Chapter 2
Step 2: Organize
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
—Benjamin Franklin
Once you have developed a partnership with your business colleagues, it's time to organize your department so you can deliver the anticipated results. I avoid using the phrase “run IT like a business” because it implies that the people inside your company are your customers. Instead, IT professionals should aspire to be more businesslike in their planning, processes, investment analysis, project management, measurement, and behavior. This chapter focuses on the practices of defining the IT mission, vision, goals, organizational structure, processes, and policies to build and run a world-class IT organization.
Brand Your Department
Just as a company has a mission, a vision, and a set of goals, individual departments should create their own maxims to articulate how they fit into the overall picture. The mission for an IT department should describe why it is exists. Here is an example:
The mission of Information Technology is to deliver value by providing innovative, cost-effective technology and services that are strategically aligned with business goals and objectives.
An IT department's vision is a ...
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