A lot of what make a truly Great IT Department are the same things that make other departments, and even whole companies, great places to be and work. However, there are some traits that are unique to IT, due to the special nature of that group. In any case, below you'll find the hallmarks of a fantastic IT department. How does yours compare?

Proactive

Many IT Departments seem to be stuck in “Crisis Management Mode.” You've probably seen it yourself. They seem to lurch from one problem to the next and spend most of their time putting out fires and basically keeping the wheels from falling off the wagon, but not much else.

In order to take it to the next level, you've got to put the fires out as a first course of action, of course. Then after that, you've got to be able to move beyond crisis mode and start handling problems while they're still small, before they burst into big, scary fires. Once that's done, you need to get your group focused on fixing problems before they even occur. The first step to doing that is to draw a line in the sand. You absolutely cannot be “all hands on deck, all the time.” You've got to have a ready reserve actively working on issues before they become problems. If you don't have the budget for that, then it's your job as manager to figure out how to make it work anyway. That's why they pay you the big bucks.

Service Oriented

Again, I'm sure you've seen plenty of cases where IT is all about the technology, with little to no attention paid to services. That's sub-optimal. In order to be great, you need to be service oriented. The rest of the company are your customers. Provide them with killer, responsive customer service, 24/7. That means you've got to be nimble, responsive, and customer facing.

Business Partners

Don't allow yourselves to be cast as simply a “cost center” for the company. You're that, obviously, but also, you need to be solution providers. There shouldn't be many instances where your company has a problem that IT can't be instrumental in solving. You can't do that if all you're focused on is putting out fires, so again, you need to strategically position what resources you've got to make sure that you're able to be the strategic partner your company needs you to be.

Passionate People

Competent people can make for a good IT group, but if you want to be known as great, then competency isn't enough. You've got to relish every challenge and love what you do. Not just you, but everyone you hire. Those people are hard to find, but they're worth taking the time to look for.

No Politics

Sometimes it's not possible to have an environment with no politics at all, but pains should be taken to minimize the impact of petty politics. Your job as manager needs to be to shield your people as much as possible from the politics and sniping that sometimes occurs in a company. Let that fall on you. Keep it away from your people.

Meritocracy

Promote from within every chance you get. Going outside the family for a high level position breeds resentment. You hired these people for a reason. Reward them for their skills and excellence in service. Never hold someone back because their promotion is inconvenient for you. Let them flourish. Let them thrive.