When I was asked this question by a peer at our CEO roundtable, I started thinking of how I hold The KR Group’s team of engineers accountable and how I’ve seen other IT departments work through these issues. 
As a CEO, I’m constantly looking for the right balance of cultivating relationships while running a productive operation.
While I’m of the mindset that relationships should always take priority, you can’t ignore the execution of tasks.
Holding your company and in this case the IT department accountable is imperative for every business.
What does this look like?
Some of the most common issues keeping IT departments from being effective and ultimately accountable are:
- Lacking a roadmap that aligns with the organizations goals
- Not prioritizing training (including cross-training)
- Taking too long to fill vacancies
- Utilizing a management strategy like EOS
- Taking proper advantage of the tools and resources available to you
- Not implementing a closed-loop ticketing system or KPI’s
Executing these strategies will not only make your IT department more accountable but support your other departments as a result.
Strategy #1: Effective organizations have a technical roadmap.
As IT continually evolves, you need to know what is next for your organization.
Today’s IT environments include multiple hardware, software, and security systems.
You need someone keeping a pulse on what’s happening in IT and then adjusting your IT roadmap appropriately.
This includes knowing what vendors are leading the industry and what solutions can empower your business.
If your IT department is simply “winging it,” and being reactive you’ll inevitably fall behind and begin to run inefficiently. This translates to less revenue and more costs.
Strategy #2: Employees need training.
Staying up-to-date on new IT includes allowing your employees to learn about new systems. In IT, there is always a new button, current update, latest version, or breakthrough solution.
Along with the training on these, you should clarify to your IT department that they’re expected to keep learning by providing structured and unstructured options. Here at The KR Group, one of our core values is lifelong learning. Our leadership team encourages our employees to pursue training and helping mentor other members of the team. This includes team discussion, lab time and formal training.
Emphasizing training also includes cross-training to ensure information and skills aren’t exclusive to one person. The most effective IT departments can work on multiple systems and see how different solutions can work together.
Strategy #3: High-functioning IT departments fill vacancies quickly.
A common problem that plagues IT departments is vacant positions.
Whether your IT department consists of a single person or multiple engineers, everyone serves an important function. The productivity of your IT department depends on having enough staff to handle all your organization’s needs.
Taking too long to replace a vacancy can tax your IT department and lead to more stress for everyone else.
(Side note: Strategic IT relationships are a great way to augment your IT environment or completely take over the maintenance of your IT.)
Strategy #4: An efficient IT department adopts the organization’s management strategy.
Having plans for training employees, filling vacancies, and staying on top of technology is great, but how do you make sure your employees are keeping up with these goals?
Utilizing a management framework that includes goals for the next quarter, year, or more will give your IT department a well-defined direction.
The KR Group uses the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) for Businesses Vision/Traction Organizer for our management framework. Each employee has quarterly “rocks” that support their year-long goal and the company as a whole.
The important part of this is to have clearly defined and attainable goals that support your organization as a whole.
Strategy #5: Make sure tools and resources are available.
Technology is always changing, and you need to rely on industry resources to keep your IT department up to speed.
There are several ways to do this:
- Partner with a technology company to fill in knowledge gaps. IT consultants typically have specialized knowledge that can help you when implementing new solutions.
- Go to trade shows like Cisco Live or Connectwise’s IT Nation. These events give your IT department exposure to peer groups and the chance to talk to manufacturers about new products.
- Use industry tools to standardize how your IT department operates. Even better, rely on tools that integrate with your other systems.
Strategy #6: IT departments stay accountable with a closed-loop ticketing system and KPI reporting.
Along with a plan for your IT environment’s future, you also need a plan to deal with the issues you’re facing right now. 
Inevitably issues and hiccups will arise in your IT environment. To execute efficiently, you’ll want to triage and track help desk tickets through a closed-loop ticketing system. Picking Key Performance Indicators like average-time-to-close tickets, number of tickets over 30 days old or many other KPI’s will allow you to hold your IT support accountable. Developing a historical baseline and then incrementally improving these quantitative metrics will give goals to your IT support team and help keep productivity across the organization higher.
Tracking KPI’s can be accomplished simply by using a spreadsheet but as your IT department matures you will want to implement dashboards. Striking a balance to capture this data, to get meaning from it and perform other responsibilities will ultimately push a department manager to automation tools. Baselines, improvement goals, trending can all be captured and automated for efficiency.
Best practices
When it comes to keeping your IT department accountable, there are several techniques you can use.
By clearly aligning the IT department with the organizations goals, empowering staff to get training (including IT), fill staffing vacancies as quick as possible, making sure the IT department adopts the organization’s management strategy and making sure the IT department has access to external resources, you can guide your IT department toward being a highly productive part of the organization.
Eliminating the most common excuses and leveraging proper KPI’s you too can hold your IT department accountable.
In turn your IT department can make your whole organization more productive, so it’s worth the investment.
For more information on resources we offer to help your IT department, check out these articles: