December 12, 2022
Many internal IT teams spend too many of their days responding to crashes and rushing to update clunky enterprise software. Stuck in an endless — and stressful — break/fix cycle, they simply don’t have the time to move their organization forward. They also probably don’t have the time to be as proactive about cybersecurity as they should be or provide timely end-user support.
It can seem impossible to break out of the break/fix model and move towards being more proactive, but it’s not. You can give your IT team more time in their day to get to the root cause of problems and solve them for good. You can minimize emergencies, and help them sleep at night knowing that proper safeguards are in place.
That’s the IT promised land. And an IT roadmap is how you get there.
What Is an IT Roadmap?
An IT roadmap is simply a plan that outlines how a business’s technology will support its goals. Your entire IT roadmap should be updated every few years, but some to-dos will need more frequent review.A great IT roadmap will contain the following:
- A list of your business’s priorities over the next few years
- The IT improvements and upgrades that should be made ASAP and why
- Longer-term IT projects that will help your business meet its goals, why they’re needed, estimated timelines, and project costs
- Who is ultimately responsible for managing each project
Potential IT Priorities
There are a few to-dos you should consider adding to your roadmap if you haven’t already crossed them off the list. It may be tempting to put off these more basic, ho-hum projects, but not having them completed is one reason many IT departments are in a constant state of struggle.
A Systems Diagram
Outline your interfaces and platforms and call out what requires the manual movement of data. Once this is complete, you’ll have a better understanding of how your IT team’s time is being spent and identify opportunities to be more efficient.
A Systems Inventory
Get on top of important end-of-life dates, how your software and systems are used, and who is responsible for managing and maintaining those systems. With a detailed systems inventory, your team won’t have to scramble when end-of-life dates sneak up on you, and important patches and upgrades won’t get lost in the shuffle — leading to bigger problems.
A List of Persistent IT Problems
Does your IT team have some “frequent fliers”? If one of your systems and tools crashes frequently, it’s probably a good one to bump up the priority list to address, once and for all. If your team is large, help desk software is a great way to find out what’s causing the most problems.
Once You Have an IT Strategic Plan, Use It
Once you have your roadmap in place, your IT team will be able to use it when discussing their time and resource needs with executive leadership. And since this plan is perfectly aligned with the organization’s goals for the next few years, it will be much easier to communicate why something is needed and when.
Finally, instead of responding to a series of emergencies or struggling to meet impossible deadlines, your team will be able to plan important projects properly so they can be executed smoothly and meet — or exceed — expectations. Wouldn’t that be a nice change?
The Quickest, Easiest Way to Get an IT Roadmap
Once you have an IT roadmap, everything gets easier. But it can be a big project. How are you supposed to get over that hurdle when you’re always stuck in the endless break/fix cycle? This is where having a trusted technology provider can make a huge difference. A Technology Assessment from Marco provides insight into the following areas:
- Security
- Network, Server, and Internet Infrastructure
- Firewall
- File Systems
- Business Continuity
- Wireless Infrastructure
- Email Systems
- Apps
- Power & Environment
- Workstations
We can help you take stock of your inventory, identify your IT trouble spots, and make recommendations based on your organization and its goals, including what should be upgraded as soon as possible, and what can wait.
When we’re done, you’ll have a three-year IT roadmap you can use to be more proactive. We’ll also give a detailed presentation of our findings to the leadership team so that everyone can get on the same page with what needs to happen, why, and when.
The start of a new year is always a great time to take stock and plan ahead. If you’d like an easier, less stressful 2023, our technology experts can help!
