Share your technology staffing secrets

That is a timely question for me. I am working with a committee to try to create a resource that tries to help a YMCA determine when they should hire an IT director. We immediately bumped up against a point that needed to be clarified. There is a difference between hiring IT staff to maintain your technology and hiring a director that will act to purposely align your overall strategy and mission with the technology that supports it.

I think it is easy to come up with some equation of 50 computers equals one support staff person. But how do you determine when it is right to have a full time IT Director or CIO?

We came down to questions of strategy. Review your organizations five year strategic plan and even your longer term vision and look for:
[ulist]Efforts that will require sophisticated or technical support.
Areas where you will need to manage the business processes and systems on a larger scale.
Large growth in staff or population served will require more technical support and strategy
[/ulist]

Beyond that the group talked about the value of surveying and\or asking your existing staff about their technology needs. Create a simple, repeatable survey that asks staff to rate whether the exisiting applications, technology and systems offer them the tools to complete their work.

Maybe I am missing the point of your post, but this is the side of the question we are struggling with. How do you know when your org is ready to hire an IT director that will push the agenda of integrating IT into your organizations culture, mission and strategic plan?

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