Management

What It Takes to Create Successful IT Teams

Tackling technology projects requires bringing in the right people at the right time.

Twitter

Ryan has been a magazine and newspaper editor for 21 years, with the last 15 covering a variety of bases for CDW’s family of tech magazines. As Editor in Chief, he works on developing editorial strategy and is always on the lookout for new writing talent and sharing great stories with the IT world. In his spare time, Ryan enjoys spending time with his family, biking and obsessively following Iowa Hawkeye sports and Cubs baseball.

Let’s face it — IT is not just about technology any more. It really hasn’t been for a while. But even so, IT shops continue to grapple with who should take part on teams to make technology projects winners in the long run. Today, the IT department has to work closely with a host of players — users, finance, program chiefs, procurement, senior management and, sometimes, even customers. It’s essential to doing business now, says IT investment consultant and former Dole Food CIO Bart Perkins.

“The business people have to go all the way through the process,” Perkins told us. “Upfront, you’ve got them defining what the system is going to do, and as you go through any project, you really want the same people in the room making the decisions.”

There’s been a lot written and said about who should and shouldn’t drive technology projects, and we’ve certainly heard for years how critical it is for senior IT execs to have a seat at the management table.

Real-World Tactics

To gain perspective and tactical advice that businesses can apply to truly transform the way they execute IT projects, we brought together six people from across IT disciplines. We asked them to give us their take on who should be involved, when and how.

Click here to read our “Making IT Work” feature to see what the six smart techies — who include Kristin Frank of Viacom and Sree Sreenivasan of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York — told our writer Wylie Wong. These IT gurus had so much useful information to impart that we’ve posted their interviews separately in a special online series at biztechmag.com/makeITwork.

We sat down for a one-on-one interview with Dominic Orr, Wi-Fi guru and CEO of Aruba Networks. What Orr shared certainly brings home how critical it is for businesses to focus on delivering stellar wireless.

We hope this issue, which includes plenty of additional articles with pointers on specific technologies, will help your team navigate its own IT projects. Plus, we encourage you to share your tech success stories and discuss business best practices with others via our Twitter handle, @biztechmagazine. Now, dig in!

enisaksoy/ThinkStock