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4 examples of IT department goals
An important consideration for setting IT goals specifically is aligning them with the overall goals of the larger organization. Learn more about how to set IT department goals.
Setting goals is imperative for business success, and its value is no less critical for the IT department. IT leaders should make sure that they are setting the proper goals for their department, and learning some examples of goals can help.
Setting goals enables IT leaders to focus their resources in the right way and bring teams together. While some goals are specific to a certain organization, many goals for IT departments can apply across companies.
Learn more about the benefits of setting IT goals and some example goals to set.
What is an IT goal?
As is the case with any goal, an IT department goal is a statement of the actions that IT needs to achieve by a specific date.
Goals give stakeholders -- namely, the IT team, the C-suite and others in the enterprise -- a clear idea of where IT needs to go, said Jenica McHugh, a managing director in the technology strategy and advisory practice at Accenture.
IT goals help give the department a clear achievement to aim for.
"They provide a direction for the work that has to be performed," said Eric Bloom, executive director of the IT Management and Leadership Institute, an IT executive education provider located in Ashland, Mass.
How to set IT goals
Many organizations follow the SMART framework for goal setting, which requires that goals be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
An important consideration for setting IT goals is aligning them with the overall goals of the larger organization. Achieving that alignment requires that CIOs understand their company's vision as well as its goals.
"This requires strong business alignment and ongoing conversations," said Charles Betz, principal analyst for the enterprise architecture priority at Forrester Research. "The CIO must be a business strategist, first and foremost."
Breaking down a goal into smaller pieces can make it seem less intimidating.
Creating a list of the steps required to reach goals is necessary, as is establishing details on how progress and success will be measured, McHugh said. A frequent practice for both organizations and IT departments specifically is to list those details out as the objectives and key results (OKRs) that must be achieved, and specify the deadlines.
How can goals help IT departments?
Setting goals can improve IT operations in a few different ways.
Goals give the CIO and others in IT insight into where they should be focusing their resources, including time, effort and money, Bloom said. That focus can also boost productivity, as workers spend less time on activities that aren't contributing to desired business outcomes.
Setting goals can help improve employee experience as well.
Goal setting often motivates employees because it provides clarity about the effect of their individual work on the IT department's and the organization's overall success, Bloom said. Tracking the progress of the goals also promotes accountability.
4 examples of IT department goals
Each CIO will create a unique list of goals. In addition, CIOs might opt to ask each division within the IT department to adopt its own specific goals, Bloom said.
However, IT goals are often similar from one organization to the next, so learning about examples can help inspire CIOs. Here are some examples of representative IT goals:
- One potential IT goal is to "accelerate software delivery and deployment," Bloom said. The OKRs for that particular goal could be "Reduce application deployment time by 50% within six months through CI/CD pipeline enhancements," "Implement automated deployment processes for 100% of production applications by the end of the year" and "Increase release frequency by 30% without compromising quality."
- Another potential IT goal is to improve the performance of the IT help desk, Bloom said. Potential OKRs for that goal are "Achieve a customer satisfaction score of 90% or higher within 12 months" and "Implement a post-ticket survey system by [X date] to collect user feedback."
- One of McHugh's CIO clients set a goal to make a 5% improvement to the ROIs of their initiatives over the next two years, she said.
- Another real-life goal from one of McHugh's clients is to get to 99% compliance with their service-level agreements and 90% adoption of their technology within a year.
Setting specific goals is essential for IT and all departments within any organization, McHugh said.
"The companies that are more successful are those that have clear measurable goals and whose people understand them," McHugh said. "[Companies must be] flexible and adaptable, and revisit their goals regularly -- maybe monthly or quarterly -- to make sure they don't need to evolve."
Mary K. Pratt is an award-winning freelance journalist with a focus on covering enterprise IT and cybersecurity management.
