Ways to Make Your IT More Agile

Businesses have to be fast. There’s no way around it in today’s world. We live in a culture that has instant access to information, services, other people and nearly anything else desired. Companies need to be agile and meet the needs of customers, whether they are consumers or other businesses, in a very timely manner.

If the competition can do it quicker, it may be the edge that lands them a customer, instead of your company.

Balance Security

Security is one of the most significant concerns for IT. Its importance has only become amplified by the near-daily discussions of data breaches, identity theft, and cybercrimes.

While you want your IT services to be secure, especially if sensitive information is being sent or received, too much security can be a bad thing. It can bog down the speed of your IT efforts and damage the accessibility of some services.

You can think of each layer of security as another locked door that has to be unlocked, opened, closed and then locked once more. Sometimes, dialing back your security, particularly in areas where the need isn’t as critical, can help unclog your IT resources and make for a more agile system.

Invest Only in What You Need

A lot of IT departments get bogged down because they are doing too much at once. Following every latest-greatest tech trends can seem like the ultimate pathway towards becoming “cutting edge“, “innovative” and other buzzwords that businesses love to pack into their marketing materials. But it is also a fast way to become burdened by a lot of software and hardware solutions that aren’t used anymore or create more obstacles than they once promised to fix.

Speedy IT means staying lean and only sticking to what you need. For example, if you’re thinking about acquiring energy tracking software, then invest in a solution that does that. Don’t become overwhelmed with software packages and complicated systems that over promise and under deliver.

Keep A Lean Staff

A lot of IT departments operate with a lot of smaller teams working simultaneously under that umbrella. You have teams dedicated to storage, servers, the network, applications and so on. Having dedicated teams can be great because you have people dedicated to each task with rich expertise, but it can present problems, too.

The too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen syndrome is an all too common plague on many organizations. It is especially dangerous when these teams don’t have open communication for many reasons. If you aren’t sharing information, tools and other resources from team-to-team, a lot of redundancy occurs.

By keeping a lean IT staff and finding people that specialize in multiple disciplines, communication becomes a lot easier, and more can be accomplished.

Conclusions

If you think about the most agile, apex predators, cheetahs, crocodiles, sharks, etc., they all have certain qualities in common that allow them to be so famously deadly. They are lean, focused, exceptionally skilled and waste nothing in their predatorial pursuits. If you want your IT to be more agile, these are the qualities you must embody.

Your IT efforts should be focused, staffing lean and decisions made carefully so that no resources are wasted or standing in the way.

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