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by oldefar

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In a number of articles the topic of IT Policy and enforcement comes up. Generally, the issue is centered on what action an IT manager should take when becoming aware of an IT Policy violation.

For most of my decades in the industry I worked in large US corporations. In each of these there was a clear chain of management (command for military types). At any given level, a manager had a certain amount of authority and responsibility delegated to him from those above him, a authority to delegate some aspects to managers below him, and authority only within his management chain over those below.

Now it seems that many IT managers believe they have responsibility and possibly authority across multiple chains of management to set and enforce policy.

Has the corporate environment changed that much in the past 4 years? If so, has this been a positive change? What is your authority and responsibility as a manager?

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by jim-h

Hello Oldefar,

I can't comment from a manager's role but I can from an employees perspective. I too have seen a change in the Military style management chain to an almost parallel distributed management topology so to speak.

In my organization I am seeing departments, and/or organization, spread out management functionality to focused areas. For example, presently we had something like Engineering Group-1, 2, 3, and 4 each lead by a single manager or leader who then reported to a higher level manager responsible for all Engineering Groups looking more like a single Chain.

As our projects and business objectives changed rapidly I noticed a where Engineering Groups 1-4 are actually broken up based on project focus needs and the single leadership above all engineering groups is now more like a leadership team including all areas of the company. Everyone does still have a primary manager/leader to report to but the authority appears to be more widely distributed than I have seenin the past.

As my opinion on the current standing goes I do have a positive outlook. In the situations where there is just another, or even better, way to do ?it? a single authority figure can?t stop it dead in it?s? tracks. I also see that projects and objectives are completed more efficiently as there are responsible parties all over and ?not-mind-job? syndrome isn't showing up as much as I have seen under the other structure. Of course this is just my experience and nothing works for everyone.

Have a good one,
Jim

As Catbert once said in a Dilbert cartoon, ?We need to centralize everything that is decentralized!??2 years later??We need to de-centralize everything that centralized!??.2 years later repeat?

by riverfreight

From the owners perspective: The chain of command is not only still there it is thriving and even more so in the corperate and conglomerate world, what has changed over the last twelve years and you are noe able to see is that the smoothing process that followed streamlining has recognized that the leader at that level handles a wider variety of jobs under 'HIS' header than that of yore. While at the same time you are also seeing the Pangs & pains of the re-organization begin to gel and re-strtify along lines that only appear new but are & were evident primarily only in small business prior and are widespread thruout the world as 100ft. by 100ft. plants have an output the same as GE appliance park in Louisville Ky. in its hay-day but do soat 1/3rd speed and at a higher level of quality, consistant thru-out.

RIVER FREIGHT

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