Slashdot Mirror
Organizational Practices of an IT Department?
fbg111 asks: "I've recently joined a company, a regional airline, with an IT department that has grown organically (ie in response to immediate, rapid-growth-driven need, rather than according to any organizational plan). In the past five years the company has come to rely on IT, specifically the web team, for about 3/4's of its revenue. However, this unstructured growth has caused some problems, like this one: the lack of defined career paths and clear promotion 'triggers' makes techs feel 'stuck' in dead-end situations, and we tend to lose good people who find more transparent advancement opportunities elsewhere. I've recently joined the new CIO's task force for putting together a plan that addresses the immediate problem of defining career advancement paths and payscales. Does Slashdot have any ideas on this subject?"
"I'm particularly interested in industry best practices that cover providing breadth and depth of experience and training, dual (or more) career tracks that allow techs to go the management route or the technical guru route, and aligning promotion triggers and career paths with IT department & corporate goals, and anything else relevant to the matter. Do any of you have anything in particular to recommend?"
Indeed, it sounds like the problem may be more a case of there just not being anywhere for the staff to advance to. It would be pointless, and probably more problematic than beneficial, to artificially create managerial positions just to make the staff feel better.
Rather than waste money on useless managerial positions, give each staff member a raise. They'll get the financial benefits of having a higher position within the firm, while at the same time keeping a structure that is currently fairly functional, and without the overhead of excessive management.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Take it with whatever size grain of salt you want, but it is interesting food for thought for those in your position.
SAGE (the System Administrators Guild) has published 4 levels of system administration, which is probably a good start for developing a track system. We use it here to quantify jr/admin/sr type levels. They also have some good documents on hiring practices, interviewing, along with their comprehensive salary surveys.
Other than that its also important to distinguish management and supervisory positions that make sense for the size of the group. Then you can chart a course for both the folks who want to head towards leadership roles, versus the pure techs who never want a single soul reporting to them.
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Fleur de Sel
I also suggest browsing the back issues of Rands in Repose, another blog about IT management.
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-kfg
I think that in many senses, unions have outgrown their usefullness. In times (or places) where there are no laws governing hours of work, minimum rates of pay, or safety of working conditions, unions can serve a good purpose. However, once they achieve those goals, they usually continue fighting for more and more. Eventually, they start asking for too much, or taking measures that affect the business in a very negative way, such as multi-week, or multi-month strikes. The NHL lost an entire hockey season due to a strike. And almost all the players are millionaires. Many times, employees don't even want to go on strike, but have to because the majority rules. Even if they are strongly against it, then end up getting pushed into it.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The NHL lost an entire season due to a LOCKOUT. Most of the owners (presumably) are millionaires. And you are right, the players were pushed into it - by the owners who locked them out.
I'm the decider.
Thats an absurdly narrow minded view, and ignores the onerous demands the players were putting on the owners. It even further ignores the fact that the league, and most of the individual teams, were losing money due to these demands.
The real reason it was termed a lockout and not a strike is that the owners moved first in order to set the terms of the debate. The players union was set to strike, the owners just scheduled their press conference first.
The bottom line is you, as an individual, fend for yourself first and foremost. If IT is messed up, management doesn't seem to care, or know how to do their job(s) that's not something you can fix. Decide what you want and need, weigh those criteria against what you experience in your job and management. If it's bad, it's unlikely to improve (much).
/. for similar articles before posting this, and didn't find any.
Thanks for responding, I submitted this article, and I see I may need to clarify things a bit. First, I'm not complaining, I'm happy to be here, it's a great opportunity. This airline has the potential to become a regional JetBlue or Southwest in some respects, though not as big, and there's a lot of energy here. Five years ago, the marketing director and his IT counterpart made a brilliant move in the midst of bankruptcy, and moved all sales primarily to the company's website. It was a huge gamble that people would buy cheaper tickets from the airline's website than from the GDS's (Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity), but it paid off in spades and the company is insanely profitable for the first time its 75 year history, even with the crazy oil prices.
Now everyone in the company recognizes the value of essentially turning the airline into an internet and electronic direct sales company, and the tiny little IT department that started it all has been ramped up quickly to support these endeavors. But during this process it was being led until recently by IT people who knew technology but not really the business organization side that we all take for granted in larger, more established companies.
I don't blame the management for any shortcomings, they did a phenomenal job with what they had, and now they've hired a rockstar CIO (prior CIO of two major global banks) and HR director, a few months ago to solve the organizational issues. That's what I"m helping with right now, and I'm happy to do it.
Most companies aren't interested in grooming, triggers, etc., they're interested in their bottom line.
The CIO of this one is, it's his initiative.
That you've been "tasked"
I haven't been "tasked", I said "I recently joined the new CIO's task force". Voluntarily.
But a company that doesn't "get it" isn't going to "get it" by organizing some CIO appointed task force.
The company 'gets it', they're just seeking advice on how to implement it.
Aside: Heads up, since you've joined an airline... make sure you keep the jackscrews lubed!)
lol, thanks for the advice, will do.
PS - is this really a dupe? I searched
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There are plenty of compensation programs in the industry to copy. Find one that looks the most like your organization and copy it
/.'ers.
Thanks, that's exactly the response I was hoping for, though you wouldn't happen to know of any in particular, would you? Even Google isn't very helpful on this. We've found some general info on this on Salary.com, in terms of jobs and roles and salaries that we can use, but I'm hoping for more detailed suggestions from
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams