According to Gartner, IT departments in 2012 will look fundamentally different to the IT departments we work in now.



The analyst company has predicted that an IT department will add four new roles to the team in the coming years.  None of them are specifically project related but they all have an impact on the way in which we manage IT projects.



The roles are:

 

 





     
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  • Litigation support manager




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  • Enterprise information architect




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  • Digital archivist




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  • Business information manager.




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What these roles mean for IT project managers



Litigation support manager



There is a lot of regulation that surrounds IT, and with the economic crisis this is set to become more prevalent.  There are likely to be more IT projects aimed at ensuring compliance.  The litigation support manager’s role is to act as a liaison between the legal and IT departments, so IT project managers could well end up working alongside this person co-ordinating the work to prepare for an audit or to cope with a litigation exercise or legal investigation.



Enterprise information architect



Think about all the project documentation you produce.  You can probably put your finger on any individual piece of information, because you use your project files every day.  But what about in six months time?  Could you find it then?  What about in a year?  An enterprise information architect will help you find the information stored in your Project Management Information System.  Their role is to get the best out of the information systems within the company by coming up with taxonomies and data models to ensure everyone can find everything, regardless of how much data is produced by the company.  As project managers know, data is just data until something useful is done with it, so it is important to turn that data into knowledge, and it can then be used to support projects (amongst other things).



Digital archivist



Gartner are predicting that one in five businesses will no longer own all its IT assets by 2012.  That is a lot of information created collaboratively and stored in the cloud.  Cloud computing is on the rise, and there are plenty of project management tools that are hosted in the cloud.  Seavus DropMind is an example of mind-mapping software that has a web version available, which hosts your project data in the cloud.  The digital archivist has the role of keeping a record of where all this online data is.  In a paper-based age this would have been done by the corporate librarian or archivist, but in the electronic age there are corporate assets – and project artefacts – that are created online and could easily be ‘lost’ if there is no record of where to find it.



Project managers could also get involved with projects to set up taxonomies,  virtual archives and knowledge repositories for digital data.



Business information manager



This person will become a key project contact for all IT projects.  The aim of this role is to link the business with IT.  Many large programs will already have a business change manager in this role, but they may not work in the IT department – a business change manager is more likely to be linked to the PMO.  The business change manager and the project manager will find themselves working in tandem with the IT department’s business information manager.  This could be overkill, unless it is to support a very large project or program.  I don’t agree with the dichotomy of ‘business’ and ‘IT’ so I think the job title is unhelpful, but I do think the role could add value and ensure that IT projects are fit for purpose.  More happy customers at the end of the day is what we need.



The business information manager’s role is a step up from the role of business analyst.  Gartner is predicting that 20% of companies will have business information managers by 2013.  Only 5% had people in this role last year.



The changing face of the IT department is actually a good thing for project managers.  All of these roles add something to our ability to deliver projects successfully.  The litigation support manager could help us draw up contracts and become involved with negotiations with IT suppliers.  That could stave off some difficult procurement situations.  The enterprise information architect will require our input into creating useful taxonomies for the PMO function.  And the output will be better access to project data, and the more useful application of that data, which in turn means better learning from post-implementation reviews.  A digital archivist will make sure that project artefacts are not lost and that other projects, and the customer, benefit as much as possible from the products.  And the business information manager will act as a point of liaison between the business teams and the IT teams.