The business environment has changed with COVID-19 — should your IT roles change to address it? A lot of organizations are rethinking how they assign IT responsibilities to best achieve their business goals and pursue revenue opportunities.
Leapfrog has seen that one of the most effective ways to streamline and innovate is to reconfigure roles within a coordinated IT operation.
We use the matrix below to help our clients develop their optimal strategy. It helps clarify which IT personnel should be responsible for which IT activities. The two axes divide top-level IT responsibilities by category and team members by business function. The recommended roles — Owner, Influencer, Operator, or Adviser — are presented in the matrix fields.
IT Responsibilities Matrix
TOP-LEVEL IT RESPONSIBILITIES
| Strategy | Design and Standards |
Budget | Service Delivery |
Risk Management |
|
| Executive Leadership |
INFLUENCER and OPERATOR | INFLUENCER and/or ADVISER | OWNER | INFLUENCER and ADVISER | OWNER |
| CIO | OWNER | INFLUENCER and/or ADVISER | INFLUENCER and OPERATOR | INFLUENCER and ADVISER | OWNER |
| Internal IT | ADVISER and/or OPERATOR | OWNER | INFLUENCER and/or ADVISER | OWNER and/or OPERATOR | INFLUENCER, ADVISER and/or OPERATOR |
| IT Partner | ADVISER and/or OPERATOR | OWNER | INFLUENCER and/or ADVISER | OWNER and/or OPERATOR | INFLUENCER, ADVISER and/or OPERATOR |
Vendors do not appear on the matrix because they complete assignments from Operators. Consultants and professional service providers are additional roles to consider. In general, it’s best to assign responsibilities in a way that simplifies rather than complicates IT activities and keeps everyone working within their areas of expertise.
Leapfrog strongly recommends that in-house staff focuses on innovative activities that are unique to your organization and outsourced staff handles activities that can be standardized across many organizations for efficiency.
We invite you to use this tool to improve your own IT operations. You can see our paper How To Reconfigure IT Roles To Come Out Stronger for a more detailed discussion and Outsourcing IT: Do You Need a VAR, an MSP, or Something In-Between? for information about choosing an IT partner with the right fit.
