I.T. Management
Introduction
This paper provides a reflection of Chapters 16 – 18 of the text “The Adventures of an IT Leader” (Austin, Nolan, & O'Donnell, 2009). It will analyze how the IT department determines the budget for maintenance, new applications/technologies, risk management & risk mitigation. It will also take a look at how IT managers can use a toolkit approach to effectively manage IT. Finally, this writer will present an opinion and conclusions regarding the subject matter.
Determining the Ratio of IT Maintenance to New Applications Spend
It can be said that the ratio of IT maintenance to new applications spend is a measure of how well IT supports business strategy. Therefore, one has to compute the output in accordance with the organization’s budget. For example, one could measure how much time it takes IT to respond to customer needs depending on how many issues need to be addressed. This greatly affects the budget allocated to maintenance due to resolving IT issues. On the other hand, one has to consider the estimated cost for new developments and how this will be capitalized by the organization; this metric affects the number of resources allocated to new applications spend. In most IT organizations, this ratio is typically 60% for new applications and 40% for maintenance. This may be attributed to the fact that IT organizations heavily rely on innovative technology to drive competitive advantage. However, when looking at organizations that mainly rely on IT for support, this ratio is roughly equal at 50%. This ratio supports a scalable and supportable model that enables a life-cycle approach to fundamental (critical) technology capabilities (Kaercher, 2012).
A Toolkit Approach to IT Management
The kid’s toolkit approach to management tackles the issue of what happens when IT or leadership gets too wedded to a model and loses the ability to handle situations (Austin, Nolan, & O'Donnell, 2009, p. 262). He presents that each manager has a toolbox of
This paper provides a reflection of Chapters 16 – 18 of the text “The Adventures of an IT Leader” (Austin, Nolan, & O'Donnell, 2009). It will analyze how the IT department determines the budget for maintenance, new applications/technologies, risk management & risk mitigation. It will also take a look at how IT managers can use a toolkit approach to effectively manage IT. Finally, this writer will present an opinion and conclusions regarding the subject matter.
Determining the Ratio of IT Maintenance to New Applications Spend
It can be said that the ratio of IT maintenance to new applications spend is a measure of how well IT supports business strategy. Therefore, one has to compute the output in accordance with the organization’s budget. For example, one could measure how much time it takes IT to respond to customer needs depending on how many issues need to be addressed. This greatly affects the budget allocated to maintenance due to resolving IT issues. On the other hand, one has to consider the estimated cost for new developments and how this will be capitalized by the organization; this metric affects the number of resources allocated to new applications spend. In most IT organizations, this ratio is typically 60% for new applications and 40% for maintenance. This may be attributed to the fact that IT organizations heavily rely on innovative technology to drive competitive advantage. However, when looking at organizations that mainly rely on IT for support, this ratio is roughly equal at 50%. This ratio supports a scalable and supportable model that enables a life-cycle approach to fundamental (critical) technology capabilities (Kaercher, 2012).
A Toolkit Approach to IT Management
The kid’s toolkit approach to management tackles the issue of what happens when IT or leadership gets too wedded to a model and loses the ability to handle situations (Austin, Nolan, & O'Donnell, 2009, p. 262). He presents that each manager has a toolbox of