The Challenge of Balance
CEO Dan Roberts writes “IT can no longer afford to be all things to all people. Given all the demands for technology-enabled business initiatives, it’s actually beneficial to everyone—including
your clients—to develop a strategy that’s based on a set of clear, finite priorities formed by what’s most important to the client, both within IT and out in the business.” Developing and managing
this set of clear, finite priorities is important, but the difficulty in doing so is in inverse proportion to the degree of that importance. In other words, balancing competing priorities becomes a critical
IT skill.
An example of two priorities that must be held in tension with one another are user data access and the security of that data. It is obvious that policies that lean too far toward one pole or the other
creates a challenge for the opposing point. Lessening security to ease access to the data can expose it to external threats but increasing security to an excessive degree can make the user’s work
more difficult than it needs to be.
Assignment
write a 6-8 page critical-thinking paper addressing the topic of balance within IT priorities. The paper will be a consideration of all the factors that must be considered when setting priorities with
regard to the IT function that maintains a balance (or argues why it might not be possible.) The Information Technology priorities that you choose to research and evaluate are up to you. As you
choose the area that you want to write about, your paper must include the following information.
A. Give a description of the priorities that require balancing (e.g. the user access and data security mentioned above). Include enough detail so that the reader can gain a sense of the IT
function and its requirements.
B. Give the factors for each function that a manager must consider when balancing one against the other as they battle for preeminence.
C. Suggest a balancing proposition for these functions. As you have evaluated the pros and cons of this proposition, support the choice you’ve made by presenting the arguments that you
considered in coming to your conclusion.
D. To complete the paper, suggest a managerial scenario that accomplishes the desired balance objective.
