IT Management Interview

Clarifications

Before my response, one suggestion. Try sitting down with your supervisor or some other approachable manager, perhaps at a coffee break or across lunch. This would help you complete your assignment, give you an excuse to spend some time with someone with promotional authority (i.e., network), and advertise that you are looking to advance your career. Taking 15 - 20 minutes out or your work day to advance your career is a good trade-off for both you and your company.

Q: What is your view of IT (Information Technology)?

A: Most companies are failing to take advantage of advances in IT and IT departments are largely following rather than leading adoption. Web sites are rarely used internally and e-mail remains the most popular document sharing tool.

Q: What percentage of the company's (or division's) budget is spent on IT issues?

A: I can't really answer that. I'm not hiding anything, I just do not know that level of budgeting.

Q: How has the role of IT changed over the past decade?

A: In the late 1980s to early 1990s, there was a growth in IT tools as computers were placed on every desk top. From the late 1990s to early 2000s, IT departments have slowly adjusted to managing this vast amount of hardware and software that is not in a centrally controlled room and may be distributed throughout a building, an office park, a city, or nation-wide.

Q: How will, or how must, the role of IT change in the future?

A: IT must learn how to manage laptops and other mobile equipment, work with non-corporate assets such as personal laptops and PDAs, enhance sharing of information within the company and between companies, and lastly take on more of a training role - many non-IT staff cannot take full advantage of word processors, calendar programs, VPNs, and other corporate tools.

Q: How does the company (or division) manage knowledge?

A: Most information sharing is still done by e-mail and copy and paste between systems. IT services are usually limited to restricting access to information.

Q: How do you use risk management?

A: We largely do risk management by the book. We have Excel spreadsheets that take risk impact and risk liklihood and calculate risk level. There is a lack of confidence in the system and we still tend to react only when problems occur.

Q: How does the company use risk management?

A: Each project reports level of risk as a green, yellow, or red indicator. Reporting a red risk status usually requires writing additional status reports, so most project managers avoid reporting anything besides green or yellow status. I am not sure how upper level management uses risk reporting, but the only response I have ever seen is increased requests for status.

I hope this does not give too cynical an impression and I urge others to respond to help paint a more rounded picture. I still think this assignment would be a good excuse to strike up a conversation with one of your bosses at work.

Good luck!

Post Recall

I agree with Wayne that you should interview one of your managers. I understand your rationale for not doing so at this time, but it would be a good step to take- even after this assignment is over. Contrast their answers with the ones you receive here. You are more likely to get answers that you can relate to- as well as a new understanding of your manager.

What is your view of IT (Information Technology)?

I think that we are still trying to understand IT as a service to promote business objectives. Business, I think, still tends to exclude IT from the strategy table and that is not good. IT can support business more effectively when they have a clear understanding of strategic goals.

What percentage of the company's (or division's) budget is spent on IT issues?

I do not know. This is not information I am privy to. Also, IT issues is a very broad question- it implies that it encompasses active projects in addition to day to day maintenance.

How has the role of IT changed over the past decade?

We have moved from a position in which we were regarded as THE solution to being a service provider. Business is no longer willing to see us beyond the place we should take as SMEs for the purpose of facilitating business objectives.

How will, or how must, the role of IT change in the future?

We must not forget that we exist to facilitate business strategy. To that end we must take a more active place at the planning table. We need to help business understand what technology is capable of delivering to further strategic goals.

It is also to us to help business understand peripheral issues- safeguarding data, disaster recovery... things that can be solved through appropriate technology but not as readily apparent to business strategy. We need to create holistic systems that provide the protections that business needs and enable business to meet goals.

How does the company (or division) manage knowledge?

This is an area that needs work. Too many data repositiories and insufficient indexing for retreival are some of the stumbling stones.

How do you use risk management?

Risk management pertaining to? On projects, we use a red/yellow/green risk scorecard. There are other types of risk in the enterprise and are managed differently.

How does the company use risk management?

See above. Risk scoring provides a tool by which the executive level can see status. When a project goes yellow, it generally will be assigned a "mentor" in an effort to bring the project back to a controlled state.

Good luck with your project. I hope that James is able to weigh in- as management professionals go, he is one that I highly respect.

First off, I've worked at many places and my answers will reflect that , rather than just a narrow focus on my current employer.

What is my view of Information Technology?

For most companies Information Technology is a service provided to the business to make the business run more smoothly and efficiently.

For some companies, the Googles of this world, IT is a business enabler and driver. These companies use IT for strategic purpose - to directly drive revenue and marketshare.

I've worked in both types of companies.

What percentage of the company's budget is spent on IT issues.

I made a big study of this at my previous employer, and given that, I suggest its an unfair question. Some businesses require more IT investment than others. Best to compare businesses in the same sector. Look at SIC codes. At my last employer, an Engineering/scientific R&D firm, we spent about 4.5% - average for that type of company. Companies, like the ones I described that use IT for strategic advantage will by definition spend more.

How has the role of IT changed over the past decade?

A decade ago we still were working on tying all the different sources of information together. We were also looking at automating manual tasks.

Today we have pretty much automated almost as much as we can, and we have established interfaces or created datawarehouses to bring all our data together. The challenge is to take all of that data and extract the meaningful information from it.

Information in and of itself, is useless unless we have the means to use it to make decisions. The focus now is on extracting and presenting information in a meaningful way. Scorecards, Dashboards, and enabling end user querying is where its at today.

How will, or how must, the role of IT change in the future?

If I had a crystal ball, I'd be at Gartner...

But if I had to guess, I'd say that real time dashboards are key for businesses, and given the increasing rate of change in business in general, key to becoming an agile business. All companies take risks and make mistakes, but delivering good information on the profitability of a new venture as it rolls out and as it continues is key. Too many times, people find out to late that a new product or service is unprofitable, and then spend too much time, energy and effort trying to turn it around. Agile businesses will use the power of their collected data to make decisions faster.

How does the company manage knowledge?

Many kinds of knowledge to manage....

Our support teams rely on a database of knowledge to speed up problem reolution. They use keyword searches.

Our management teams use a datawarehouse to extract sales and marketing data used to make management decisions on new products. Thats knowledge too, just a layer abstracted.

How do you use risk management.

Two steps here - one you use risk management in deciding and prioritizing projects/new products. You have to balance an assessment of risk with the benefits to make this work. As the chair of a committee that approves projects, I read other people's assessments, ask questions and ensure all the senior team is aware of the risks before a decision is made.

Second, is managing risks during projects. Every risk assessment should include steps to mititgate risk. Those mitigation steps should be reviewed every time the project is reviewed.

How does the company use risk management - same way as me....

If something isn't clear, ask away....

By the way I agree you should ask your own manager as well. I certainly would appreciate the interest from my staff.

James

"I'm hoping someone here can help me out so I don't have to take time away from work for school stuff."

I am amazed that there are nice folks answering your questions. You could have at least said that seek their expert judegement, and NOT that you want them to do the work for you so that you save some money.

Q1) What is your view of IT (Information Technology)?
A1) Glue
Q2) What percentage of the company's (or division's) budget is spent on IT issues?
A2) Less than 1% of gross sales budget
Q3) How has the role of IT changed over the past decade?
A3) From management leaders to service departments
Q4) How will, or how must, the role of IT change in the future?
A4) Users must perpetuate systems
Q5) How does the company (or division) manage knowledge?
A5) Business user access profiling (hierarchical security.)
Q6) How do you use risk management?
A6) Access logs + A5 compliance
Q7) How does the company use risk management?
A7) Deny everything / vet all justifications & requests

That's because your response was uncalled for.

Del Monte is using resources at his/her disposal and trying to get as wider range of opinions as is possible.

It's a perfectly valid question and I applaud the restraint shown in the reply you received.

I am now a consultant with a large, two letter company - but in past life, I used to be a director and manager. Your questions are interesting and some of the feedback even more so. Here's my stab at it...

What is your view of IT (Information Technology)?

IT is part (or should be) of the business supply chain and value chain. If IT cannot prove value, it should and is usually outsourced. When you start talking supply chain to your customer (business) then they understand the language you are talking about. This is why Service Management is becoming so popular these days. Running IT like a business vs. a department.

What percentage of the company's (or division's) budget is spent on IT issues?

This varies by industry and you can usually obtain this information from a Gartner or Forester (for the averages per vertical). It is usually stated as a percentage of sales or Income. Some industries have as much as 3% while others are lower than 1%. It is one of those benchmark values you can grade yourself against your peers.

How has the role of IT changed over the past decade?

Absolutely - IT was once a nice to have for file sharing, email, printing - now the business is typically intertwined with IT and could not run without it. But I would also add that IT is less and less a competitive differentiator than it used to be which is why it is being pinched in most industries.

How will, or how must, the role of IT change in the future?

IT will have to become a competitor to outsourcing and see itself as part of a supply chain.

How does the company (or division) manage knowledge?

The process of knowledge management is every bit as important as the tools that enable it. Every company is different that I have seen. I am not a KM expert and would defer to KM Best Practices if they are to be found.

How do you use risk management?

Since we are in a Services market, risk is inherent in everything we do. It increases or decreases timelines, impacts decisions - big issues in security. Risk management is a very mature methodology and should be included as part of any decision or project.

How does the company use risk management?

See above..

If you are going to flame someone make it a valid criticism. Del Monte is using technology to gain information from a wide audience to expand is perspective. Frankly I would have flamed you right back; I commend Del Monte for his nice reply. You are simply slamming him instead of contributing a valuable kernel of wisdom. Moreover if you wish to slap people around for goodness sake use a spell checker. If you can't say something nice...

Personally, I commend you for having the integrity to not want to do this on the company dime, I agree with several of the others that this was an innovative approach to your assignment.

What is your view of IT (Information Technology)?

Technology (any type) should be used when and if it makes since. To use a technology simply because it is there even if it is not the most efficient way to accomplish a task is a waste of resources.

What percentage of the company's (or division's) budget is spent on IT issues?

From an organizational stand point I really don't know. From a local stand point probably 75% or 80%

How has the role of IT changed over the past decade?

I'll answer this a little more broadly than the question, I have seen IT go from a purely support role with little attention or resources applied to it, to a mission critical asset where even a short interruption of service can be very expensive.

How will, or how must, the role of IT change in the future?

IT MUST continue to adapt to the situation. It must grow with the company and continue to "reinvent" it's self to support the companies goals and missions.

How does the company (or division) manage knowledge?

We feel that knowledge management and data warehousing is one of the upcoming issues. Being able to share data with stakeholders and customers who require the data while protecting it from those who do not is critical to success.

How do you use risk management?

Risk Management is important, each new system or change to existing system must be evaluated for is potential risk so that risks can be mitigated and system security maintained.

How does the company use risk management?

Since mitigating risks can impact performance as well as reduce functionality, management must decide which risks to mitigate and which ones are acceptable.

Take care and good luck on your project.

None of us are as smart as all of us.

Following is my input on your questions.

What is your view of IT (Information Technology)?
IT is the one organization in the company that can benefit all other organizations. We are the department that can provide true leverage to the business by doing things with technology that custs cost, improves employee productivity, or differentiates the company to help it become more competitive. IT is also the toughest organization in your company to manage because there is typically no one in the company who can help the CIO and we are faced with extraordinary amount of change in the technology we support and from business needs and issues.

What percentage of the company's (or division's) budget is spent on IT issues?
There are groups like Gartner and others who publish industry averages. The danger with an industry average is that every company in an industry is different. Two companies of the same size and dynamics in the same industry may need to spend quite differently to support their technologies. For example, if one of the companies grew by acquiring other companies and has several redundant technologies in the aggregated company, it will have to spend quite a bit more than the company who grew through normal revenue growth and only has one technology platform to support. I look at industry averages to see what the industry typically spends but my IT assessment is what I'll use to determine what needs to be spent going forward to support the needs and issues of the business. The industry avarega may be 2.5% IT expense as a percentage of revenue but the company I'm in may need to spend 5% to 7% due to the situation you have. IT spending is based on the challenges you have and how fast you want to go in addressing tha challenges than by an indystry average. I joined a company in 1990 that was spending 5.9% of revenue in an industry that had a 2.5% average. Because of the challenges we had, we increased IT spending to 7.2% of revenue for about 6 months but over time (2 years) we were able to bring IT spending down to under 2.5% of revenue without putting unnecessary risk on the company.

How has the role of IT changed over the past decade?
IT has become more of a business unit than a pure technical unit. Technology has also become more distributed in many companies although this tends to evolve back and forth from distributed processing to centralized processing. There has been considerable outsourcing trend in the past 10 years although I'm starting to see signs that this area of growth is beginning to decline.

How will, or how must, the role of IT change in the future?
The CIO has to be more business oriented and to focus the IT organization on business issues and needs that provide tangible and quantifiable value to the business. In years past, many CIO's and IT managers were complacent to stay technical in their roles, but to support business of the future you must be able to better understand the business and to insure the IT organization is in sync with the business. Over 50% of all IT organizations are out of sync with their business clients based on most studies so it's a big problem. It's not all that difficult to stay in sync with your business client, but it requires you to focus technology resources on business value rather than focusing on the technology. The "techies" who read this will disagree but the strength of an effective CIO is based more upon his ability to focus his resources on business issues and needs than to be the best technology organization.

How does the company (or division) manage knowledge?
He who has the information has the power. So, maintaining a knowledge base in your company is critical. Senior managers and users of the company need relevant and accurate information to be effective so IT must provide a database environment that allows management to pull pertinent information from the data.

How do you use risk management?
Large projects are assessed for risk in a couple of ways. First, are there bottlenecks within the project that can jeopardize completing the project successfuly. Secondly, we try to identify the risks that can jeopardize the project if smething doesn't take place like we plan such as losing a project team member, not getting the necessary funds, lack of availability of outside knowledge experts that are critical to the project, etc. Much of a risk assessment is simply anticipating where existing problems may lie and the cause and effect of potential unplanned events.

How does the company use risk management? Same as previous question.

I hope this helps. There are many free articles about managing IT on our company web site that might be helpful as well at http://www.mde.net . Many of them are links to the TechRepublic articles I've written.

Best of success,
Mike Sisco, ITBMC

I work at a small company and IT management is one of the areas I cover.

What is your view of IT (Information Technology)?
IT's job is to provide employees a means to access, enter and edit data, provide applications and application support and design and maintain IT equipment (computers, routers, printers, the network).
IT is also responsible for user accounts, user permissions and data management (backup, storage and recovery).

What percentage of the company's (or division's) budget is spent on IT issues?
That will very depending upon our needs, such as upgrading software that requires upgrading hardware, new hires needing a computer, equipment failure, etc.

How has the role of IT changed over the past decade?
It has become very complex. Businesses seem to be run through the IT dept., not just supported by them.

How will, or how must, the role of IT change in the future?
IT must keep up with changes in technology. Faster access to data is key. Securing data is a must.

How does the company (or division) manage knowledge?
I don't fully understand the question, but different accesses are put on different data stores.

How do you use risk management?
Plan for the worst.

How does the company use risk management?
All data is backed up frequently, data is stored offsite, the backed up data is verified. We have a strong backup/recovery plan.
The company network is also verified to be secure.

[i]What is your view of IT (Information Technology)?[/i]

Information Technology provides a means to an end, it's not the end itself.

[i]What percentage of the company's (or division's) budget is spent on IT issues?[/i]

Since our company's mission is to create and share information, all of it.

[i]How has the role of IT changed over the past decade?[/i]

Information Technology has become the driving force in business, not an after-thought.

[i]How will, or how must, the role of IT change in the future?[/i]

By becoming more accurate and reliable.

[i]How does the company (or division) manage knowledge?[/i]

By sharing knowledge.

[i]How do you use risk management?[/i]

By trying to reduce risks in all areas.

[i]How does the company use risk management?[/i]

By trying to reduce risks in all areas.

how much I appreciate that you all took the time and effort to answer the interview questions. I've learned a lot and see that I have a lot to learn!

The interviews were 1 of 4 parts for this week (definitely the most interesting part!). So, I'm off to edit and submit my assignment. Thanks again!

What is your view of IT (Information Technology)?

I.T. when used in proper manner can speed up the completion of works, cut steps used in the manufacturing process, minimize errors and can lead to accurate results.
I.T. can also be abused. It can be used to harass people, obtain information about a particular person and use it against him.
It can be used to spread malicious lies and wrong information. I.T. is power, it elevates the status of man from every creation. And power in the wrong hands is dangerous.

What percentage of the company's (or division's) budget is spent on IT issues?

It depends on the company's requirements. A medium to large manufacturing company spends
more or less 5% of its annual budget for the maintenance of its IT equipments.
Their IT spending is higher ( more than 10% ) only on the time they upgrade their I.T. requirements, when purchasing new softwares and I.T. equipments. Afterwards the spending is much lower once the IT requirements have been implemented. Under normal conditions, the purchased harware equipment ( servers, routers, switches, etc. ) lasts for several years, about 4-6 years before being upgraded again. A good written software system can last for 5-10 yrs, before being replaced with a new system. Likewise, software companies
spend more than 50% of it's annual budget for payroll alone, especially when paying
"Open-source" programmers.

How has the role of IT changed over the past decade?

I.T. has an important role in every business nowadays. Decades ago, access to internet is limited because of high cost, and only IT savvy persons use it. Now, even children can surf the internet and use it to answer their homeworks or build their project of interest. Criminals can also use it
to look for components in building a bomb. Compared before, the price of having
a PC was much lower today and the speed of the CPU increased from 20 MHz to 3 GHz.
VOIP is not possible before. Nowadays it can be used to communicate between persons
located in different countries, much cheaper than operator assisted long distance calls
decades ago. Long distance voice communication is even free when you use voice chat using your favorite IM. Business transactions can be done over the web which were not as popular before. Today, money transfers and purchasing transactions can be completed using mouse clicks. Accounting system was done manually, thus more prone to errors and delays. However, you can generate a detailed report in a snap using your spreadsheet or Customized Accounting software. Before, a small company must strive hard and build a good customer relationship for years so that the company will be known and attract more customers out of "word-of-mouth". While, a small start-up company with extra-ordinary ideas and a web presence can make millions of revenue in a short time. Business is not good business if you dont utilize your I.T. resources.

How will, or how must, the role of IT change in the future?

Security must continously improve. Computer statistics must be made more detailed.
Software systems should be made more user friendly and accurate. Equipments will have
less energy usage while being more powerful and compact. I.T. will have a bigger
share of influence in the future. The future is today.

How does the company (or division) manage knowledge?

We make use of the internet's resources to find relevant information. We mentor peers to solve IT related problems and we also
make use of softwares, ( by email ) to share our knowledge on particular subject. If we need to utilize new skills, for example Java,
it's either we self-study, or hire a new employee with java skills. Some companies even send their employees for training
and pay for it. Our company does not. There is no budget ( very little, if there is) for employee training. ( Sigh! ).

How do you use risk management?

In all the IT projects I was involved with, I use risk management to determine the risks that are important enough to be addressed and be given attention. By making frequent backups, making documentations of my work, adding comments on my codes, I can manage different projects at a time. I can go back to it and review the source codes
whenever there are change requests, even when I'm at the middle of another
project. I use flowcharts and pseudo-codes to have a clear overview of the entire project.

I also participate in proactive communication during meetings related
to the project and voice out my suggestions. That way I understand the system
flow better and produce better codes. With that, I lessen the risk of having too
many bugs in my codes and can concentrate more on the enhancements rather
than trying to fix the bugs. I also try to improve my skills by trying
new technology everytime i have a chance. That way, I lessen
the risk of being laid-off. Backups, documentations, meetings, open communication and trainings are among the important factors in managing risks in every IT project.

How does the company use risk management?

Risk management are used to ensure projects are completed on time and not over the approved budget. Status reports, periodic project audit, meetings, and Milestone reports should be accomplished on scheduled time. During meetings, we discuss important issues with other PMs and team members
so that we can anticipate future problems and generate ideas on how we can solve the current problems. However, there is always a risk of fast turnover of responsibilities when a key employee quits and accepts a job in another company. The development of the affected project will have delays and maybe even scrapped-off which can lead to loss of income. Based from my experience, most managers overlook this kind of risk. People are the number one resources.

Hi,
I am also very interested in this subject, but the reference is very limited. You can share documents as well as experience? Thanks!

If you want to get more materials that related to this topic, you can visit: Time management interview questions
Best regards.