Crisis point: Who’s maintaining the boat?
We regularly review operational IT teams, and in the last 6 months have identified a number of issues they often have in common:
>The operational teams are busy and exhausted
>They can’t add to headcount and feel very under-resourced
>‘Fires’ occur often, and require the use of already strained resources to put out
>Demands on their services continue to grow as business expects more digital capability
>Staff resignations are increasing.
These teams generally know they need to improve their processes, functions and frameworks. Upon delivering our reports, common responses are ‘we knew all that’ and ‘no surprises there!’
Sometimes, our clients will take the low cost/incremental approach to implementing report recommendations – i.e: the ‘slow drip’ approach.
Often by the time it gets to this point, the team’s capacity for change is eroded because they are lacking a buffer. There are many reasons why teams end up under-resourced, which could fill an article in itself. They include but are not limited to:
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When not-for-profit organisations hear about cybersecurity issues and big data breaches in large international companies such as Facebook and Target, they often make the mistake of assuming that issues surrounding cybersecurity will not apply to them. The reality is that many enterprises are very popular targets for cybersecurity attacks. This is because they often hold a ‘goldmine’ of sensitive information, while also being less equipped to protect themselves from these threats.
Cybersecurity
– Is This a New Directors’ Duty?
by Vera Visevic and Brian Lee
Restoring the Buffer:
AUGMENT TO DRIVE RAPID CHANGE
Change is difficult at the best of times, but when a team is under significant pressure to keep the lights on, it’s near impossible. If a team is in crisis, or they have a sudden uplift in expected capability, they will struggle to make it through if they haven’t maintained the capacity ‘buffer’ that all efficient, well-functioning teams need.