August 4, 2020 by Eric White
Tech roadmaps are a useful tool to organize your efforts in the IT department.
How do tech roadmaps work? Pick a long-term goal, identify the projects or initiatives needed to achieve it, and create a timeline for the next twelve or eighteen months.
An exercise such as this helps IT directors anticipate the obstacles that might derail their progress. Perhaps the company is looking to make an acquisition (if IT is involved in these conversations at all), or there might be turnover on the IT team.
Whatever the challenge may be, a good tech roadmap accounts for these problems before they occur. This is precisely how managed services and tech roadmaps overlap, since the best way to account for unforeseen challenges is with a managed services agreement.
Managed Services: Your Tech Roadmap Safety Net
Tech roadmaps represent a chain of events that, if everything goes correctly, should take twelve or eighteen months to complete.
However, delays along the way frequently compound, adding weeks or months to the total timeline. If the roadmap also aligns with the general goals of the business, these disruptions can ripple out across the whole company. It is important that significant delays are prevented before they can create significant problems.
Below are a handful of the most common reasons tech roadmaps are delayed and how managed services can help.
1) Turnover in the IT Department
IT departments in small to medium-sized business usually consist of a handful of professionals. Your tech roadmap may be counting on the specific skills of one of your team members to complete a project. If they change jobs in the next eighteen months, the hiring process could delay the rest of the roadmap.
Managed services aligns a team of experienced engineers to your interests. They can cover any gap in skill sets of your team.
2) Technology Deployment With Tech Roadmap
At various points along your tech roadmap, you may need to deploy new technologies, but it can be difficult for the in-house team to carve out time in the day to devote to deployments. Network issues, troubleshooting, tech support, and more could draw the in-house team’s attention away from the main project.
Managed services can take over the day to day tasks freeing the in-house team to focus on the technology deployment.
3) Hiring
If your tech roadmap includes hiring new personnel with specific IT skills for the team, the hiring process alone can become a roadblock. The technology hiring market is extremely competitive, and a small to medium-sized business may struggle to find their perfect hire.
Managed services can fill that skills gap in your in-house team until the right candidate can be located.
4) 24/7 Monitoring
If you’re not committing resources to monitoring your network around the clock, you could walk into the office in the morning and encounter a mess. At the wrong time, network failure can impact your department, your roadmap, and the whole company.
Managed services from Mindsight includes 24/7 alert monitoring to ensure that if there is any network issue, we can address the problem immediately.
(And #5) IT Not Recognized As Essential
One concerning challenge is the potential lack of synergy between IT and the business. All too often, CIOs and IT directors do not have a seat at the executive table. This means that big business decisions that can impact technology services are often a surprise for IT leaders.
Tech roadmaps and a valued technology partner help shore up resources and buy-in from business elements.
Learn More about Tech Roadmapping in our Free Guide
Mindsight’s Ultimate Guide to Creating a Technology Roadmap
The roadmapping process isn’t necessarily difficult, but without the proper planning, a roadmap is only going to encounter the kinds of obstacles we’ve discussed above. Learn how to expect the unexpected and chart the future of your IT department with our free guide, “Mindsight’s Ultimate Guide to a Technology Roadmap.”
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Originally published December 25, 2017, this blog has been updated with relevant information related to the ongoing importance of managed services in supporting your tech roadmap during the coronavirus and continuing economic business needs.
About Mindsight
Mindsight is industry recognized for delivering secure IT solutions and thought leadership that address your infrastructure and communications needs. Our engineers are expert level only – and they’re known as the most respected and valued engineering team based in Chicago, serving emerging to enterprise organizations around the globe. That’s why clients trust Mindsight as an extension of their IT team.
Visit us at http://www.gomindsight.com.
About The Author
Eric White is Chief Technology Officer and VP of Consulting Services at Mindsight. With over ten years of experience in information technology and leadership, Eric excels at implementing network and data center technologies, designing high-yield solutions for the business. Holding professional certifications from Microsoft, VMware, and EMC, as well as the Cisco CCNP, Eric is an expert at solving business realities with a client-centric focus that delivers.
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