IT Survival Advice

Budget season is upon us, and we struggle to make plans for next year, not knowing how the current economic situation will play out. The recent roller coaster stock market and credit crunch has the corporate world taking a hard look at spending in all areas, including IT. As we prepare for tough times, I thought it would be worthwhile to discuss a few things to keep in mind about managing under these conditions.

A rising tide lifts all boats. At the danger of taking this popular economic cliché too far, we need to realize that high and low tides vary in size and don't occur at the same time at all places. In practical terms, that means not every industry or company will be affected in the same way. Tough economic times can be a growth period for some, while many others may be severely impacted. Structure your plans around your situation, not what's happening to others.

Don't panic. First of all, don't panic. Times may be tough, but the sky is not falling. As a leader, your people and other departments are looking to you to make the right choices in how to manage IT under tight economic conditions, and they'll be looking to IT to help them manage their operations with fewer resources.

Hope is not a strategy. Yes, things will get better--at some point. However, you cannot sit back and simply wait and hope for things to get better soon. Take advantage of your budget preparations to fully understand your costs, what it takes to run various systems and what the impacts of cuts in any particular area will be. One of the best things you can do is to present informed alternatives. For instance, if we cut "X," it will save this amount, and here are the ramifications.

Behind every cloud is a silver lining. Tough economic times also present an opportunity to implement cost-saving consolidations, standardizations and legacy system shut downs. Often, political concerns can preclude these actions. However, in tough times political concerns are reduced as cost savings become more important. You will still need to make your case but you may want to re-visit these options as you may find a more receptive audience now.

It's going to be a socks-and-underwear Christmas. We spend a lot of time and effort working on new systems. We all like the shiny new stuff, but we will need to change our focus. The CEO isn't really interested in talking about spending money on new systems. Instead, we will need to focus on the basics. This means we should focus on training our users to more fully utilize the existing systems, looking at ways of improving business processes and reducing costs and speeding up our delivery of smaller projects aimed at reducing cost and improving efficiency.

Communicate, communicate, communicate. Oh, did I also mention that you need to communicate? Now more than ever, communication is critical. Make sure that you communicate both "up" to your boss and "down" to your employees. Make sure your boss knows and understands the actions that you are taking and that they understand the ramifications of IT actions so they can make informed decisions. Also, make sure you take time to learn their plans so the actions you take are consistent with the overall plans--you don't want to "zig" when everyone else "zags."