IT reorganization: What you had to say about it

We asked for your ideas about the ideal IT organization of the future as part of package of stories we're doing on this subject. Here’s a sampling of what you had to say:

Ed Capaldi, head of IT for U.A.E. media company Al Nisr Publishing, sent a copy of his IT department’s organizational chart. The company has been growing rapidly from 30 servers three years ago to 130 servers and 26TB of data today. Al Nisr’s new structure has three managers reporting to Capaldi: an infrastructure manager responsible for network, data center and servers; a business application manager responsible for Web, editorial and ERP applications; and a customer support manager responsible for help desk. A technical services manager and an IT project and governance office also report to Capaldi. He calls this structure "a sound baseline to enable future growth, but it took time to convince human resources and the CEO that this was the way forward.’’ The new IT governance group will cover "business process excellence.’’

Click to see: IT organization chart for Al Nisr Publishing

Jeff Helm from Ivy Tech State College in Indiana says he is in the process of a significant organizational shift. "IT staff are being assigned to business units as embedded staff who work closely with the business unit managers. Most staffers actually have two supervisors: one in the traditional technical organization and one in the business unit. While working in the unit they support, they attend staff meetings and propose technology budgets, equipment provisioning and security policies. They become liaisons to facilitate technical support of organizational goals.’’ Helm says the new organizational structure started when the IT department crafted service-level agreements (SLA) for each of its business units. The SLAs led to tighter integration between the IT department and the business units. Helm says the new structure has "already produced good results.’’

Todd Zieglmeier from Ministry Health Care in Wisconsin, also sent before-and-after organizational charts. Zieglmeier says his company’s move from a regional IT organization to a shared services corporatewide IT organization has hit a few bumps in the road. His role as a systems technology manager at the regional level was eliminated in the reorganization. "Since the reorganization, we have seen frustration on the part of the end users, understanding which IT division to contact. We have begun to see silos again appear within end-user departments and within facilities [and] cost increases to support local initiatives and local systems.’’

Deke Kassabian, senior technology director of information systems and computing at the University of Pennsylvania, says the university’s merger of the data networking, telecom and video departments has been "a very big win.’’ The merger involved creating one integrated organization rather than having three organizations reporting to the same boss. "It’s meant that we could take on big projects in a more integrated way, taking the broad view while also being cost effective.’’