• Create focus on important issues
• Help develop employee capabilities
• Provide management the opportunity to reinforce teamwork and priorities
• Yield bigger, company-wide benefits from a focused team

Take this formula for success to the organisation level by conducting an annual IT assessment.

You should continually make efforts to maximise the impact your IT organisation can have on the company, and feedback is essential for improvement.

Look at any world-class athlete, for example, and you'll find that a common key to success is outside feedback and an ongoing focus on improvement.

An IT organisation may have many different types of customers. Regardless of whether they are in-house users of technology or external clients who buy your services, you must stay in touch with their perspectives and ask for feedback on how well you are supporting their needs.

Most IT organisations are made up of several different groups, typically encompassing infrastructure, help desk, programming, business analysts, quality assurance, and training.

To evaluate the IT organization's level of success as a whole, you must assess each group's performance. Remember the expression "You are only as strong as your weakest link"? It could have been coined with IT in mind.

There are at least four aspects of an IT organization's performance that you should evaluate:

• User/client - This group is interested in day-to-day support, systems stability, and the enhancements IT makes to improve the quality of their jobs.
• Senior management - Company executives are mainly interested in whether or not the IT investment is providing the value needed for the company and whether the IT organization's focus is in sync with company objectives.
• IT employees - Employees want opportunities to learn and grow within the technology industry, and they need to know that their roles are considered important to the company's growth.
• CIO - The CIO may focus on several areas of improvement based upon the strategic needs of the company

An annual assessment does not need to be a long, drawn-out project.

You can conduct an internal assessment of most IT organisations in two weeks. Do it yourself or hire an outside consultant, depending on your needs. Part of the finished product should be a report that documents the findings.

These annual "report cards" become valuable tools for measuring your progress against prior performance levels and planned improvements.

Organise your IT assessment report into standard categories for a consistent view and dependable comparison in the years ahead. The following categories are typical:

Infrastructure -Concentrate on growth capacity and stability.
Business applications - Focus on stability, growth capacity, functionality that meets users' needs, and cost.
Help desk - Key issues are responsiveness, follow-up, and the ability to identify action that prevents problems.
Programming - Focus on the quality and predictability of the delivery of programming changes, responsiveness to client needs, and the ability to develop enhancements that improve productivity and/or reduce costs.
IT organisation - Determine IT cost as a percentage of revenue, staff numbers, and strengths/weaknesses.
Technology expense trends - Primary areas are staffing, licenses, leases, maintenance, and telecommunications expense.
Automated processes - Areas that reduce paper use and clerical staff requirements.
Budget summary - Look at the trends and see how well your actual expenses compare to your plan.
Capital needs - List the major technology investments that are needed, along with their approximate cost.
Business risks - List key risk issues that have technological relevance.
Leverage items - Identify significant opportunities for leverage by implementing technology initiatives.
IT project initiatives - List all major technology projects planned for the coming year and evaluate the progress made for projects listed in last year's plan. This list should also include specific areas of improvement.

Conducting an annual IT assessment will help you better evaluate and quantify how well your team is doing, and ensure that you are focused on the right priorities for your company.

Use it as a tool to help you continually improve your IT organization's capabilities.

Mike Sisco is CEO of MDE Enterprises, an IT management training and consulting company. For more of Mike's insight into conducting an IT assessment, take a look at his book, IT Due Diligence.

Click here to find out more about how Readycrest can help you with our IT baSIX Healthcheck