What are the common, basic elements of an IT Management System? 

Information Technology Management Responsibilities:

The company’s Board of Directors is responsible for approving the company’s IT Management Policy Plan and ensuring that Top Management effectively carries out the plan.

The CEO (Chief Executive Officer) is responsible for conducting strategic planning and setting the Strategic Objectives for the company.

Top Management is responsible for reviewing the company’s Strategic Plan with Information Technology Management, developing a budget and other guidelines for Information Technology to follow in developing the Information Technology Plan, and for presenting the final Information Technology Plan to the Board of Directors for approval. Top Management will consist of the company’s chief executive officer and chief financial officer, at a minimum.

Information Technology Managers are responsible for developing the Information Technology Plan, reviewing the Plan with Top Management, overseeing implementation of the Plan, and periodically verifying that the Information Technology Plan continues to meet company requirements.

Information Technology Staff are responsible for working with Information Technology Managers to carry out the Information Technology Plan.

Information Technology Management Definitions:

Information Technology asset – Any computer hardware, software, reference or other supporting material (in printed or other form), including rights and licenses, that is owned or controlled by the company. Within the scope of this procedure, “asset”, “Information Technology asset”, “resource”, and “Information Technology resource” are synonymous.

Risk – Possibility of loss or injury to the company.

ROI – Return on Investment, calculated by dividing the expected results of committed resources by the resources committed to achieve the results.  (ROI = Results/Resources.)

Information Technology Management Procedure Activities

• Business Planning
• IT Department Objective Planning
• IT Plan Development
• IT Plan Implementation
• IT Plan Review
• IT Plan Update

Information Technology Management Procedure References

• Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT)
• ISO International Standard 17799:2005-Code of Practice For Information Security Management

Information Technology Management Procedure Forms

• Information Technology Plan Form
• IT Plan Review Checklist Form

Prior to the 1960′s, we used manual systems — entirely paper-based, like ordering, purchasing, sales, and production — to run the business. Then the information age hit and technology was introduced to automate the information flow or paper shuffle (remember the dream of the “paperless office”?). Productivity increased, jobs descriptions changed, and the new technology was accepted.

Now that computer systems are ubiquitous, everyone wants access to the information they contain. People want new business reports describing new relationships, and the IT department has responded by developing more software applications for more users. Historically, the corporate IT department has reacted to demand but in today’s hypercompetitive environment, that’s not enough. IT has to anticipate!

Strategic Information Technology & SaaS

If your organization is focused on meeting user’s needs with just software applications development, you’re missing the boat. In-house development of software applications for HR, Accounting, Production, Sales & Marketing, and many other key operations is moving to Software as a Service (SaaS) and out of the IT Department.

If all you’re doing is developing software applications, you’re not only losing ground to SaaS — you’re also limiting the real strategic value of your IT department. What is needed now is a way to rise above just reacting to users. The new IT department model is based on being ahead of users’ needs and using strategic information technology as part of IT Management.

Information Technology Is About Interacting

Information Technology is about information deployment, the quality of your business processes, and their associated information interactions that are delivered over the information technology. We’re talking about how you create, capture, deliver, use, and measure your business information. Information Deployment is the strategic differentiator that your business processes require. Information Technology is now a commodity, but your business processes are your business.

The quality of your business processes and their associated information interactions that are delivered over the information technology is really the focus in today’s IT departments. Data processing has given way to business process processing. We no longer just move data; we now enable business processes.

Information Technology Usage

Application software development has always been about getting the right data in front of the right user using the right interface. Only now are we are finding that in our ever-increasing complex world, how you create, capture, deliver, use, and measure your business information is more critical than ever.

The Internet is a perfect example of how things are changing in the IT department. Users are now entering their own orders online, tracking their shipping, and reviewing their account. Paper is being eliminated and as we use principles of Lean Thinking, we find new inefficiencies in our old methods. The Internet is forcing organizations to rethink how Information Technology is used.

The Internet is forcing us to examine our core business processes, to understand the customers of those processes, and determine how to best use the information that is available. Only in this way do you get ahead of users’ demands. Put another way — the more proactive you are, the less reactive you’ll be to demands for application changes.

Strategic Information Technology Differentiation

In response, the IT department is now being asked to improve business processes. This is a strategic shift to taking on new responsibilities for Business Process Management. The new question is how do you build effective management systems and manage business processes?

Organizations that learn how to deploy information technology well have a valuable strategic differentiator. Information Technology is now a commodity, but your business processes are your business. Those with organizational leadership as a part of the IT Management Plan will beat out those who don’t.