Network World on IT Leadership

Welcome to the inaugural Network World on IT Leadership e-mail newsletter, and thanks to readers of the former Career Advisor and Management Strategies newsletters for coming along on the ride. As you probably know, this new newsletter will focus on your career issues and challenges as an IT leader.

We’ll look at topics such as advancing the IT agenda within your company, budgeting, calculating ROI, mastering project management and getting the most from your staff and network. If there’s anything in particular that you would like me to cover, please drop me a line at aschurr@nww.com.

Autumn is here. For many companies that operate with a calendar fiscal year, it’s time to prepare the 2004 IT budget. The more you can use solid figures to demonstrate the benefits, the more likely your IT project is to win approval from the powers that be.

If you need some pointers assembling a persuasive proposal, check out free online tutorial from Resource Management Systems (RMS), a consulting firm specializing in IT resource allocation. Go to https://www.rms.net/tut_prop.htm, where you’ll find the “IT Proposal Preparation Primer.”

This quick training tool provides a broad overview of the proposal writing process, walking through proposal development, what to include, and how to submit it. There’s also a quiz that lets you see how well you’ve learned the lesson.

And those of you who are already pros at writing IT project proposals could probably still use some advice on getting the dough for a deployment. RMS has another tutorial, “Get Your IT Project Funded – 5 Steps to Improve the Odds.” Get it at https://www.rms.net/tut_proj.htm. Like the other lesson, this one also has a simple quiz for testing your knowledge.