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Where Does IT Fall Within Your Organization?
ros256 writes "I help out a relatively small (100 employees) medical device company that does not have a dedicated IT department. Instead the network admin reports to a manager in the Clinical department. Although this seems unusual to me, the organization isn't really structured at this point to have IT staff report to a department more relevant to the work they do. I've been giving thought as to where within the organization would make more sense. So, I pose this question to the Slashdot community: Where does IT fall within the organizations you work with?"
A few places I've worked IT fell under Operations, the same people that keep the lightbulbs changed, the warehouse shipping and the driveway plowed.
Presently I work at a smaller business, where I represent the department. I'm lateral to Operations Director, sales director, etc and report directly to the President and VP.
I recommend reading The Geek Gap. It might give you some further insight into the topic (and, if nothing else, it might help your boss and their boss understand the importance of a proper department).
I also would recommend anyone in an IT or management position to read that book. It's a great read that can be finished over a weekend.
Living With a Nerd
Hopefully not to far, servers don't handle drops well. Keyboards seem to do alright though.
Nowhere, really - IT just keeps on falling, and falling, and falling.
In my organization, it essentially stands for "Incompetent Technician"
I'm also in a smaller IT company (~140 ppl). We have a department of 6 and fall under the Operations area. When we were smaller, it was a wandering soul of a department, but now that we have an IT manager who really knows his stuff, it's great.
Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
So are you Bill or Minda?
This group also includes HR, training, health & safety, legal counsel... All the "overhead" stuff we don't sell directly to clients (we are an engineering & construction company).
India
since I work at a top-10 Fortune 500 company, IT is it's own dept. We do report up through the same executive structure as Accounting, Travel, etc. based on geography and who's located here vs. at HQ in another state.
I put in a request for a machine 6 months ago and still haven't received it.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Currently, in big business (healthcare), my company has a CIO. However, my last job was as IT Manager of a small company (~300 people). There I actually reported to the Continuous Improvement Manager.
Windows isn't the answer... it's the question. NO is the answer!
I am at a university, and the computer science department has 5 IT staffers who simply report to the central IT office for the entire campus. Most of the large departments in science and engineering have one or two IT staffers who serve a similar role, but since CS has somewhat heavier computing needs, we are assigned extra people. Basically, the department's IT staff serve as points of contact: they do what is in their power when they can, or if they cannot, they forward the request up to the appropriate person. For example, when I received my new workstation, a university-wide asset number had to be assigned to it, and the CS department firewall had to be configured to allow SSH traffic to the machine; the IT staff forwarded the asset number request to the central office, and took care of the DNS entry themselves.
Palm trees and 8
I started with a small Medical Contract Research Organization right out of college (25 people) as the first IT person. At that point, I was a member of the data management department, but I think it more importantly depends on the people you have. If you don't have a dedicated IT department, the best idea is to see who has the most knowledge and more importantly, who WANTS to do it. In my case, the head of DM had the most knowledge and had been doing it up until they hired me. In your case, if the head of Clinical has knowledge and wants to do it, they are probably the best choice.
In most case something like Data Management or Stats or something along those lines will be best, since those people are usually a little more tech savvy. But if they don't want to do it, then it doesn't matter how tech savvy they are, IT isn't going to get anything from them.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Overhead
Our IT department is split into two/three areas depending on how you look at it. The main division is between the Clinical Applications staff and the Network/Desktop Services staff, with a further division in the latter section. IT itself falls along a line equal to all other areas and directly below Administration.
There's a reason I'm posting as Anon.
IT at my company reports to the CFO. And as a result they definitely don't support the needs of the Engineering Dept. So the Engineering Dept. has its own IT group that effectively does things like making sure the automated testing system is up, making sure backups are done, making sure programmers can do their job without having to worry about hardware infrastructure. The CFO IT still handles stuff like the phones, the network, internal security (which they're notoriously bad at actually notifying users of changes).
Having IT report to the CFO is exactly how I would _not_ do it if I had a say.
Where Does IT Fall Within Your Organization?
On the floor, then usually rolls under some file archive and gets lost. On a more serious note though, it's mostly outsourced but what's left is under Operations.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I was the sole system administrator for a finance software development department in a big company, and reported directly to the manager of the finance team. She wasn't a technical person, and had an home office 1,500 miles away. Amusingly, I NEVER saw her in person for the 18 months that I worked for her.
The good thing about working for her is that she didn't understand what I did, and didn't particularly care to learn. She didn't bother asking questions as to what I was up to, just assumed that I was doing a good job, and gave me great reviews every year. The flip side of that is that she didn't understand why we needed things like new equipment, new software, or training... which left me running the entire development department on 6 year old refurbished equipment that I could "borrow" from other departments.
That said, it was a good time. I thought myself a lot of useful skills during my downtime, which made me a better sysadmin later on. I wish that I had more managers like that now :)
What IT department? We are a 90% Mac based non-profit (12 million/yr, 100 employees), I am assistant director, and do IT work as a sideline due to personal experience. Everything works, servers, anti virus and backup centrally controlled, all servers and workstations mirrored, back up on and off site via Crashplan, volume licensing covers compliance. Users are pretty much self sufficient on Macs. End of story.
I work in a similar sized company that manufactures kitchen and bath counter tops and has retail kitchen and bath design showrooms. I'm the only IT worker there, and I work there part time. Well, part time is kind of a misnomer, I work there whenever there is a problem, or whenever I want. That being said, I work about 20 - 30 hours a week on average. I'm responsible for about 45 desktops and 3 servers spread out over 7 locations. We have 3 owners of the company who are the CEO, CFO, and President. My boss is the controller and he works under CFO. Basically the only time I have to go to my boss is when I want to make a company wide policy change, or if I need some money to order parts.
TL~DR Your boss should be someone with purchasing authority.
We fall under the administrative division, specifically, the business/technology subdivision. I guess we're big enough (a couple hundred full-time employees and perhaps an equal number of student employees and a few part-time workers) to do that.
R.Mo
I work in an office that does the web design and web apps for a large company. We're under the larger PR department, along with the publications office.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
When shit works right - "Why do we need an IT department? They're just an expense!"
When shit breaks - "Why the hell are you using shit that has to be kept together with duct tape and bailing wire???"
The excellent book "The Practice of System and Network Administration" has a chapter on this topic that would make very good reading. If I recall correctly, they assert that organisations usually structure IT depending on whether it's considered a "cost centre" or an "investment centre". "Cost centres" often simply end up reporting to the finance department. "Investement centres" can usually justify reporting to the head of the business.
He have distributed IT here.
There is a genuine IT department by name, which is mostly extremely generic typical business IT support. The printer is broken again. Can you move this PC from the old cube to the new cube? You don't want to work there, except maybe for some plum spots at the top. They report to ... like finance or something, as a cost center. Everyone in the company is their boss whenever something breaks.
Then there are IT-type people attached to certain departments to run specialized technical resources that are not found at every business office full of computers. They/we report to the boss of that department. Our boss is responsible for certain goals requiring specialized technical devices, and I support those devices. That's a very nice place to work. I have one boss.
We mostly treat other IT groups as almost separate companies, no teamwork allowed, but sometimes it happens anyway. For example, when I had some production gear living on IT's LAN, those SOBs statically double-assigned one of my server IP addresses to a printer (Personally, I think they were getting even for the time I wiped a IT PC that was "their property" for use as a temporary server). So, I went begging to yet another little team in a separate department that happened to run their own separate LAN and got access and IP space from them, so the general employees living in IT-land now have to access our production gear thru the firewall between the separate LANs.
The idea that I would pull cable for some secretary is about as ridiculous as the idea that a "generic cog in the IT machine" could support our specialized production gear. Most grunt laborers from IT probably wouldn't even know the acronyms much less how to install and repair the gear, and I have no idea how to change printer toner cartridges, and I like it that way.
So "Informational Technology" lives here both as a generic support team reporting up their own separate IT chain of command, and also as a widely distributed small team/individual basis reporting directly to their local manager.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I would be Bill, although most of the people I work with internally are on the Minda side of the equation. It's my job to listen to their business needs and translate it into a way that we can achieve it from the technical end...I'm something of a translator between the two sides.
Living With a Nerd
...All over the place.
Although I understand the historical reasons why IT was frequently placed under finance, the world has changed. In ancient times, IT was centralized and capital-intensive. I worked in a state agency that had about $3 million worth of mainframe hardware in a big room. The users had terminals. I was spending between $500,000 and $1,000,000 on capital expense per year. Salaries in IT were rather high as well; even an entry-level programmer was well-paid compared to the rest of the organization. Since the goal of IT was to promote efficiency, you needed the involvement of finance to make sure that the cost of IT was justified.
In the modern world, IT is decentralized. If you think about the cost per employee, capital expense is a fraction of what once was. Half of the IT employees make less than an executive secretary. Although the official goal of IT is still to promote efficiency, the reality is that most projects are mandated by some type of policy compliance or to keep pace with competitors. Not much of this is truly discretionary. The linkage of IT to finance has (in my opinion) outlived its usefulness. I have seen too many dumb ideas leak from finance into IT.
IT (me and the dba) reported to the VP of development. His job (and his underlings) was to develop algorithms to deal with the data produce by the DNA analysis systems run by the research group. Since they were the primary "real" server users it was a reasonable match. Back office and desktop support were my problem as well, but I reported those issues directly to the Pres/CEO since that's where my budget came from and the VP of dev didn't care if the secretary at the front desk couldn't get her email.
"real" in this case meaning the DB and data crunching systems, the stuff used for product development. As with a much larger organization that side of IT got a completely separate budget from standard services and DT support.
In my 400 person US based non-profit, the Director of IT reports to the CFO. It actually works quite well as they have to work together on most of the strategic planning initiatives.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
We have about 1100 IT folks (includes telecomm, workstations, server admin, app development, the whole she-bang) supporting a bit more than 110,000 users in an org with gross yearly revenues exceeding $2.6 trillion USD. We're our own department. Despite the fact that we've shrunk over the last few years from 3100 to 1100 employees, I tend to believe we'll remain our own department for the foreseeable future.
under a bus.
IT infrastructure should be handled by an IT department (network, server & storage support, basic desktop supply and support) but it should NOT handle such things as database development and management, application development, etc.
Unfortunately, many companies class anything to do with a computer as "IT" and treat a DBA the way they treat a desktop support flunky. Many times I have worked for organizations that decided to grab every departmental programmer or DBA and bring him/her into the IT department, to the severe detriment of the department he/she used to support.
At one company I worked for they outsourced all the IT and made the programmers, DBAs, developers, etc. go work for the contractor. Lots of them quit and went to better jobs, so the contractor brought in many of their folks from India to fill the open positions. It was a disaster. Eventually most of the departments hired developers, DBA's, programmers, etc. of their own and just gave them all generic "Engineer" titles.
So you're saying you have "people skills"...
IT is right below the janitors position. Or in some cases, it is the janitor. No kidding!
Allow me to speak in generalities, and feel free to not bombard me with one off "nuhhhh-uhhhs." Unfortunately IT is becoming more and more like plumbing or electricity. Argue all you want, but when your CEO see's your CIO (our whatever acronyms equate) walking into his office he can almost always be sure that the conversation about to occur will (a) not make the company any money or (b) cost the company some amount of money. Years of untalented managers have allowed IT to become a cost center / black hole. You don't have to agree, in fact I encourage you to continue riding your unicorns at LARP conventions. Regardless, your managers have failed your chosen discipline. The technical skills that get you promoted into upper management aren't really the skills you need to be successful, or make your company successful. This is why CIO's are always going to be second string to sales, marketing, and finance leaders. Sorry, I don't make the rules. -d
I have been accused of such things, yes :-)
To be more specific, I have a ton of knowledge about the technical side (insofar as my responsibilities are concerned) and enough knowledge about the business side to not only understand their needs, but also why they need them. Acting as a liason between the two seemed like a logical placement.
Living With a Nerd
I have been accused of such things, yes :-)
Then you are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take him away!
I work in a small independent pharmacy chain in Texas, we have about 15 stores and maybe around 110 employees total.
Our IT department consists of me (Senior developer), a Junior developer, a Sys. Admin, and my boss who has the title VP of I.T. My boss is at the same level as the CFO and COO even though he doesn't have a "C" title and they all report to our CEO/owner. My projects mostly cross in to the operations department but the I.T. department has its finger in all departments. Our system administrator deals mostly with the pharmacies themselves where I mostly work with the corporate staff but also deal a lot with the pharmacies. My boss has the most experience (aside from the CEO) with the pharmacy business of all the executives so he basically consults for the other department heads. We routinely work on accounting concepts and ideas for the CFO as well as managing profitability with dispensed drugs for Operations.
Unlike most grunts I have 100% confidence in my boss and the other executive level people here. I think I got that way because they're very upfront and candid, no sugar coating, no jargon, no exec speak. If your project rocks then it rocks if it sucks then it sucks and they've been 100% right so far (i've been here 10 years).
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
Owners
--> CFO
----->Me
A 100-employee design/manufacturing firm doesn't have someone considered to be an Operations Manager or General Manager?
Sounds like the CEO or VP is passing the buck for Getting Things Done to the Clinical department manager.
I've been accused of that, too :-(
Living With a Nerd
Right between the cracks....
Win XP boots into a usable Outlook in about 10 to 15 minutes in the morning, Word works after 20 minutes - on a 2x2.5GHz 2GB machine.
Splashtop boots in 10 sec and I can access my ! company e-mail ! including logging on with my password in about 20 seconds!
for me our IT Division with its US-american Director is part of BigBrother!
BTW we are back to a single US manufacturer for all computers, servers etc and also a single US manufacturer fro network devices.
I can smell the Trojan Boot Loaders there!
I am the IT department. I have the org chart right here. It looks like this:
Owner
|
VP------Me
|
_Managers___
| | | |
Peon Peon Peon Peon
It works out great, although the VP is cluefull.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
-or-
When shit works right despite being underfunded: "Why are we paying so much for the IT department? They're just an enormous expense, but there's no benefit because everything is working anyway!"
When shit breaks because of being underfunded, "Why are we paying so much for the IT department? They're just an enormous expense, but there's no benefit because they can't keep anything working!"
in my organization it falls around the copiers and printers. it sits there for weeks and i dont think anyone notices it.
it falls in the breakroom too mostly around the microwave, and people never clean it up.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I'm the sole IT guy for a small credit union (4 branches across 3 counties in TX). Before I worked here, there was no IT staff; They relied on vendor support and 3rd parties. The most knowledgeable guys were in the accounting department, so that's who wound up doing most of the computery stuff and subsequently hired me. I'm still part of accounting, but I'm kind of a spin-off department. I'm actually quite used to being a department of one; In all my work experience I've always been the lone tech guy.
is on an organizational par with the janitorial department.
I don't need no estinkin'
Jeepmeister
If I'm not doing IT, I'm producing web sites. Sometimes I report to our Creative Services manager, other times the President, other times the CFO....and yet other times one of the partners.
I'm responsible for deadlines, and dead lines. Usually they conflict with each other.
Oh yeah, I also take out the trash, sell stuff, support stuff, and market stuff.
Make America grate again!
^^^This is why I got out of management. I'm happy being an individual again.
Long ago, the company spun off the IT department into a separate company. The separate company did 90% of its work for the parent company. Then we got sold to a massive global giant who wanted to get into the outsourcing game. So IT is a separate company under contract to the parent company doing the same things for the same salary + a corporate overhead charge that wasn't there before.
More seriously: a lot of companies put IT under Corporate & Finance division. I.e., the accountants & lawyers.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
I'm sure it happens elsewhere, but I've noticed this kind of BS is common in healthcare: IT isn't its own beast and is actually beholden to some other organism within the organization.
I worked at a hospital where the IT Manager was responsible to the CFO (instead of being the CTO herself). Having IT answer to clinical actually makes more sense than this arrangement, as its at least an implicit acknowledgement of IT's direct dependence on the financial situation at the organization - as opposed to, say, clinical or medical records, which is going to get their money regardless of financial situation.
I've seen other hospitals where IT answers to HMR/transcription (which is responsible for things like proper medical coding so the hospital gets as much as possible from claims against insurance/Medicare/etc.).
These groups "make" the money, and get large amounts of money as a result out of the budget - which they then manage independently/per department. The result is a fair amount of weight when it comes to controlling IT. (Yay for the Friday morning when you arrive to find a new cage of servers in your server room with an implicit "this must be doing what we need by Monday, at the latest!"
I know of a hardware/embedded systems company where there is no IT to speak of: they've got their developers covering that role. This company, foolishly, put payroll under the direct control of HR, so HR holds the keys to the gate.
Ultimately, what it comes down to is the organization's financial organization: whoever controls the money is likely to control where it gets spent. If they've got a vested interest (or a strong familiarity) with one segment of the organization but not the others, that's where the money and foresight is going to go.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
On its face?
Just kidding guys, hey, don't pull that caHOST UNREACHABLE
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Somewhat similar situation here, only I report to the CEO. Then again, so does just about everyone else, so there you go. I think a lot of it depends on how much the person in charge likes to delegate.
I worked for a non profit company with about 200 people, and there were like 5 divisions, Sales and service, Accounting, Publishing, Marketing, and Operations. IT fell under operations. Operations included things like janitorial services, the guys who managed the HVAC, etc. IT was considered a tool to maintain the business flow, and it actually was a very well thought out department; it seemed to fit just right. I was brought in to assist with the first attempt at a "rolling update" of all the machines in the building from old Win 3.1 boxes to Windows NT, and while I was there we started implementing the first help desk to manage the questions coming in from the new hardware. It was a well oiled machine, and we understood we were exactly that, people who knew our IT infrastructure was simply a machine that needed to be oiled and maintained regularly. You may turn your nose up to the idea that IT belongs under someone who manages the guys who make sure the Air Conditioning works, but in fact that's what we did, and what a lot of IT departments do, or should do.
IT had three teams, desktop, network, and development. Each was headed by a different manager. A previous post mentioned how IT often cannabalized development, but IT managed development can work fine as long as it's separate from the rest of the IT team and dedicated to it's task. Also the company has to be sufficiently large enough to warrant it. This was a nonprofit publishing company. For your medical device company it depends on what they use IT for. If you basically buy and sell, if you need a development team to manage your sales tools, then they can be in IT and be responsible for these types of programs, but make sure they also are accessible to the people who need them. IT can easily get Aloof and think they don't have to help people who don't do things exactly the way they want, and thus can't get work done.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
As the sole network admin at my last company, I reported to a software engineer who doubled as the IT "manager", who reported to the HR director who then reported to the 7 owners (a very top-heavy company, with almost 20% of the company being Chiefs or VPs).
Any purchase that cost more than a cup of coffee required approval of, at a minimum, the software engineer, the HR director and at least one Chief.
In that company, pretty much anything that involved electricity fell under the IT umbrella. I used to get phone calls when the A/C went down. Yet for some reason, I was expressly forbidden by one VP from even *thinking* about the RFID card access system on the doors. I survived 14 months, which I'm told was longer than any prior IT workers.
We have different types of IT and they're incredibly well woven into the general infrastructure. We have the non-critical workstation people who have the primary shared network the whole site uses for the most part, they have most of the machines on that network, but I there are "guest" and "user owned" machines allowed. This is where email and general day to day work happens. They report to the company that has their contract that reports to NASA. Then we have mission critical networks and computers, the area I work on - we are part of the "Mission Operation Division". In other words we fall into the same organization as the ground controllers, however we have a separated division that has different layers of management for different departments that eventually reports to the head of the organization, which reports to the company that has the contract, that reports to NASA. Other areas have similar setups. Fortunately being a government entity that focuses on technology IT isn't seen as "wasted resources", it's an integral part of sending people to orbit and back, even the non-mission critical guys on the first group I mentioned.
I don't think I overstepped the privileged information lines here, that's how most government contracts work.
I have worked in organizations that see IT as a necessary evil and have seen every dime sent our way as wasted money. Heck, I worked at a company that focused on manufacturing that saw every dime spent on the people doing the work or making the end product happen as wasted, apparently that company existed to keep engineers and office workers employed and the actual product was a necessary evil.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I know I'm going to get modded into oblivion for this post but... I've had the opportunity to work for several companies over the course of my career. One common thread, that all the all successful companies shared was to put IT in it's proper place. Proper within the context of the organization. So the short answer is that you're asking the wrong question. Don't ask, where does IT fit in my organization. Ask what does your organization do, and what does IT do for your organization? If you can answer that, then you've found the proper place for IT.
Success is not the lack of failure, it's the lack of fear. http://theonlyhabit.blogspot.com/
I work at a small (now half the peopl ewe had 2 years ago) TV station, but most other TV stations seem to follow the same route. Engineering.
Especially in smaller stations, they are the ones with the most equipment, the most technical skill... and the dumping grounds for anything that nobody else can figure out how to fix, whether it is a bookshelf, a coffee maker, a phone, or a multi terabyte SAN...
After 20+ years of software and ops consulting I've found that I can generally separate smaller (and to some extent larger) customers into one of 2 categories. The categories are either IT is a necessary evil or IT as a hobby (and sometimes its both.) I would say that less than 1 out of 50 small organizations truly treat IT seriously.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
Usually, there are groups competing for a slice of IT resources, e.g. HR, Sales, Operations, etc. To function, the IT head needs to report to the guy above the resource contention (and no further up).
On me, of course. Sometimes literally, when I stack the old junker pcs too high.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Most big companies I've worked for have stashed it under "shared services", along with HR, facilities, accounting, and other "business continuity critical" work.
A lot of those companies were engineering firms, meaning they had entire IT-like divisions that spec'd, designed, and tested IT systems for customers. So it was a bit strange getting used to the inevitable turf wars between separate corporate IT and engineering IT divisions. But eventually they carved out their areas of responsibility and authority, with the engineers given free reign over IT sandboxes and either separate networks or virtual private networks that were carried over and rate limited by the corporate IT types.
I work for a CU with abotu140 employees and 13 branches in 2 states. We are our own department. We have a CIO and 2 Techs. The CIO reports directly to the CEO.
For us, Information Technology is a division led by a CIO with further subdivisions for Application Development, Networking and Infrastructure, and User Support. Within in these subdivisions can be further subdivisions (e.g., applications supporting a specific type of business need). Within these are individual departments. Within these departments are semi-formal teams. Application Development, for example, includes departments that actively develop the applications, departments of graphic designers, and departments of Quality Assurance. Yeah, there's a lot of hierarchy where I work.
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
They're bitches, Timothy, mostly there to provide comic relief and throw up obstacles to prevent us from getting productive work done. We mostly ignore them and try not to make eye contact.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Where I currently work, the IT department falls under the supervision of the Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum & Instruction.
The last place I worked, the IT department split off at the VP level, with the head being the VP of Information Resources and Technology, who reports directly to the President/COO (Who is also part-owner).
sharkyfour.com
One place I worked at had a very large, but disfunctional, IT department. They loved themselves, but achieved very little, and what they did achieve cost the other business units a fortune.
The decision was taken to break IT up into its functions. Design was handled by Engineering, operations & help desk was handled by Operations and repairs were handled by Field Services. This meant that Engineering dealt with server design as well as 330kV transmission lines & substations. Same for ops and field services - the divisions reflected the type of work, not the particular thing being worked on.
As far as I can tell from talking to people that work there, this system was worked out OK.
I work for a small software company (60 employees). We've got a contractor who does the main stuff, but day-to-day IT is handled by our software installation specialist. He reports to the "Director of Customer Support Services and Product Development".
I thought the answer to the question was obvious - the IT department goes in the basement. It's a familiar environment for IT workers, and it's easy for the other other employees to avoid.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Nice troll, but some managers *do* come from a technical background. The best COO I've ever worked with spent 10 years in sysops and data center management before being promoted to his position.
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
I work in a medium size organization. Similar to other responders here in small organizations, we fall under a Support Division whose lead reports to Operations (i.e., a COO). I don't mind that we're in the same department as office supplies, furniture, telephones, and facility management, except when it comes to funding where we're competing against -- you guessed it -- office supplies, furniture, telephones, and facility management. Given my druthers I'd rather report to the COO, not because I have a bad boss (I don't), but because IS/IT merits higher visibility in the food chain.
I work in an organisation of less than 50 staff. We have an IT section which reports to the director for corporate services. That director also looks after Accounts.
The organisation helps the public. Accounts and IT help the organisation. That's why it is called "corporate services". No matter what line of business - medical, real estate, legal, retail, etc - some needs exist in any organisation of significant size: they need to pay their bills and they need their computers and networks and data backups running smoothly.
So IT is usually a corporate service, unless you are a university (farm out the job to the Computer Science faculty) or maybe a smallish software company (let your computer geeks play with the network etc as well as write code).
I am anarch of all I survey.
...(we operate infrared and sub-millimetre telescopes), we have a Software and Computing Services section whose head reports directly to the Director. There are 2 of us actual IT guys, in the "Computing Services Group", who report directly to the Head of SCS.
Since the observatories literally cannot function without their respective computer/network infrastructures (not to mention the needs of all the staff - about 55 people), we are a relatively highly-regarded asset. We do everything from pulling cables to designing networks - a pretty wide range of activities. We write some software, mostly for system administration use, some web apps, but most of the software that drives the telescopes and reduces the data is written by the other engineers in the SCS.
That's why I work for an outsourced IT service provider. When we work for a new client, it's either because of a positive referral, or their shit broke and are scrambling through the yellow pages (online too) calling everyone in town in a mode of panic. So ya, no shit! No one wants to spend money to be pro-active unless they can be mathematically convinced it will save money or help them earn more by being efficient. Other wise, all work is reactionary.
But the real killer is when the client bitches about cost. I mean, WTF?!!! You SAVED money by not having a full-time IT staff, right? So they say...
Life is not for the lazy.
Uh oh, management is here. Back to work, everyone!!!
For God sakes man! If you are planning one growing your company at all you need and IT department. To start, get two good people. A tier 1, help desk, 50k/yr, kinda dude. And a Sys Admin, 70k/yr, kinda dude. Cut your support contracts and give them a budget. If things get shittier replace them.
I've actually had people reviewing the books say to me that the IT department doesn't bring in any money, so we were therefore worthless. IT is just a black hole, where money goes in, but nothing productive comes out.
I accept their opinion as truth. Then I volunteer to have the IT staff take a month off with no pay, and not be available by pager and phone regardless of how big the emergency is. Their tone changes quickly.
"But what if something goes down?"
"Nope, we don't do anything"
"What if the network breaks?"
"Sounds like a problem for the people who are worth something."
"You can't do that!"
"We could, and there are people who recognize the value of a good IT department who would hire them before the end of the first week off."
Mind you, that was before the recession hit hard. Those who are still working are happy that they have jobs, even if it's at a fraction of what they used to make. I've gotten a few crying phone calls asking me to fix something, but they rarely offer enough to cover the gas money to get to their site and back. If I happen to be in their area, I'll stop by and fix it. I'm not going to lose what little money I have left, just to fix their problems. My favorite whine is "We're losing $x,xxx every hour!". If it's that important, why can't they pay a reasonable rate for me to fix it. I'm not going to spend $20 in gas and an hour of my time, to get paid $15, regardless if they think it's fair.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
At the university I work at: I used to have the following setup: Helpdesk Tech. --> Helpdesk Manager -->Director of IT --> VP of Business and Finance --> President Now, after some restruction: Helpdesk Tech --> Helpdesk Manger --> Director of Tech. Services --> VP of IT --> President And the new structure carries of to other areas too: Computer Center Network/Telcomm. etc. It seems to work out better now, things get done and IT has a better voice in the university.
And in our department we have an "acting IT manager" who also happens to be the CFO. And before you ask; no, he doesn't have any IT training, experience or exposure. Its really great having a CFO as an IT manager because I never have to worry about purchasing any software or hardware. My job isn't to justify the purchase. My job is to keep stuff running securely and smoothly. The IT manager is who should be fighting the justification battle with the CFO. However, when your IT manager *IS* your CFO...
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I work in a local government in Australia. Our Information Services department (about 20 of a total ~800 staff) sits in the same Directorate as Finance. The rationale being that unlike most other areas in Council, our directorate essentially provides services to the rest of the staff, and not usually to external customers.
Finance and IS largely service other departments, whether it be to fix a broken computer or putting together the budget for the new financial year. Other areas work directly with the community - e.g. the Urban Planning dept or the Family and Children Services dept.
If almost all your employees spend most of their time using computer equipment, then IT has an important job to do for every employee and every department
Basically, IT is directly related to how you do business.
IT picks the software... IT trains the user... IT determines HOW all your employees work.
Before you decide where IT goes, you need to determine what the options are?
Of course, if most of your employees do not rely on computers or IT's say in how they use technology to accomplish jobs, IT will be a much more marginal role.
Especially in technology companies, like software development companies, IT is worthy of its own department, however, whose department head(s) answer directly to the CEO/President.
Next best place for IT would be Operations, Facilities, or Human Resources
I say Human Resources, because IT is technology employees use to do their work. IT supports humans, enables them to use technology, sets the policies and procedures, and provides support regarding how technology is used by people to do their jobs.
This is one of the best comments ever on /.
bookmarked!
Trolling is a art,
I have to say your attitude is the appropriate one to take, you're there to support the stupid decisions that others make, and providing that support is what keeps you employed.
There is no value in pointing out the fallacy in others plans, just be there to help pick up the pieces or cobble them together for them when the time arises. You're happy (mostly), they're getting to do exactly what they want without anybody else's opinion being interjected into their genius, and fuck all if it goes to pieces. It's not your project and as you said, as soon as you start poking holes in the PHB's plans, it's all your fault when something goes wrong (as predicted) and that reflects upon you when the time comes.
The idiots running the show is why I left IT...
Ocean is land, covered with water.
Finance reports to IT!
It wonders around, mostly aimlessly, but sometimes it falls on the ground here or there.
You can't handle the truth.
If IT is seen as a cost then it will be spun off into a separate IT organization and basically be the same as any other service; water, power, phone, light etc. You'll get a PC and email. The IT org will spend years on each "big project" which will come in late, over budget and will only partially fulfill requirements which changed years ago. Apart from a "Service Desk" and a small core of centralized support staff who spend their time firefighting, users will be left to fend for themselves. This is pretty normal and is cheaper than the alternative.
If IT is seen as a benefit then the IT components will be integrated directly into the rest of the business. You get a PC, email, office automation, custom apps, etc. There will be local support and development staff who can respond quickly to both business needs and problems. This is rare because it's seen as significantly more expensive than the standard model, though it can deliver huge productivity improvements to businesses. However, in this model, IT costs are rather difficult to quantify so I haven't seen evidence of how much more expensive it is.
Now, you pay your money and take your choice. Quality vs cost; the same old question. But if all you buy is McDonalds, quit bitching about getting fat. BTW, if you take a look at the org chart in your company you'll see how things are going. For people in the IT business, and that probably covers just about everyone on /. the latter model is infinitely preferable to the former.
Deleted
The IT Dept. used to be part of the Service Dept. along with HR, Info, Legal, Utility services, etc. but now we're part of the Finance Dept. which just about everyone think is wrong. The IT Big Boss is trying to get IT to be a stand-alone dept. reporting directly to the VP.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
while larger companies specialize. If you work for a 100-500 employee firm as the IT guy, you can expect to be doing everything from desktop to Visual Basic. If you work for a smaller company and receive fewer than 30 hours a week, I would seriously look into managed service agreement options like per-diem, retainer, and tiered service charges. I've been at all positions on the bar graph.. I've worked for fortune 100s where firewall doesnt even think of touching WAN and you have more change-control than the pentagon, and i've done Managed Services for 2 employee auto shops at per-diem. You have to become sort of a valuable vendor to the smaller ones because the smaller the company the more they are likely to be looking to slash costs. I suggest keeping track of what they use you for most frequently and plan ahead to avoid pitfalls associated with planned obselescence and scalability... example---never implement a switch that goes into service with over 70% of the switchports already allocated, look for longer service and warranty agreements from third party vendors if this will save your client in the long run. good luck.
Honestly, the 100 user and less company these days doesn't need an IT guy. I know because I manage a number of companies of exactly this size in my spare time. A well set up IT system with a good ticketing system and you're set. The only thing that needs on-site hands is usually problems with hardware or desktop problems... both of which if you've set everything up correctly can be handled by calling in a technician by the hour; for which I have a pool of friends who are willing to pick up work here and there for less than I charge my customer.
99% of the services that a company of this size needs may be found "in the cloud" these days and require almost zero administration. Even my largest customers with onsite servers and such take no more than a couple of hours every week to manage their entire organization and infrastructure. Thanks to good monitoring and cellphone, I typically know there are problems before they do and it wouldn't be the first time I got a call from the receptionist at these companies telling me there's a guy from HP in their lobby to replace an hard drive they didn't even know had failed (though I knew).
This sort of structure does not cost much; as I said I maybe burn a couple of hours a week on my largest customers. Even though my per-hour charge seems high they pay a fraction for my services that they did for a dedicated IT staff and can control their costs much better because the employee overhead is gone.
Now this is a generalization that does not fit every company, but I'm seeing more and more companies picking up on this model and that's just fine for me because it's good for business.
"One of the most famous"? I don't know about that...being an office dweller, I (like so many others before me) have seen Office Space countless times, and that is definitely not one of the more quotable bits that I hear on a regular basis.
That being said, I hang my head in shame for not having caught it :(
Living With a Nerd
Like many higher education institutions, the college I work for has IT lumped in with the library and reporting to a common vice-president, who reports to the senior academic VP.
It makes things... interesting. While librarians and IT people are both concerned with the information flow within in the college, our technophilia and their technophobia are not often compatible.
--saint
For a somewhat rural school district of 3 elementary, 1 vocational, 1 middle, and 1 high school, and the main SAU.
Our IT department is the boss, 2 techs, and 1 part-time secretary. Each of the schools have lab assistants, though they are more considered teachers than techs.
The boss reports directly to the superintendent though, so we are fairly well-placed within the hierarchy. It helps at budget time to have ears close to the top.
Almost same situation here, we have less than a hundred employees. I initially reported under finance, then was thrown to report to the GM and Asst GM, then back again to finance. The change have affected some of the biggest IT decisions/purchases as when I reported to the GM and AGM, approval for purchases are quite easy in contrast with the finance where every nooks are inspected carefully.
I wouldn't say "you failed". I would say you missed an opportunity.
Do I have people skills? :-)
IT is often perceived as a "support activity" akin to other services such as HR, Payroll, etc... A lot of that ends up bunched under the CFO for somewhat obvious reasons, though most CFO's wouldn't count themselves as IT managers.
Regardless of where you are on the org-chart, small-shop IT people - especially one-man shows - need to be engaging stakeholders and understanding the needs of the business and then provisioning solutions to meet those needs. All while keeping the systems up to date, answering questions about excel or whatever, managing hardware/software purchases/deployments, etc... If you're doing a good job, no one will care where you are in the org-chart - you're the IT guy/department, and you'll be perceived and engaged appropriately.
My small company (~25 people) went a completely different route: I am the only IT person, so they made me management. I'm one of three people responsible for dicision making, and only have to get the agreement of the other two for major decisions. Everything gets done on time, under budget, and with no meetings.
The problem with all this is that IT Operations (first group) are filled with folks who are seen and treated as a cost, thus the organization and people tend to be maintenance oriented and risk-averse (they don't get rewarded for "new thinking"). The 2nd group tends to be so focused on software that only few capable individuals know enough about systems to be able to even speak IT Ops-speak.
The ultimate issue is that it's VERY difficult to find someone who can do all of what it takes to encompass the facilities and innovation aspects of these two teams, so they're split up into two groups, and that split is reinforced by social dynamics.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I work as the sole IT guy in a healthcare providing non-profit, the whole org is probably 110-120 employees spread out over 9 locations. My boss is the Director of Compliance. I guess it helps that he was, at one point years ago, in the same position I now hold.
My Sig Sucks
Where I have worked, about 1500-2000 employee manufacturing companies, the IT organization has fallen under two different places in the org chart. The VP-IT either reported directly to the President/CEO or to the VP-Finance & Accounting, who in turn reported to the President/CEO.