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Department Structure & job descriptions

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by cgaylord

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I am in the process of structing my department. We have never had an Information Systems department, so I don't really know where to began. I need help creating job descriptions for the entire department, including my own as Information System Manager. I also have to define what the department's purpose is and goals are to non-technical staff

I would greatly appreciate a sample model to use as a guideline to accomplish this project.

3 replies

by al macintyre

I have been working in Information Systems for decades & I have seen several different alternative structures that work very effectively.

The first thing you need to do is have a statement of your goals. The department never existed at your corporation before for a reason, Now it does, for some reason.

You need to understand those reasons. Probably there are some problems that are serious enough to justify a change in management.

You need to have a statement of what the goals are ofthe IS dept, and you need to have top management approval of those goals, and some budgetary considerations.

Depending on how many people can be hired, and what automated tools are justifiable, and what kind of platform you are on, this has a lotto do with the roles you end up with.

by al macintyre

The goals of my IS department might be helpful to you in reviewing your own.

We have zero tolerance for unplanned down time. This is perhaps job # 1 for the department's delivery to the company.

This means if there is a hardware failure, it will be replaced repaired whatever immediately.

We do not have software failures, due to how we do testing of software changes, and our methods of implementing changes are such that if a scenario occurs that the testing did not anticipate, we canalways return to the old version of the software before the upgrade.

Diagnosing & repairing mess ups to our data base integrity is also part of this.

Security is another facet of this, but the statement of the goal is simple.

Another goal is to serve the end users of the company like they are customers. We are in business to serve our customers. Without the customers we are not in business.

Another goal is to provide high performance at all times. It is not tolerable for users tohave to be waiting on reports, or to have error messages on their screens that are non-understandable.

There are financial goals ... delivering on the other goals without costing the company any more money, so that IS serves to make the whole company more efficient without being a drain on the enterprise.

You have to set goals that are right for your company, make sure they agree with top management business plan, then structure the staff roles to implement the goals.

by yankeetom

Similar to the goals and standards descibed, our company publishes a General Service Agreement, by which the IT Executives commit to the levels of performance stated in the previous reply.

It is important to remember that an IT department is morethen bits and bytes. Many companies today are reliant on IT to help mold the business strategy and you must bear this in mind when defining your staff.

You will need to position yourself to help your enterprise compete in the rapidly changing world of e-commerce.

Always bear in mind that you are heading a service organization (normally a staff division of the organization that does not contribute to the top line revenue). Thus all of the aforementioned commitments to standard levels of service and up time.

Good luck!

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