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In the realm of IT leadership, achieving optimal efficiency is a paramount goal given the extensive array of responsibilities. An efficient IT leader strives to deliver high-quality, sustainable outcomes within designated timelines and budget constraints. Additionally, they actively seek to maximize business value, contributing to Customer Delight among peers, colleagues, and partners. Leadership efficiency is a sustained commitment throughout one’s career.

Here, I’d like to share experiences on how IT leaders can cultivate efficiency in their work, thereby enriching their long-term career prospects.

Place trust in your team

While IT leaders shoulder numerous responsibilities, recognizing the limitations is crucial. Building a skilled team and delegating specific tasks instills trust in each member’s capabilities.

Strategize your meetings for maximum utility

Schedule and organize meetings ahead of time, allowing team members to prepare adequately. Pre-reads play a vital role in providing ample time for reflection and decision-making. This approach not only prevents the need for repetitive meetings but also ensures leaders make the most of their time. Additionally, maintain some open slots in the calendar to accommodate unforeseen surprises or crisis management meetings that may arise in the role.

Develop an operational playbook

It is essential for every leader to establish a comprehensive playbook that outlines and defines key result areas for both themselves and their team. This playbook facilitates the monitoring and measurement of the team’s performance, fostering better alignment on shared priorities, expectations, and desired outcomes.

Nurture your team to become future leaders

IT leaders should establish and uphold contingency plans for situations where they or a key team member might be absent. Conduct mock drills to assess effectiveness and refine plans as necessary.

Identify potential leaders from the existing team pool to contribute to the plan. This contingency planning also aims to cultivate new leadership levels by entrusting key team members with decision-making responsibilities and fostering a sense of accountability.

This approach enhances decision timelines, instilling confidence in the team’s decision-making abilities and reducing unnecessary, multi-step dilemmas often associated with hierarchical decision-making.

Avoid breakdowns, make a robust system

Avoiding reactive responses to breakdowns, such as IT system failures, security lapses, or team structural issues, is crucial to minimizing unproductive time. IT leaders should establish proactive systems and processes that provide alerts before breakdowns happen. It is essential to assess the impact of systems and tools on the organization’s overall efficiency and security posture.

Embrace Automation

Enhancing team efficiency is achieved through automation, which alleviates the burden of time-consuming tasks. With enterprises embracing advanced technologies, both IT teams and their leaders encounter heightened complexity.

Automation simplifies processes, minimizing repetitive tasks and potential errors. In addition, incorporating automated dashboards and visualization into workflow automation initiatives offers a unified view of the system landscape’s health and effectiveness.

Create an agile team

IT leaders must prioritize work and refrain from unnecessary task swapping, as it significantly hampers efficiency. Starting and completing one task at a time aligns with effective IT management practices and processes. This approach fosters a focused and systematic workflow.

In conclusion

Enhanced efficiency results in improved productivity, flexibility, and work quality, fostering “Customer Delight” and paving the way for career success for an IT leader.

Written by : Sujoy Brahmachari, CIO & CISO – Rosmerta Technologies Ltd.

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