Why IT thinks it has a world class team, but the business leaders don't

So let's talk about the difference between reality and perception for IT teams. To do this, we will look at our World class IT team model, an analysis based on research over the last five years. The model identifies ten high level criteria for successful IT teams, including the individual performance, IT process effectiveness and alignment to the business. Plus one final component which means that 70% of IT managers I speak to think their team is above average and 70% of business leaders think the opposite. 

Our work has identified that there is often a difference between how IT teams think they are performing and how the business thinks they are performing. At a recent conference, two thirds of the managers put their hands up to say they thought their teams were above average. This cannot be of course – only 50% can be above average. The result of our work is a ten stage model, identifying what makes a world class IT team. It looks at the internal performance criteria, process effectiveness, governance, leadership, innovation and alignment to the business amongst others.

The objective is to help delegates think about how they currently run their teams and offer some new ideas. As an IT manager, you probably already recognize that leading a technology team requires particular skills and expertise. Technology teams have their own characteristics. For example, most IT team members are highly trained and often have a technical degree. But strongly developed, highly logical minds can also create their own problems! IT employees often believe that technical knowledge is of the utmost importance and a very good measure of ability. And they are often surprised to see how highly companies value employees who have less technical ability than them! This module gives some guidelines on helping all team members to focus on their contribution to overall business success.

 The module on World class IT teams we cover the following topics:

Team leadership profiles

The first half of the module on technology teams uses the profiles from module 2 and applies it to teams.

• Team leadership styles
• How to assess your teams profile
• Identifying team strengths and weaknesses

Team leadership

Our “world class IT” model has been 5 years in the making, and identifies three stages in the development of top performing IT teams:

• The 3 tiers of high performing IT teams
• Troubleshooting team performance problems
• Team essentials
• Creating the right team spirit
• Organizing IT teams for optimum results
• Selecting and motivating top IT talent
• Developing staff in real time
• Maximizing performance