Embracing IT Agility

 Embracing IT Agility

A distinct information technology (IT) department with its own management hierarchy, potentially reaching the executive suite, has been the standard paradigm for organizing a company's computer services department for decades. As time went on, the seemingly mythical degree of independence enjoyed by that primary IT function gave rise to abusive behavior and practices that made it seem as though the company existed to accommodate the IT department rather than the other way around.

When a single massive mainframe computer, often manufactured by IBM, handled all of a company's computer processing, this concept was very common. For a company to thrive in the era of these megacomputers, which were both costly and intricate to program and run, it was necessary to employ a small army of computer experts, many of whom appeared to have a completely different cultural background and language from the rest of the company.

Back when "big iron" was king in the IT world, this paradigm shift was inevitable and essential for businesses. But IT has changed the way it does business in the past several decades. A smaller, more powerful machine, powered by an operating system like UNIX, was the first to emerge and pose a serious threat to the mainframe's hegemony in the corporate world.

There was already a diminishing need for a single supercomputer run by a small group of people who spoke a secret language before the rise of network computing, a logical progression in corporate technology that allowed for better data access and stronger communications across geographically dispersed departments.

With the advent of network computing, access to powerful computers in corporate settings became more accessible. Decentralized data processing as a business model has gained new significance in light of the internet's recent meteoric rise to dominance and the subsequent necessity to move the business paradigm online.

The last phase of decentralizing information technology has started to materialize in numerous companies. Efficiency gains from IT decentralization are now achievable across the board thanks to the relocation of development and operations centers to the level of individual departments.

A notable shift in company culture is the current tendency to locate department-specific applications and the computing resources needed to support them at the department level. Not only do the departments that gain the most from these applications get to run the show when it comes to those computer systems, but they'll also get to keep the programming and development resources that go along with them.

For instance, if the human resources department has a set of apps that they use to keep tabs on payroll, benefits, etc., those apps will be fully under HR's control. Systems analysis, development, programming, and computer operations—responsibilities that were formerly handled by IT—will thus be integrated into the HR management structure. Consequently, all of the company's departments learn to speak IT jargon, which raises IT awareness and helps with future needs assessments and resource allocation.

This is not to discount the fact that decentralizing IT brings its fair share of new difficulties. When it comes to information technology, there are some problems that affect the company worldwide and need a worldwide solution. Therefore, a chief information officer (CIO) and a set of high-level IT controls are necessary, to which the many departmentalized systems must answer.

When different departments handle their own information technology, it becomes much more challenging to integrate systems and identify ways in which they might work together to enhance productivity. The company's ability to communicate with one another and the likelihood of underutilization of equipment are both increased if different departments are responsible for their own hardware and networks. Systems administrators may have greater departmental accountability than company-wide accountability, making quality control at this level more challenging.

If the shift from centralized to decentralized operations is to be a success, these organizational concerns must be addressed at the highest levels. Although there is a certain amount of work that will be required to implement such a significant change to the company culture, the benefits of delegating computing power to individual departments far exceed the dangers of failing. 

Share :