IT Software

IT SoftwareIn the world of computers there is no software more varied than IT software. Information technology employees tend to be the most technically proficient employees in any business and that level of skill means the software designed for those IT professionals is more complex and powerful than that provided to even business managers.

However, much like any other software, IT management software and IT project management software have things to look for and things to look out for. By keeping these requirements and pitfalls in mind you can leverage the best your company has to offer to increase the productivity of everyone else in the company. While your IT workers may not be out there making the deals, marketing the products, or producing what you sell a properly equipped and trained IT department is the lubrication that keeps all of these different components working properly.

One thing that is often overlooked when considering acquiring IT software is actually speaking with your IT department directly. As these are not your normal employees and computer users they will usually know far better than most what features they need to really get the job done. That is not to say that you do not have the final word in what IT management software or IT project management software is purchased.

IT workers have a few personality quirks that you will need to keep in mind when you ask them what kind of IT software to purchase. One of these is that IT professionals have a terrible habit of getting far too interested in one aspect of a project and working on it to the exclusion of everything else. This might mean that you get a dozen requests for features for tracking TCP traffic across your routers when in reality your IT security people already handle that.

IT experts also have a propensity for ignoring the little details. That partially stems from the aforementioned propensity to get far too focused on one task, but also their level of skill. Many IT workers are highly intelligent and tend to let things that they consider small aspects of their job fall by the wayside. Those things that they consider unimportant however are probably of high importance to you, for example tracking time or actually finishing a project instead of working on one small aspect of it for six months.

To combat this, make sure that any IT project management software or IT project management software you purchase has an automated way to keep track of what is getting done. Many suites these days have a feature where what window is open on the computer is automatically tracked and then your IT staff can simply mark off what was work and what was goofing off.

Yes, IT workers do spend more time on average than your usual computer user doing things that are not work related. At least it does not look work related. Before realizing that upwards of 20% of the time IT workers spend doing things that do not look like work keep in mind that many of these IT workers will use non-traditional channels to keep in touch with colleagues and people they have worked with before. This kind of communication allows them to solve problems more quickly than if they spent hours fighting against a problem that someone they play World of Warcraft with fixed last week.

That is not to say that you do not need to keep your IT department in line. It does mean that the usual business methods of blocking ports, monitoring usage, or locking down workstations are probably not going to work as these employees have been spending years installing these very safeguards and know quite well how to get around them.

Good IT management software will allow you to keep track of everything your IT workers are doing with a minimum of intrusion and then you can see how things are going. An employee who spends an hour every day in a chat room may turn out to be your most productive employee simply because he is communicating with other IT workers worldwide. The sign of a good IT worker is their ability to find solutions to a problem, not how much information they have memorized over the years.

By leveraging IT software such as IT management software and IT project management software you can make sure that your information technology department is doing what needs to be done. The surest measure of success for any project is bringing it in on time and under budget and by utilizing these types of software you can not only ensure that this happens, but if things are running late or more expensive than expected you can look at your IT management software and find out why. When your IT department is running well, so then is the rest of the business.