{"id":504,"date":"2013-06-06T12:33:59","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T17:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smbitjournal.com\/?p=504"},"modified":"2017-02-18T13:15:49","modified_gmt":"2017-02-18T18:15:49","slug":"stick-to-it-dont-become-another-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smbitjournal.com\/2013\/06\/stick-to-it-dont-become-another-department\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to IT, Don’t Become Another Department"},"content":{"rendered":"

I see this very regularly, it seems to be a huge temptation of IT departments to overstep IT bounds and want to take on the roles and responsibilities of other company departments. In the SMB this might be a lot more true because there isn’t a clear demarcation of IT versus other departments, job roles are often shared, there aren’t good policies and procedures, there aren’t people doing those other jobs, etc. And there is always the possibility that these cross-domain responsibilities are truly assigned to IT. But nine times out of ten, this is not the case.<\/p>\n

I believe that this behaviour stems from a few things:<\/p>\n

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  1. People tend to work in IT because they are “smarter” or at least “more interested” about most things than average people so we tend to carry a lot of general knowledge that allows us to act as a competent member of any department (IT can do HR’s job in a pinch, is the reverse commonly true?)<\/li>\n
  2. IT tends to get thrown whatever work other departments don’t want to do and can get away with handing off (can you print this for us? can you fix my microwave? the fuse has blown!\u00a0 have you any experience with sprinklers?) So we get into this mindset from other departments’ behaviors towards us.<\/li>\n
  3. We have a broad view into the organization as a whole, moreso than almost any other department.<\/li>\n
  4. We tend to be passionate about doing things the “right way” – which is often based on technical excellence or industry common practice but may not account for the specific business needs nor unique factors.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Put together, these, and other, factors make us tend to want to get involved in anything and everything in and around the businesses which we serve. Questions around involvement in other departments’ activities come up regularly. To establish just how skewed our thinking about this behavior tends to be – we see IT people asking IT people what their responsibility is rather than talking to their own business’ management who are the ones actually making that decision. This isn’t about best practice, it is about following your own company’s rules.<\/p>\n

    Some examples of places where IT people like to jump in and try to be other departments:<\/p>\n