Something strange is going on. It’s not so hard to understand that IT services are created by the work of IT professionals. Therefore its strange that most times IT management (push) or leadership (pull) is not focusing on facilitating the professionals so they can do the job.
Professionals needs
In order to work effective and efficient professionals need:
- Targets – know where to go -clear policy and service expectations
- People – clear roles – who’s doing what, fully staffed, no more work than feasible
- Process – a compact process model that structures the co-operating and basic handlings
- Product – tools as ITSM-tooling, user surveys and dashboarding to create insight in the actual service, process and team performance.
The primary role of management is facilitating the professional by setting clear targets and organize the way of working (People, Process, Product) of the IT organization.
Organizational behavior
The behavior of the leader is largely influencing the behavior of the professional. If we want great results we need leaders who’s behavior is result oriented and therefore focused on facilitating. The good thing is, organizational behavior can be improved. Maybe that’s the most important skill of a leaders, constantly willing to adapt their behavior to create maximum result with their teams. The leader facilitates, the professional creates.
Wim Hoving
(Result-oriented connector
of People and Process,
architect of the ISM Method)