Brief Guide to Business Principles: Brief Guide Series for IT Professionals, Vol. 1

This book provides a brief guide to a set of business principles that are fundamental for the management of Information Technology (IT) as a successful business. To run IT as a business, IT professionals must gain business competence by being exposed to and institutionalizing the common business practices and governance under which other non-IT businesses operate. However, an obsession with running IT as a business can distract IT professionals from technical excellence. Running IT as a business is a critical step in achieving IT efficiency, but IT professionals are also responsible for making IT effective, which is achieved through a focus on technical competence. The key is to find the appropriate balance between efficiency and effectiveness. The ideas presented in this book offer IT professionals the concepts necessary to maintain and support the creativity required for excellence, while imposing appropriate structure and controls to ensure a balanced focus on technical and business competence. Topics covered include: decision-making, measuring and delivering IT value, basic economics concepts important for IT, managing system architecture, choosing an organizational structure, the nine fundamental IT processes, utilizing a strategy of specialization, managing both direct and indirect costs, collaboration and negotiation, establishing and maintaining strategic client partnerships, managing innovation and adaptive change, and the importance of leadership.