Adventures of IT Leader

â€Å"The Adventures of an IT Leader† is a book that is committed to point out the challenges and issues IT leaders come across that affect both personal and professional areas of their lives. The book is about a fantasy story of Jim Barton who was head in loans operation department and now the new Chief information officer (CIO) at IVK Company. The book was written by Richard Nolan, Robert Austin and O’Donnell. The book also explains the issues that Jim Barton encountered in the fictional IVK Company until he was finally assigned the role of CIO where he would be the IT manager in the corporation. Though Jim had no any background in IT, after so much research and consultations with his girlfriend Maggie and a lot of web search, he decides to take the job and implement all the ideas he was always telling the former CIO, Davies, to implement. The reshuffling   in the corporation was done because the company sales were going down as there was no significant growth as compared to other years. Due to this flat growth, Carl Williams was hired as the new CEO in IVK Corporation who in turn assigned Jim Barton as the IT manager. From the book it is clear that IT leaders or managers should all the time keep abreast with technology by bringing changes as well as development as it may be required for analyzing and scanning emerging technologies. There should be no time an IT leader will lose track of emerging technologies since technology trends are changing every now and then. The IT department should adapt new technologies on regular bases so that they can improve the productivity of the corporation by improving their services. This can also improve the skills of the IT team. The New skills will help improve the It department as well as achieve the efficiency needed to deliver their services. This will in turn improve the sales of the IVK Corporation and improve the growth. Implementing new technologies for managing, reporting and monitoring will also help in the management of the compliance of programs in the company.   There will be easy sharing and availability of information will be easier  (Austin, L .Nolan, & O'Donnell, 2009). The information will then be stored in a backup by the technological upgrades as well as data inputs. The employees should be given proper training so that they can help in identifying, learning as well as developing the emerging technologies. The training of the employees will release the company from the great losses they are experiencing and this in turn will highly help the company by improving its competition in the market  (Drew, 2015). The IT department need not to relax since the field is advancing so fast and their process should be current or in line with the current trends in the market. This will ensure all services are of good quality, customers are happy and the company will grow tremendously and be on its feet again  (Austin, L.Nolan, & O'Donnell, 2009). The Bernie Ruben’s questions which he raised about the blog and how to take action on the blog issues at the IVK Corporation are to be considered since they are part of the current day developmental and creativity trends in the advanced technology that has help in bringing in issues for a better business system.   The blog should have some strict guidelines in order to prevent such issues as personal interests from being transmitted from the blog as well as important information for the company. Blogging will also be reviewed by qualified experts to ensure it is of desired standard before it is even published.   The blog should only be handled by the personnel who are authorized so that there is liability for every issue that happens. Blogging is very important for the company because it allows a better branding and coverage which in turn will increase the productivity of the company  (Stangarone, 2014). The process that IVK Corporation should use to enforce the infrastructure standards that align to the standards. They should follow a well simulated strategy that will enable the corporation to improve the business system simultaneously to increase the standards of the software used as products. There should be a lot of focus when it comes to the estimated cost as well as the price earned from the clients when there is a successful implementation. When the cost is very high, there must be a thought to drop the plan  (Mair, 2015). There is IT standardization as well as innovation conflict in the IVK Corporation since there is no standardization policy. Due to this, there is no flexibility of IT Departments in IVK corporation as wells as the ability to respond to the highly competitive market. If the conflict is reduced, the productivity for the company will be improved  (Agrawal, Lacetera, & Lyons, 2016). The toolkit approach given by the kid for management is very suitable based on my knowledge. This is because in a changing as well as a very dynamic market setting, there is need of management appraisal for the techniques used  (Austin, L.Nolan, & O'Donnell, 2009).   This will be very necessary for the management of the IT department  (The District Management Council, 2014). This book (The Adventures of an IT Leader) through the reading and review has outlined that to succeed in the accomplishment of the new technologies. Therefore it is very necessary to do a pre planning process to ensure that the implementation is done in the right way. After the pre planning process there should be a framework put in place to ensure appropriate usage of resources and skills. Also improvement of the IT budget will be a greater achievement since it will shrink the organizational complications. This will be achieved by using strategic IT standards. Agrawal, A., Lacetera, N., & Lyons, E. (2016). Does standardized information in online markets disproportionately benefit job applicants from less developed countries? Journal of International Economics . Austin, R. D., L.Nolan, R., & O'Donnell, S. (2009). Adventures Of IT Leader. Boston,Massachusetts: Havard Business Press. Drew, J. (2015). Seven Ways CIO can keep up with changing Technology. Journal of accountancy . Mair, C. (2015). Taking Technological Infrastructure Seriously: Standards, Intellectual Property and Open Access. Ubiquity Press . Stangarone, J. (2014, october 21). 5 big challenges facing CIOs and IT leaders in 2015 (part 1). mrc's cup of Joe Blog . The District Management Council. (2014). DMC Manager’s Toolkit: Does your district take an Achievement Value Analysis approach. 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