IT must be strategic as well as tactical

Anyone running an IT shop (or running a company) must divide their efforts for IT into two categories: strategic and tactical.

Strategic efforts help the company in, well, strategic ways. They introduce new products to counter (or surpass) the competition. They create new markets. They do big, bold things -- sometimes risky -- for big returns.

Tactical efforts also help the company, but it smaller and less flashier ways. They improve internal processes. They reduce waste. They increase operating efficiencies. They do not do big, bold things, but instead do small, meek things for small returns.

But to do big, bold things you need a team that has got it's act together. You need the infrastructure in place, and you need a team that can build, operate, and maintain that infrastructure -- while implementing the big strategic stuff.

If your networks are reliable, if your storage is planned, allocated, monitored, and available, if your people have access to the information they need (and only that information), if your systems are updated on time, if your sysadmins have the right tools and your developers have the right tools and your analysts have the right tools and your sales people have the right tools (and they all know how to use them), then you probably have the tactical side working. (I say 'probably' because there are other things that can cause problems. A complete list would be larger than you would want to read in a blog post.)

If you're having problems with the strategic items, look to see how well the tacticals are doing. If *they* are having problems, start fixing those. And by fixing, I mean get the right people on the team, give them the authority to do their jobs, and fund them to get tools and technologies in place. Make sure that your people can get their "real work" done before you start doing grand things.

If the tacticals are working and the strategic items are not, then you don't have a technology problem. (Well, you might, if your strategy is to build something that is not feasible. But even then you would know. When your tacticals are working you have competent people who will tell you your strategy is not possible.)

Bottom line: get the little things working and you will have a reliable platform for larger efforts.