IT Director

Hayes Jupe

Pau Lo

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some good pointers, thanks. re &quot;This is horrendous as there is no learning or feedback loop...&quot; could you elaborate a little on this a little on what that would entail in an ideal world where the tech teams have their say/input?
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Where decision makers are insulated from the impact of poor technical decisions - and in the example i commonly see is &quot;architecture&quot; teams, the operational guys bear the brunt of a solution that is wrong or poor fit for the organisation - while the operational team gain the learnings from the poor decision.... i.e. what worked and didnt work - and importantly the why and context of why certain bits didnt work....<br />
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This knowledge is then instinctively fed into future decision making efforts... in the case where the architecture team is a separate team from the operational teams, then they not only dont bear the pain of bad decision, but also do not gather the learnings from them.<br />
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In an ideal scenario, the operational teams have people moving into/out of projects as they are spun up - that way the knowledge stays within the team.<br />
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When business requirements are being discussed, a member(s) of the operational team should be present - so they can present current capabilities or existing knowledge of the current network in that area.... something that architecture teams commonly miss - as they are not working in the current environment every day. Too often projects are commenced, only to find that an existing capability exists which is already 80% of the way there...
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If you have any responsibilities for managing the ICT budget for your organisations, can you share any examples of lessons learned on areas you may have identified or any honest 'mistakes made' where your company was perhaps wasting money. <br />
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We have a risk/audit team who do a lot of good focus on cyber security, data protection etc, but some other issues have come to light in recent years where money was being wasted due to poor asset management/monitoring processes (i.e. smartphones that were not even being used by the person given them), which got me thinking what other common mistakes could be being made which may be worth delving further into as part of their cycle of reviews. <br />
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Not overly sure what category to add this to so gone with a broad area as I know a lot of participants in these areas often seem to have senior titles in their profiles so may be involved in this type of area or report directly to others who do.
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If you have any responsibilities for managing the ICT budget for your organisations, can you share any examples of lessons learned on areas you may have identified or any honest 'mistakes made' where your company was perhaps wasting money. 

We have a risk/audit team who do a lot of good focus on cyber security, data protection etc, but some other issues have come to light in recent years where money was being wasted due to poor asset management/monitoring processes (i.e. smartphones that were not even being used by the person given them), which got me thinking what other common mistakes could be being made which may be worth delving further into as part of their cycle of reviews. 

Not overly sure what category to add this to so gone with a broad area as I know a lot of participants in these areas often seem to have senior titles in their profiles so may be involved in this type of area or report directly to others who do.

ICT budgets and common mistakes (budget wasted)

IT Administration is the processes and best practices for programming and development, and incorporates methodologies for managing activities and projects. Common methodologies include waterfall, prototyping, iterative and incremental development, spiral development, rapid application development, extreme programming and various types of agile methodology. The life-cycle "model" is a more general term for a category of methodologies, and a software development "process" a more specific term to refer to a specific process chosen by a specific organization.

IT Administration

Virtualization is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, including (but not limited to) a virtual computer hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or computer network resources. Virtualization is usually the creation of a system that executes separate from the underlying hardware resources, or the creation of an entire desktop for systems located elsewhere, similar to thin clients.

Virtualization

Software is any set of instructions that directs a computer to perform specific tasks or operations. Computer software consists of programs, libraries and related non-executable data (such as documentation). Computer software is non-tangible, contrasted with computer hardware, which is the physical component of computers. Software written in a machine language is known as "machine code". However, in practice, software is usually written in high-level programming languages than machine language. High-level languages are translated into machine language using a compiler or interpreter or a combination of the two.

Software

Operating systems perform basic tasks, such as recognizing input from the keyboard, sending output to the display screen, keeping track of files and directories on the disk, and controlling peripheral devices such as disk drives and printers. For large systems, the operating system makes sure that different programs and users running at the same time do not interfere with each other. The operating system is also responsible for security, ensuring that unauthorized users do not access the system. Operating systems provide a software platform on top of which other programs, called application programs, can run.

Operating Systems

Networking is the process of connecting computing devices, peripherals and terminals together through a system that uses wiring, cabling or radio waves that enable their users to communicate, share information and interact over distances. Often associated are issues regarding operating systems, hardware and equipment, cloud and virtual networking, protocols, architecture, storage and management.

Networking

Hardware includes cell phones and other digital living devices, tablets, computers, servers, peripherals and components, printers and scanners, gaming consoles, networking hardware such as routers, hubs, switches and modems, storage devices and security equipment such as firewalls and other appliances.

Hardware

Security is the protection of information systems from theft or damage to the hardware, the software, and the information on them, as well as from disruption or misdirection of the services they provide. The main goal of security is protecting assets, and an asset is anything of value and worthy of protection.  Information Security is a discipline of protecting information assets from threats through safeguards to achieve the objectives of confidentiality, integrity, and availability or CIA for short. On the other hand, disclosure, alteration, and disruption (DAD) compromise the security objectives.