Last Friday, we hosted a Virtual Think IT Event on the topic, Building Credibility for an IT Function. A huge thank you to our facilitator, Rahoul Ghose, CIO at ECMC Group for sharing his thoughts and knowledge with the group. Thank you to everyone who joined us as well!
Why does credibility matter? That was the key question the group kept in mind during this session.
Rahoul’s Observations of Building Credibility:
Ensure Flawless Operations:
This matters the most. Systems availability, service desk and end-user support, and security operations should be close to flawless to quality to start the project.
Establish Terms of Engagement:
We as a function are hesitant to engage. As a business, we are bureaucratic and need to be credible in some capacity. It’s important to have the users define the solution not the problem. IT usually defines the problem and the business defines the solution.
Demystify Technology:
It’s important to have the why conversation with your organization. What is the business problem you are trying to solve.
Be Proactive:
To be proactive, be equally invested into the project and figure out how to stay ahead.
Deliver to Expectations:
To deliver expectations, over communicate with your team and figure out how you are going to partner together. Be comfortable that there will be hiccups when you launch a product.
Credibility matters because it helps stakeholders take a leap of faith. You can look at credibility in two ways: Organizational vs. Personal. Organizationally, credibility changes because technology has many challenges that that come up throughout the day. Personally, we are all people in the business and it’s important to over communicate with one another.