IT management is different from managing other functions due to the talented but difficult to manage staff and constantly changing external factors like new technologies. An IT department faces additional pressures due to its central role in an organization and expectations to drive efficiency and revenue. Barton realized he could not manage the IT department alone without expert help after trying to self-study IT topics from books but failing to gain a clear picture. He also failed to properly prepare for meetings with senior IT staff by researching how the department operated. The IT organization structure aims to spread roles among senior staff with different expertise to deal with various challenges and allow the CIO to focus on strategy and resources.

1. IT Management
IT ManagementIT management is definitely different from the management of other
functions; to start with, Nicholas Carr actually equates staff management in IT to being a
coach who has good players, in that it is made up of staff that is not only talented but
equally difficult to manage. In addition, there are a number of external factors that influence
the operation of IT, as it operates within a constantly changing environment. These changes
usually come in the form of new software, new technologies or even new business priorities
or initiatives, not to mention others like budget cuts, or even changes in legal requirements.
Other aspects that might further complicate a CIO’ s ability to effectively manage the IT
department include a meddling CEO or CFO if the CIO reports to them. Further, IT
management is actually quite different from the management of other functions due to the
central role it plays in an organization and therefore the additional pressure it is put under.
The IT department is usually charged with ensuring greater efficiency through automation,
meaning in a way even the pressure to generate more revenues is passed to the IT
department.Question 2Barton learnt that indeed it was not possible to manage an IT
department without the help of IT experts. Barton had taken the trip to the bookstore in
order to be able to study a bit of IT to enable him understand IT better and put him in a
position to manage the department on his own therefore disproving the theory that
managing an IT department had to be a collaborative process. However after studying a
number of books and consuming a lot of information, he found himself reaching the end of
the night with no clear picture of how the information could actually help him better
manage his department. The fact that he could not relate the different bits of information
actually made him realize that he was wrong, and it was not really possible to know
everything. This therefore meant that managing alone without the help of experts was not
really an option.Question 3Barton’ s meetings with senior IT operations staff did not go as
planned because Barton had not done sufficient research to know the kind of questions to
ask. Due to the fact that he was new to the CIO position, he needed to have carried out some
research to establish how the department was operating as well as who was in charge of
what. This would have ensured he was prepared for the meetings, resulting in questions
that elicited the exact responses he wanted. A good example was his meeting with Geisler,
which did not go as planned because he had no clue how the IT department operated when
it came to dealing with other departments within IVK, making it very difficult for him to
understand the overall cost of IT.Question 4The IT organization is structured the way it is
because of the complicated nature of managing IT departments. As such, the organization

2. attempts to spread the roles to different individuals who then deal with the various
challenges that usually accompany managing that particular facet of the department. As the
bookstore experience illustrates, Barton cannot manage efficiently without the help of the
other senior IT operations staff, as each of them plays an integral role in overall
management. The organization is therefore aimed at pooling the individual brilliance of the
various senior staff to result in a synergistic and smoothly running department under the
CIO. This delegation process would also allow the CIO to manage aspects of the department
such as strategy and resources.Question 5Barton learnt a lesson that it was important to
accept that it is not possible to know everything. The hospital CIO was a very well read man
and yet even he was unable to foresee the network problem that occurred. Even though this
motivated Barton to want to know more about IT, he should have realized the importance of
having IT experts to help him run the department.