Before we get to all that, though, we’ll define what an IT roadmap is, what should be included in one and how you can create one that supports both long-term vision and short-term execution. To help you get started, we’ve also included a customizable IT roadmap template that you can tailor to your organization’s unique priorities and timelines.

What Is an IT Roadmap?

An IT roadmap is a strategic document that outlines how an organization plans to use technology to support its business goals over a specific timeframe. It serves as a high-level visual guide for planning and prioritizing IT initiatives such as infrastructure upgrades, software implementation, cybersecurity improvements and cloud migration. The roadmap details what technologies will be adopted, when they will be deployed and how they align with business needs, helping stakeholders understand the direction and value of IT investments.

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IT Roadmap Template

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Beyond just listing projects, an IT roadmap helps coordinate cross-functional teams, manage resources and track progress against long-term objectives. It ensures that all stakeholders—from IT departments to executive leadership—are aligned on technology priorities and timelines. By using an IT roadmap, organizations can reduce redundancy, improve scalability and make more informed decisions about budgeting and resource allocation.

While it looks like a Gantt chart, an IT roadmap is more expansive, including the context, strategy, project breakdowns, timing and sequencing, resources and budget plans and governance. Think of a Gantt chart as a delivery timeline, while the full IT roadmap is the blueprint guiding everything, technically and strategically. We have an IT roadmap template for free, but we recommend project management software.

ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software with comprehensive IT roadmaps designed to provide a strategic, high-level view of projects, programs and portfolios. These tools help with strategic alignment, ensuring all stakeholders understand the project’s direction. It also integrates with resource management, time tracking and task management features to ensure projects stay on track. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

What Should Be Included in an IT Roadmap?

An effective IT roadmap provides a clear and comprehensive view of how an organization plans to use technology to meet its strategic goals. Whether you’re introducing new infrastructure, upgrading software or enhancing cybersecurity, a well-structured IT roadmap aligns technology initiatives with business objectives. Here’s what should be included in an IT roadmap to ensure it serves as a reliable and actionable guide.

1. Executive Summary

This section provides a high-level overview of the roadmap, outlining its purpose, scope and alignment with the organization’s broader strategic vision. It’s aimed at stakeholders and decision-makers who need a concise summary of the roadmap’s goals.

2. Current IT Environment

This is a snapshot of the organization’s existing IT infrastructure, systems, tools and capabilities. This baseline helps identify gaps, limitations and opportunities for improvement. It should include the following.

• Infrastructure: Describes the physical and virtual computing environment, including on-premises servers, data centers and cloud hosting platforms.
• Network: Covers internal and external connectivity such as LAN/WAN architecture, VPN access, firewalls, bandwidth and network redundancy.
• End-User Devices: Refers to the hardware employees use, including desktops, laptops, mobile devices and their operating systems.
• Applications: Lists core business software in use, such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), HRIS (Human Resources Information Systems) and collaboration tools.
• Data Storage: Involves how data is stored, backed up and retained, including total capacity, storage types and backup protocols.
• Security: Encompasses tools and processes to protect IT assets, such as antivirus software, multi-factor authentication (MFA), encryption and vulnerability management.
• IT Service Management (ITSM): Includes the systems and workflows used to manage IT support, including helpdesk software, ticket resolution processes, SLAs and response times.
• Integration Points: Describes how systems communicate using APIs, middleware and third-party software connections.
• Licensing & Compliance: Tracks software licensing agreements, renewal schedules and adherence to industry regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA.
• IT Team: Outlines the structure of the internal IT department, including team roles, skillsets and headcount.
• Vendors & Contracts: Identifies key external technology partners, service providers and the status of contractual agreements.
• Pain Points: Highlights current challenges or limitations within the IT environment, such as aging hardware or unsupported legacy systems.

3. Strategic IT Goals

These are defined objectives that the IT roadmap aims to achieve. These goals should align with business strategy and might include goals such as improving system reliability, enhancing cybersecurity or enabling digital transformation.

4. Key Initiatives and Projects

This is the core of the roadmap, detailing the major IT initiatives and projects planned to achieve the strategic goals. Each project should include a brief description, objectives, timelines and responsible teams.

5. IT Roadmap Timeline

A visual or tabular representation of when each initiative will be executed. This timeline is like a Gantt chart, showing activities required to meet the IT goals. It ensures alignment across departments and helps with planning and resource allocation.

6. Resource Requirements

Outlines the personnel, tools, hardware and software needed to execute the roadmap. Resource requirements are essential for assessing feasibility and ensuring appropriate resource planning.

7. IT Roadmap Budget

A financial estimate for the initiatives and projects included in the roadmap. It should include capital expenses, operational costs and contingency funds.

8. Risk Management Plan

Identifies potential risks that could affect the roadmap’s success, along with mitigation strategies. Common risks include vendor delays, scope creep or cybersecurity threats.

9. Performance Metrics and KPIs

Defines how progress and success will be measured. Common IT KPIs include system uptime, project completion rate and return on technology investment.

10. IT Governance Structure

Details the roles, responsibilities and decision-making processes for overseeing the roadmap’s execution. This section ensures accountability and consistency in implementation.

11. Communication Plan

Describes how the roadmap and its progress will be communicated to stakeholders, including reporting frequency, formats and key audiences. This promotes transparency and engagement.

Benefits of an IT Roadmap

An IT roadmap delivers numerous strategic and operational benefits, helping organizations align their technology initiatives with long-term business goals. Here are some of the key advantages.

• Stronger strategic alignment
• Improved prioritization and planning
• Enhances communication and transparency
• Better risk management
• Resource optimization
• Adaptability to change

IT Roadmap Template

Now that we understand more thoroughly what an IT roadmap is, readers are most likely eager to get their hands on one to use it or, at least, play around with the tool to get a better understanding of its usefulness. Download our free IT roadmap template for Excel and give it a try.

This free IT roadmap template helps organizations plan, organize and communicate their technology strategy over time. It serves as a guide for outlining current IT capabilities, future technology initiatives and the steps needed to bridge the gap between them.

Related IT Templates

There are more IT templates than the IT roadmap. In fact, there are over 100 free project management templates available for immediate download. They cover all aspects of managing a project across multiple industries. Here are just a few that are appropriate for IT.

IT Project Plan Template

Open this free IT project plan template in ProjectManager to help project managers organize, document and communicate the key components of an IT project. It outlines what the project will deliver, how it will be executed, who will be involved and how progress will be tracked—serving as a comprehensive blueprint for successful project execution.

IT Risk Assessment Template

Download this free IT risk assessment template for Excel to identify, evaluate and prioritize potential risks to an organization’s information technology systems, infrastructure and operations. It provides a repeatable process for analyzing vulnerabilities and threats so that mitigation strategies can be developed proactively.

Agile Sprint Plan Template

Use this free agile sprint plan template to organize and manage work during a sprint (a short, time-boxed development cycle, typically one to four weeks). It helps teams outline what they aim to accomplish during the sprint, track progress and ensure alignment across team members.

How ProjectManager Helps Manage IT Projects

It may feel odd using outdated technology like templates to manage an IT project. Yes, they can provide a free workaround, but they’re limited, requiring manual updates and not built for collaboration. It’s unlikely to find IT teams working with templates. Understandably, they prefer project management software.

ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software that has multiple project views that allow IT teams to work on kanban boards, but cross-functional teams to use tools that are more appropriate for their work, whether that’s Gantt charts, task, sheet or calendar views. All project views are updated in real time to keep teams collaborating and working on the same page.

Allocate and Monitor Resources

Our software enables IT teams to allocate and monitor resources, whether people, equipment or budgets, in real time. For example, our color-coded workload chart makes it easy to see who is overallocated or underutilized and balances the team’s workload to keep them productive.

When teams are onboarded, their availability can be set to make assignments based on actual availability and skills. There’s even a team page for a daily or weekly summary of their activity, which can be filtered by progress or priority. Tasks can be updated without leaving the page.

Track Tasks and Progress With Real-Time and Reports

Sticking to the IT project plan requires constant monitoring. Our real-time tracking features ensure that the collected data is updated and relevant. For a high-level overview, toggle over to the real-time project or portfolio dashboard for instant visibility into KPIs like task completion, resource utilization and budget health.

For further details, use our customizable reports on status, variance, timesheets, workload and more. They can be filtered to show the information you want to see. Even our secure timesheets help by tracking labor costs to help keep to the budget.

Related IT Management Content

An IT roadmap is part of the larger IT management process. For those readers curious to learn more about this discipline, below are some recent blog posts that expand on the subject.

• What Is IT Management? Why Is IT Important for Businesses?
• IT Service Management (ITSM): Frameworks, Processes & Phases
• What Is an IT Budget? IT Budgeting Basics
• IT Financial Management (ITFM) Best Practices
• IT Incident Management: How to Manage IT Incidents
• IT Risk Management Process, Frameworks & Templates

ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams whether they’re in the office or out in the field. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Join teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who use our software to deliver successful projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

The post What Is an IT Roadmap? (Template Included) appeared first on ProjectManager.

A burndown chart helps agile project management teams keep track of what’s been done, what needs to be done and how much time is left in the project. While a burndown chart is traditionally a visual tool, it can also act as a list that outlines the work to be done and what percentage of it is complete.

What Is a Burndown Chart?

A burndown chart is a project management chart that shows how quickly a team is working through a customer’s user stories. This agile tool captures the description of a feature from an end-user perspective and shows the total effort against the amount of work for each iteration or agile sprint.

The quantity of work remaining appears on a vertical axis while the time that’s passed since the beginning of the project is placed horizontally on the chart, showing the past and the future. The burndown chart is displayed so everyone on the agile project management team can see it and updated regularly for accuracy.

Types of Burndown Chart

There are two burndown chart variants: a sprint burndown and a product burndown. A sprint burndown is used for work remaining in the iteration, while a product burndown illustrates the work remaining for the entire project plan.

Sprint Burndown Chart

Sprint burndown charts usually track progress within a single sprint, usually 1-4 weeks. It shows the remaining work for that specific sprint to help the team monitor progress and ensure they’re on track. The horizontal axis represents the days within the sprint and the vertical axis represents the remaining work, such as story points or hours.

Product Burndown Chart

Product burndown charts offer a broader view of the project’s overall progress. It tracks the remaining work for the entire product or a specific release that covers multiple sprints. The horizontal can represent sprints or iterations, while the vertical axis represents the remaining work in the product backlog.

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Components of a Burndown Chart

Although the specifics can vary, it’s common to see the below sections of a burndown chart.

Axes

A burndown chart has two axes, x and y. The horizontal axis represents time while the vertical axis displays user story points. The rightmost point of the chart indicates the start of a project or agile sprint while the leftmost point shows its end.

Ideal Work Remaining Line

As its name suggests, the ideal work remaining line indicates the remaining work that a team has at a specific point of the project or sprint under ideal conditions. Project managers use past data to estimate this baseline and draft a straight line across the burndown chart. The ideal work remaining line should always have a negative slope.

Actual Work Remaining Line

The actual work remaining line indicates the remaining work a team has at any point of the project timeline. Unlike the ideal work remaining line, this is not an estimate, but rather a realistic depiction of the team’s performance. The line is drawn as the team progresses and completes user stories. Actual work remaining lines are usually not straight as teams work at different paces as projects are completed.

ProjectManager is online software that offers multiple project views to help you collect and track your burndown chart. Our list view captures your tasks and shows how much work is left before tasks are complete. This real-time data access allows team members to comment and share files as needed. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Burndown Chart vs. Burnup Chart

A burndown chart and a burnup chart are very similar—they have the same components, achieve the same purpose and are used for agile project management. But there’s one major difference.

On one hand, the burndown chart keeps track of the remaining work by removing user stories from the vertical axis as they’re completed while the burnup chart adds user stories to the vertical axis as they get done.

How to Read a Burndown Chart

The burndown chart has several points. There’s an x-axis, which is the project or sprint timeline. The y-axis is the work that needs to be completed in the project. The story point estimates for the work that remains are represented by this axis.

The project starting point is the farthest point to the left of the chart and occurs on day zero of the project or iteration. The project endpoint is farthest to the right and marks the final day of the project or iteration.

Ideal Work Remaining Line

There is an ideal work remaining line which is a straight line connecting the starting and ending points. This line represents the sum of estimates for all tasks that need to be completed, or in other words, the scope of the project. At the endpoint, the ideal line crosses the x-axis and shows there is no work left to be done. This line is based on estimates and therefore is not always accurate.

Actual Work Remaining Line

The actual work remaining line shows the actual work that remains in the project or iteration. At the beginning of the project execution phase, the actual work remaining and the ideal work remaining are the same, but as the project or iteration progresses, the actual work line fluctuates above and below the ideal work line. Each day, a new point is added to this line until the project or iteration is completed to make sure it’s as accurate as possible.

If the actual work line is above the ideal work line, it means there’s more work left than originally thought. In other words, the project is behind schedule. However, if the actual work line is below the ideal work line, there is less work left than originally predicted and the project is ahead of schedule.

Burndown Chart Examples

A visual depiction of a burndown chart can help bring the concept to life. Below are two more examples to better illustrate a burndown chart.

Burndown Chart Example with Actual vs Ideal

In this burndown chart example, the blue ideal line shows how the project would progress if all things went perfectly. It marks the pace at which tasks should be completed to finish the project on time. The purple line is the actual line that represents the team’s progress. It shows if the team is ahead, behind or on schedule at various weeks throughout the project.

Burndown Chart Example with Estimated Line

This burndown chart example has the work that’s left to do on the horizontal axis, while time is on the vertical axis. There are three lines, each representing different types of progress. The green estimated line shows the estimated progress calculated using the due date and estimated hours.

The ideal line is the blue straight line that averages the number of tasks by the number of days. As time progresses, the volume of tasks decreases. The red line represents the actual progress and any outstanding tasks. As tasks are completed, the estimated hours decrease.

Who Uses a Burndown Chart?

Agile teams, including project managers and scrum masters, often use a burndown chart to track and manage projects. These charts help monitor the project’s progress against the planned schedule, allowing these roles to identify delays before they cause a major impact. Scrum masters may also use a burndown chart to communicate the project status to stakeholders.

Development teams also use burndown charts to visualize how much work remains and if they are on schedule to complete it. It fosters transparency and accountability, helping the development team to self-manage. Other roles that may use this tool include product owners or stakeholders.

How to Use a Burndown Chart in Agile & Scrum

Agile project management relies on agile sprints to plan and execute projects. These sprints are short iterations of work where a team accomplishes specific goals that are initially set during a sprint planning meeting. Burndown charts are ideal for agile project managers as they allow them to keep track of the work remaining, compare performance against a baseline and quickly determine whether they’re behind schedule. Here are some examples of how to use a burndown chart to help you manage an agile or scrum project.

• Create a work management baseline to compare planned vs. actual work
• Complete a gap analysis based on discrepancies
• Get information for future sprint planning meetings
• Reallocate resources and manage tasks to complete sprints on time

What Are the Benefits of a Burndown Chart?

The obvious benefit of a burndown chart is that it provides an updated status report on the progress of the project. Having a visual representation of this key data keeps everyone on the same page.

Displaying a burndown chart prominently for all to see keeps everyone involved and encourages the team to deal with issues before they evolve into problems. It should be the focal point of the workspace so that it helps direct conversation toward the project and its progress.

The simplicity of the burndown chart is also extremely helpful as it outlines the velocity history of the project. Velocity is an agile term that means the total effort estimates associated with user stories that were completed during an iteration.

What Are the Limitations of a Burndown Chart?

The burndown chart doesn’t reveal everything. For example, it only shows the number of story points that have been completed. The burndown chart doesn’t show any changes, for example, in the scope of work as measured by the total points in the backlog.

As a result, it can be hard to tell if changes in the burndown chart are due to completed backlog items or because of an increase or decrease in story points. Having a burnup chart resolves this problem by having a separate line in the graph for the overall backlog size.

However, neither a burndown nor a burnup chart offers any indication of which product backlog items have been completed. While a burndown chart might show progress, it may not represent whether the team is working on the right tasks. These charts are often a way to show trends rather than represent whether the team is delivering the right product backlog items. If you’d like to prioritize project tasks, you may use an Eisenhower matrix instead.

It Relies on Good Estimates

Another issue with burndown charts revolves around the accuracy of the ideal work line. Whether the actual work line is above or below the ideal work line depends on the accuracy of the original time estimates for the tasks. If a team is overestimating time requirements, progress appears on track or ahead of schedule. But if the team is underestimating the time requirements, it will appear that they’re behind schedule.

There’s a way to respond to this issue—incorporating an efficiency factor into the burndown chart. After the first iteration of a project, the efficiency factor is recalculated to allow for more accuracy.

How ProjectManager Helps With Sprint Management

A burnout chart is important but it’s not the only guide that scrum teams can reference. There are many other reports and tools that can improve the probability of success. ProjectManager is an online collaborative software with the features scrum teams need to manage their sprints better.

Real-Time Dashboards

If you need a high-level view of your project, ProjectManager has a real-time dashboard that tracks your sprint as it happens. Data automatically populates for the most accurate view of your project. Teams can make decisions based on current project data as opposed to referencing old data.

Robust Kanban Boards

Reporting on progress is only one part of what a scrum team needs. They also require tools that allow them to manage product backlogs and sprints. ProjectManager has this portion of the sprint covered too, with kanban boards that visualize workflows, collect user stories and prioritize tasks. Scrum teams will always know what to work on and when. The kanban boards feed directly into ProjectManager’s reporting features for total project visibility.

Product owners and scrum masters will also appreciate the kanban for its transparency in the sprint. When going through a sprint retrospectively, the kanban is an archive of what went right and what went wrong, allowing for future improvements.

Managers must keep their eye on the progress of a project. If they don’t, then they’re risking the successful completion of the project. A burndown chart is just one of the many tools that lead to project success. ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software that any manager will want to have in their toolbox. It has features such as a real-time dashboard to monitor and report on progress, and an online Gantt chart to streamline scheduling and help with collaboration. Try it today for free with this 30-day trial.

The post Burndown Chart: What Is It, Examples & How to Use One for Agile appeared first on ProjectManager.

Here’s a screenshot of the whiteboard for your reference!

What Is IT Project Management?

IT project management consists of applying project management principles to information technology projects. It involves planning, executing, monitoring and closing IT-related initiatives to ensure they align with business objectives. As this industry is constantly changing thanks to rapid technological enhancements, these projects must be completed on time to keep up with the competition.

Key aspects of IT project management are scope, schedule, cost, resource and risk management. Common IT project examples include IT system implementations, data center migrations, network infrastructure upgrades, software development or cloud computing deployments.

IT Project Manager Job Description, Skills & Qualifications

What does a project manager in IT do? Jennifer described an IT project manager as one who oversees the process of planning, executing and delegating responsibilities around an organization’s IT pursuits and goals, often with the help of IT project management software.

That sounds a lot like what a project manager does in any industry. For clarification, she went on to note some unique aspects of the job, by detailing the skills and qualifications needed to work as an IT project manager:

• Technical management skills
• Technical understanding including hardware, software, network, infrastructure, security, etc.
• Ability to analyze information and glean insights from data
• Good at informing others and at communicating with many different teams
• Capable of staffing many different roles
• Excellent at problem-solving
• Strong data center management skills
• Advanced resource planning, capacity planning and task scheduling skills

IT Project Manager Salary and Job Outlook

When it comes to an IT project manager’s salary, there is a broad range. In the U.S., this role can earn anywhere from $95,000 to $125,000 per year. Entry-level positions typically earn less while those with specialized skills and experience can earn considerably more. Key salary factors include location, experience, certifications, company size and industry. For example, IT project managers in finance or technology may offer more compensation.

The job outlook for IT project managers is overall positive. According to Gartner, worldwide IT spending is expected to grow to $5.74 trillion in 2025, a 9.3 percent increase from 2024. According to Zippia, the technology industry is the highest-paying for project managers, while project manager employment is expected to increase by 7 percent from 2023 to 2033.

Career Paths for IT Project Managers

If you’re interested in becoming an IT project manager but you’re not sure where to start, consider an entry-level position as a project coordinator or assistant. This is a great way to get hands-on experience supporting IT project managers. Volunteering to manage IT projects for a nonprofit organization can also build your portfolio.

Those who already work in IT may want to transition into a project management role. In this case, consider obtaining certifications such as a PMP (Project Management Professional), CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management) or agile certifications like a scrum master. These can demonstrate your knowledge and commitment to project management. Don’t be afraid to attend industry events or conferences, or use platforms like LinkedIn to connect with IT professionals.

Preparing an IT Project Manager Resume

To land your dream job as an IT project manager, ensure your resume is as strong as possible. The top of your resume should include a customized summary for each job you’re applying for. Here, highlight relevant skills, technical expertise and leadership abilities. When showcasing your experience, list them in reverse chronological order, with your most recent position at the top. Quantify your results whenever possible (ex: reduced downtime by 20 percent) instead of using general language.

As IT projects are incredibly technical, be sure to emphasize technical skills on your resume. List any relevant hardware, software or programming languages you know and highlight proficiency in areas like cybersecurity or cloud computing. With this knowledge, you can use your resume to showcase your skills and land your next job.

IT Project Management Job Plan

To get that position as an IT project manager, Jennifer said, you’ll want to first look at what skills, experience and training you already have. Now compare that to the skills, experience and training necessary to land that IT project management position you’re after.

Where are the gaps in your skills, experience and training? Once you’ve identified them, you can begin to create a plan and work towards filling those holes in your resume.

Related: Using the STAR Method to Crush Your Next Interview

What About IT Project Management Training?

Training is always helpful for IT positions, especially if you lack real-world experience. Jennifer listed the following training courses that deal with the specific needs of an IT project manager.

• IT PM: Project management training that deals with technology, such as infrastructure, hardware, software, networks, etc.
• ITIL: Information Technology Infrastructure Library covers the best practices used to develop and execute IT service management for a company.
• ITSM: Information Technology Service Management teaches how to deliver end-to-end IT services for a company.

What About Scrum, Agile and Other Certifications?

Jennifer added that some people ask her how Scrum and Agile or other certifications fit in. She said it often has to do with your organization.

While it’s true that Scrum and Agile are often thought of in terms of managing IT projects, that’s not always the case. Those ideas have seeped into project management writ large. But more importantly, not all IT projects use them, so it’s not a deal-breaker.

Transcription:

Today we’re talking about how to become an IT project manager, and IT meaning information technology. And when someone asks me that, I love it because I know they’re intentional, but it really depends on how to get there for their career path.

So let’s take a look at some options. It depends on if someone starts in IT. They could be a techie or they could be some other role in IT already, so they have an interest in the project management piece.

They could also be non-IT, meaning they could be in a different business unit. Maybe like operations, marketing, or even finance. And they could be a project manager for those type of projects or they could be some other role.

So again, they have an interest in becoming a project manager for the IT part of the project.

So some people ask, “Well, what about Agile and Scrum? How does that fit in?” And it really depends on your organization, and it really depends on the type of projects you work on. Not every project is managed using the Agile or Scrum methodology, so you may not need it.

So let’s look at some…the job description, and let’s look at some common skills and qualifications that companies look for.

So the job description is, the project manager oversees the process of planning and executing and delegating responsibilities around the organization’s IT pursuits and goals.

So some of the job skills they look for is someone with technical management and a technical understanding. They wanna make sure the project manager has an understanding of how maybe the hardware or the software, the infrastructure, maybe network and security, all fit together.

They also wanna make sure that the person can analyze information because, in IT, there’s a lot of data and metrics that go. So they have to be able to take that information and glean insights for the project.

They also need to be good at informing others because, typically on IT projects, there are different types of things, again, people working on the infrastructure, the software, the hardware, that have to integrate and communicate.

Also, staffing the roles on the project, problem-solving things that come up, data center management. So typically, the technology is in data somewhere. It could be within the company or it could be somewhere outsourced by a third-party vendor.

And then also, it’s very important to understand advanced project management tools for resource planning and advanced scheduling feature. Something like a projectmanager.

So here are…when you’re looking at the career path, how to get there, so you wanna look at the skills, experience, and training that you have already, and you want to compare that to an IT project manager and the specific type of projects you’re interested in working in.

So look at the specific skills, experience, and training that you need or is required. And with that, you find the gaps, and that’s what you use to build your custom plan for you.

So let’s talk about some of the training. So with that, you will need project management training. But there’s also a specific IT training dealing with technology, specific understanding how to manage projects around infrastructure, hardware, software, maybe again networks, and now, security is so important.

But some people ask about ITIL and ITSM. So what does that stand for? So ITIL is Information Technology Infrastructure Library. It’s not project management. What it is is best practices used to develop and execute IT service management for the company.

And so ITSM is, again, Information Technology Services Management, and it’s how you deliver end to end IT services within the company.

So hopefully, that helps to delineate what some of the terms mean, understand what the description of the role is, and some of the requirements for that.

So if you need a tool that help you become an IT project manager, then sign up for our software now at ProjectManager.

The post How to Become an IT Project Manager: Career Paths, Resume Tips & More appeared first on ProjectManager.

There are many requirements for a big project like this and as a project manager, you keep track of them all. Requirements gathering is a step in the requirements management process, which consists of gathering, documenting and analyzing project requirements.

We’ll start with a requirements gathering definition and then we’ll look into the process and tools you can use.

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Requirements Gathering Template

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What Is Requirements Gathering?

Requirements gathering, or requirements elicitation, is the process of determining all the requirements of a project. There are two main types of project requirements, business and technical requirements.

Business requirements define what an organization will accomplish with the project, while technical requirements explain how the project must be executed. They’re gathered during the initiation phase of the project life cycle, but project managers need to monitor them throughout the project timeline, as they can change.

Truly effective requirements gathering and management is started at the very beginning of the project, and must answer the following questions:

• How long will the project timeline be?
• Who will be involved in the project?
• What are the risks for the requirements-gathering process?
• What is our ultimate goal in understanding our project requirements?
• What are our technical and business requirements?

It sounds fairly simple, but it’s incredibly important. Once the project team has gathered requirements, they should be compiled in a requirements document.

Project management software can help with requirements gathering. ProjectManager is a cloud-based work and project management software that organizes your requirements. Use our task list project view to collect, prioritize and assign your project requirements. Plus, once in our software, they’re tracked in real-time with live dashboards and reporting features. Get started with ProjectManager for free today.

What Is a Requirements Document?

A requirement document is used to explain what is needed from the product. Among the things it defines is the product vision and how it must be achieved by the end of the project. It doesn’t go into details about how it will be delivered, though. It’s more to put the product in context, such as why the product is needed or what problem it’s solving. The details of how it will do this are not included.

Why Is Requirements Gathering Important?

Remember back to the last project you managed. What were the risks that came to light? Which resources did you run out of? Was there any scope creep or budgetary mishaps? And overall, what were the impacts of those shortcomings on the project as a whole?

Deadlines, scope, cost overrun—without proper requirements identification at the outset, all of those elements will be affected. Design issues to the product will be impacted, and developmental delays will occur. Ultimately, your product won’t be set up for optimal success as it faces an overrun budget.

Requirements Gathering Checklist

The requirements gathering checklist below is a great starting point for covering all essential project requirements. While this list is not exhaustive, it can help lead to other important questions.

1. Key stakeholders have been identified
2. Goals have been outlined and agreed upon
3. Items within scope have been identified
4. Items outside of scope have been identified
5. Interviews and workshops to collect needs and expectations have been held
6. Functional needs that the project seeks to accomplish have been acknowledged
7. Data needed to reach the project goals have been recognized
8. Stakeholders have signed off on the project

Each industry and project will have a different requirements gathering process. For example, some may focus on regulatory compliance or technical complexity while others focus on business objectives and stakeholder involvement. Be sure to tailor the requirements gathering checklist accordingly.

Requirements Gathering Process

So, how do you gather requirements in the most effective and manageable way possible? Typically, requirements gathering is made up of a few discrete steps.

1. Appoint and Assign

First things first: who’s going to be the person that tells everyone you’re the project manager? Ensure that that person understands why this role is so important—everyone must go to you with all project updates, as you will act as the knowledge center for project progress.

You’ll also want to identify who the key stakeholders will be. These will be the people who brainstorm, analyze, approve or deny project updates. They’re typically made up of customers, team leads, department managers, board members, business partners or manufacturers. They’ll have the most say in the progress of the project overall.

2. Elicit Requirements & Interview

Next, you’ll want to interview all of the stakeholders that you identified. Ask them questions like:

• What is on your wishlist for this product update?
• What is your ultimate goal for this project?
• What do you wish this product would do that it doesn’t already?
• What got you interested in this product in the first place?
• What changes would convince you to recommend this product to others?
• What tools would you need to make this project successful?
• What are the concerns you have for this project process?

3. Gather and Document

Write absolutely everything down. Write until you can’t write anymore. Record every single answer, and create an easily-accessible repository where (approved) others can access if they need to reference any information that was collected during the requirements gathering phase.

Not only will this documentation be helpful at the end of the project when you reflect back on goals achieved, updates accomplished, features added and bugs fixed, but it will also act to help manage stakeholder expectations, and keep team members focused and on track.

4. List All Assumptions & Requirements

This is the meat of the process. Once you’ve documented everyone’s goals and expectations, you can create a requirements management plan that’s actionable, measurable and quantifiable.

During this phase you’ll answer:

• How long will the project timeline be? Map out your timeline, and then map out your requirements on that timeline. This will help in case some requirements are contingent on dependencies.
• Who will be involved in the project? Will it be the entire design and development teams, or just a select few from each? Which team members will be available? Which team members specialize in the types of issues the project will tackle?
• What are the risks for the requirements-gathering process? Define all assumptions, and document all risks that might impact your requirements. Understand that your assumptions are typically divided into three categories: time, budget and scope. They can range from assuming PTO, holidays and sick days, to assuming stakeholders will provide feedback in a timely manner.
• What is our ultimate goal in understanding our project requirements? What is the time-based goal, the budget goal and the scope goal? Will it be to compete in the market more directly with a competitor? Will it be to solve a customer problem, or fix a bug?

By answering all of the questions above in a clear and concise manner, you’ll have a full map of your requirements ready to present to stakeholders.

5. Monitor Progress

Once you’ve gotten stakeholder approval on the requirements you’ve presented, you’ll implement them into the project timeline and process. At this point, you’ll want to make sure you have a method in place to monitor and track all of your requirements across all teams to ensure that triggers for risk stay low.

You’ll also want to use this data to report project progress to stakeholders, give feedback to department managers, and ensure the project is on track from a time, scope and budget standpoint. Our free requirements traceability matrix is a great tool to keep track of project requirements.

Requirements Gathering Template

To kick off your requirements gathering, check out this template. Our free requirements gathering template includes a cover page to distinguish this doc from other projects. There’s also a place to track any revisions to the document. Then you can describe the project, its purpose, scope and timeline. There’s even a space for stakeholders to capture their thoughts. Download your template today.

Requirements Gathering Techniques

Now that we know what requirements gathering is and we’ve explored the steps of the requirements gathering process, you’ll want to have good sources from which to get them. The primary sources are stakeholders, such as customers, users, et al. Other sources could include experts, analysts and information about competitors.

Once the sources have been identified, there are a number of techniques that can be applied to gather the requirements. This is an iterative process and no one requirements-gathering technique is going to do the job by itself. You’ll need to use as many as you feel necessary. Here are some of the top requirements-gathering techniques.

Use Case Scenarios

A use case is a document that explains how users will perform tasks on your product. It is written from a user’s point of view and done in steps that include: who’s using the product, what they want from the product, the user’s goal, the steps they take to accomplish their task and how the product responds to their action.

Brainstorming

Conduct a brainstorming session with a group of participants who can say whatever they want about the product as long as they feel it’s important. Have a facilitator lead the group, organizing and prioritizing their responses. Start by explaining the objective of the brainstorming session, get the group to provide as many ideas as possible, don’t criticize or debate and when done gather all the information.

Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is another way to gather ideas. It involves creating a mind map, which starts by placing the central idea in the center of a page. Then use lines, arrows, speech bubbles and different colors to show the connection between the central theme and the ideas that stem from it. It allows for an organic development of ideas relating to your central idea. It shows how different facts are related.

Great Requirements Gathering Tools

Requirements gathering tools help streamline the process of collecting, documenting and managing requirements effectively. Here are some of the best requirements gathering tools to consider.

Jira

This tool is known for its robust requirement tracking features. Jira allows teams to capture, prioritize and track requirements. It has features specific to issue tracking such as issue types, allowing users to categorize and organize requirements. Use Jira to link issues, oversee workflow management and add attachments and comments to requirements.

Jama

This software is seen as a requirements management tool that is especially ideal for large-scale projects. It provides a central platform where stakeholders can collaborate on requirements in real time. It uses diagrams, flowcharts and interface mockups to visually represent requirements so stakeholders better understand the final product.

Confluence

Atlassian’s team collaboration tool Confluence is widely used for requirements gathering. Although it isn’t a dedicated requirements management platform, it has features such as collaborative documentation, structured pages, templates, version control and a Jira integration.

Accompa

Accompa is an online requirements management software that’s known for its user-friendly interface and features that benefit various teams. It supports review and approval workflows so stakeholders can formally sign off on requirements to ensure they meet the necessary standards. This platform is typically ideal for medium-sized teams looking for an affordable requirements-gathering tool.

Microsoft Azure DevOps

While this is mainly seen as a DevOps program, it offers capabilities for requirements gathering. Azure Boards help manage work such as user stories, features and epics, representing requirements. It also has work item tracking to define, assign and track requirements throughout their lifecycle. There is also a marketplace that has extensions for visual modeling, reporting and requirements traceability.

More Requirements Gathering Templates

Whatever technique or combination thereof for requirements gathering, you’ll need to have them collected in a document. Templates are a great tool to gather requirements and more. ProjectManager is the online hub for free templates related to any aspect of a project. Here are a couple that can help you with requirements gathering.

Stakeholder Analysis Template

Speaking of the stakeholders, our free stakeholder analysis template for Excel will help you identify and manage your stakeholders. You can use this free template to describe the stakeholders involved with the project, what their relationship to the project is and the level of commitment, which helps you plan how to manage them.

Project Plan Template

Finally, you’re going to have to take all this information and use it to inform your plan. Our free project plan template for Word helps you scope out the work and make it down into manageable tasks. There’s also room to manage your team’s workload. The project plan template takes all the requirements gathering and puts it to practical use.

ProjectManager Helps with Requirements

The key to any great project is to have all requirements gathered from the outset. This requires a seamless method of communication across all channels and a repository that can hold data for an endless amount of time. ProjectManager has tools that make that not only possible but easy. With our cloud-based software, you and your team can host an unlimited amount of documents so you can store any requests from people for any length of time.

Plan Your Project on Interactive Gantt Charts

Need a Gantt chart that’s cross-functional with a time-tracking system? Our software hosts hybrid tools that can adapt as your project moves forward. Our Gantt does everything Gantts are known for and more. You can filter for the critical path and set a baseline to track the variance between your planned effort and actual progress.

Use Multiple Project Views

Our software has multiple project views so what you plan on the Gantt is updated across the entire tool, be that the kanban board, task list, sheet or calendar view. Everyone can work how they want and communicate in real time no matter where they are.

Collaborative to the Core

ProjectManager is great for teams looking to communicate with more transparency across multiple locations. With our software, you can collaborate effectively and with ease by adding comments from key stakeholders or team members. Plus, appointees can schedule tasks and make alerts to ensure clients are being well managed and the timeline stays intact.

Our platform is the single source of truth for your project. Email notifications and in-app alerts keep you updated on comments and progress. Real-time dashboards and one-click reports deliver the live data you need to make insightful decisions to deliver a successful project.

Gathering and managing requirements across multiple teams are no easy feat. Ensure that team members and stakeholders are up-to-date no matter what. ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps teams collaborate effectively across multiple channels. Get started today for free.

The post Requirements Gathering: The Process, Best Tools & More appeared first on ProjectManager.

If that’s the case, check out these free software development templates for Excel, Word and more. They’re just a sampling of all the free project management templates available to download on our site. They cover every aspect of managing a project across multiple industries.

For those wanting a more efficient and effective tool than software development templates, there’s ProjectManager, award-winning project and portfolio management software with robust Gantt charts to plan software projects, especially with waterfall or V-shaped models. Yes, it’s easy to assign teams and drag and drop timelines, but it also links all four types of task dependencies to avoid costly delays, filters for the critical path and sets a baseline to compare planned effort against actual effort in real time to keep the project on track. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Why Use a Software Development Template?

Still reading? Then let’s explain why some prefer to use a software development template. For one, they provide consistency. Templates help maintain uniformity across projects, ensuring that coding standards, documentation and processes are followed. This creates a level of efficiency by saving time with a ready-made structure. This allows developers to focus on the actual coding rather than starting from scratch.

Using a software development template incorporates industry best practices and guidelines, which promotes better coding habits and quality. It reduces errors and omissions to enhance overall code quality and stability. They also help new team members onboard quickly as templates make it easier for them to understand the project structure and standards.

With templates, developers can set up new projects or features faster. This accelerates the development cycle, enabling teams to iterate more rapidly and respond to changes in requirements or market conditions. In agile environments, where speed and flexibility are key, templates can help teams spin up user stories or feature branches, aligning with the fast-paced nature of agile methodologies.

14 Free Software Development Templates

While templates will always lag behind project management software, they do have benefits and can act as a bridge for teams as they transition from templates to software. The demands of software development are unique and these free software development templates address the specific needs of software developers and their teams.

1. Software Development Plan Template

Software development without a plan is foolhardy. That’s because it provides a structured framework for development processes and outlines phases, tasks and timelines. This helps managers see the entire project on a timeline. It provides an overview of the project and helps track progress to ensure the work is done according to the software development plan.

Download this free software development plan template for Excel to organize tasks and monitor progress. On one side of the template is a project scheduling spreadsheet. Here all tasks are listed, including their start and end dates. This indicates the duration of the work. This data automatically populates a timeline, which can be color-coded to differentiate project phases. There are columns on the spreadsheet that note the task’s priority and the percentage complete to track progress.

2. Test Case Template

The test case is a critical component of software development. It ensures the quality and reliability of the software product by allowing testers to create test case scenarios for the software product or one of its features. This free test case template for Excel is a methodical tool for doing a thorough test of the product that developers and testers can use to discover missed errors and defects.

Use this software development template to carefully check every aspect of the software to ensure it’s working properly before releasing it to the public. The free template has a column to give the test case an ID, another for defining the test case scenario and one to explain how it will be tested. There’s a field to capture pre-conditions, test steps, expected results, actual results, post-conditions and more.

3. Agile Sprint Plan Template

Sprint planning is a meeting that occurs at the beginning of each sprint, which is a time-boxed iteration, usually between one and four weeks. The team discusses and decides which items from the product backlog will be worked on. This free agile sprint plan template incorporates the entire scrum team to motivate and challenge them to drive success.

This software development template opens in ProjectManager, which gives users a variety of project views to work from. There are kanban boards for agile teams, task lists for developers and the aforementioned Gantt charts to track progress. Real-time data is shared across all project views which keeps cross-functional teams working off the most current information to foster better collaboration.

4. Project Plan Template

Project plans serve as a comprehensive document that outlines the strategy for managing a software project from initiation to completion. It includes such vital information as defining the scope of the project, creating a timeline and adding milestones to ensure that the project stays on schedule. It also includes resource allocations, budgeting, risk management and more.

The free software development template includes all these components in a thorough Word document. It breaks the project into phases and tasks and creates a schedule with task dependencies, project assumptions and constraints. It also defines the change management process to log and track any changes to the project plan.

5. Bug Report Template

This free bug report template for Excel is used to maintain software quality and ensure that issues are identified and resolved effectively. It documents defects or issues found in the software and serves as a communication tool between developers, testers and other stakeholders. They prioritize and track progress and promote accountability within the team.

The bug report is an essential software development template that captures all the pertinent information needed to fix the bug. There’s the bug ID, including the reporter’s name, assigned developer and the date it was submitted. The bug is then summarized, adding a URL or screenshot if possible. The environment defined and details of the bug are listed. The severity and priority are also noted.

6. Roadmap Template

A roadmap provides a strategic overview of a project’s direction and milestones. This free roadmap template for Excel outlines the long-term vision and goals of the software project, which helps stakeholders understand where the project is heading. This free software development template is similar to the Gantt chart, with a spreadsheet that populates a timeline to keep the project team and stakeholders aware of the project’s objectives.

But why bother with limited templates when one can sign up for a free trial and use ProjectManager’s dynamic roadmap feature for long-term planning? Our roadmap can also be used for portfolio management, capturing all projects on a Gantt chart that has resource management, time tracking and task management tools. The roadmap can be filtered by the assignee, project manager or customer to make forecasts and highlight key metrics for stakeholders.

7. Requirements Gathering Template

Requirements gathering is an important part of software development as it collects, analyzes and documents the needs and expectations of stakeholders. This helps to understand the use needs for the software, defines the project scope and ensures all stakeholder perspectives are considered. This software development template is about business, user and system requirements and is crucial to complete before starting any software development project.

When you download the free requirements gathering template for Word, there’s everything needed for a thorough listing of project requirements. It has a cover page with the project name and a chart to track the versions of the document. There’s a section to show the project plan and describe the project and its purpose, scope and timeline, which has milestones, goals, dependencies and more.

8. Risk Tracking Template

The free risk tracking or risk register template is essential for identifying and mitigating risks that can impact the project’s success. This software development template allows teams to proactively identify the risks that could arise as issues in the project and note the impact, which will help to categorize risks by levels, such as high, medium and low. This allows risks to be prioritized.

This free template allows developers and their teams to systematically track and evaluate the actions taken to mitigate the risks that show up as issues in the project. Risk is an inevitable part of any project management. Being prepared for risk is key to software development to ensure the delivered product is high quality, on time and stays within budget.

9. Issue Tracking Template

Another software development template that helps to keep work moving smoothly is our free issue tracking template for Excel. Unlike a risk, which is an event, both positive and negative, which might occur, an issue is presently impacting the project for the worse. The issue must be resolved.

Download this issue tracking template to ensure that issues are not only identified but resolved without negatively impacting the project. Each issue is listed and described with the potential impact to the project defined. A priority is then set and the date the issue is opened is noted. There’s space to list the date when the issue has closed as well as who on the team is responsible for dealing with it. A column with the status tracks whether the issue is open or closed.

10. Change Log Template

Change is a constant and if it isn’t managed it’s a project-destroyer. Change can come from problems in the project to last-minute requests from stakeholders. Wherever they originate, change has to be logged to determine if it should be followed. This free change log template from Excel helps to manage equipment breaks, team members getting sick or whatever change occurs in the project.

Use this software development template to capture change as it happens and track it throughout the project until it’s no longer impacting work. The template notes the type of change, describes it and prioritizes it to help the team know which to address first. The team member who’s assigned to own the change is listed and much more to ensure that the change never falls through the cracks.

11. Change Request Form Template

Another component of change management is this free change request form template for Word. It collects data that determines how to deal with the proposed change. This way, if the change request is approved, the work won’t create issues with the current workflow. This ensures that approved changes are smoothly implemented.

This software development template has everything one needs to capture the specifics of the requested change. It shows who requested the change, the date it was submitted, the priority and the impact on deliverables. There’s also a field to note the impact of not responding to the change and why. Other fields note the cost, quality and duration of the change, impact on deadlines and much more.

12. Root Cause Analysis

Root cause analysis is a systemic process used in software development to identify the underlying reasons for defects or issues within a system. This free software development template can help identify problems when a bug or failure occurs and analyze the contributing factors.

Use this free root cause analysis template for Word to identify and document what is responsible for the problem. The root cause analysis template is a fishbone diagram where the problem is at the head and the spine captures various causes that are the reason for the problem being analyzed.

13. Timesheet Template

Timesheets help with payroll. Specifically, as a software development template, timesheets can help track contractors. They tend to work long hours when doing development work. Timesheets not only help them log their hours but also allow managers to track their labor costs to ensure that the project stays within its budget.

Download this free timesheet template for Excel to manage payroll and track expenses. There’s a box for the employee’s name, department, supervisor and hourly rate. Under that, the days they’re working for the pay cycle are listed, including start and end times, with a lunch break. There’s a column for any overtime hours and then it’s all added, with signature lines for the employee and their supervisor.

14. Progress Report

A progress report is a document that shows how far the project has progressed in comparison to where the project plan says it should be. This software development template is key to tracking the project to ensure that it stays on schedule.

Download the free progress report template for Word to keep software products meeting deadlines. The template opens with a summary and then lists all the tasks that were executed over the period covered in the report. If there are issues, they’re highlighted in another section. Both progress and the budget are tracked. The template closes with accomplishments over that period and what is expected to be accomplished over the next period covered.

ProjectManager Helps With Software Development

While these software development templates are helpful, as we’ve mentioned, they cause frustration. That’s because they’re only static documents working in a dynamic field. It’s hard enough to do a software development project without having to stop and manually update templates. And forget about collaborating with other team members. Templates aren’t capable. Project management software clears all those hurdles and more. ProjectManager is award-winning software that has Gantt charts and roadmaps that are updated in real time, and can be shared with teams whether they’re working side-by-side or in another time zone.

Execute Work on Kanban Boards and Task Lists

While Gantt charts are great for planning and roadmaps illustrate strategic objectives, dev teams need tools designed to help them execute their work. That’s why we have multiple project views that share data so everyone is working on the same page. They can visualize workflow with kanban boards. Teams can collectively plan sprints, manage their backlog and managers can see potential roadblocks and reallocate resources quickly to clear the way and keep the project moving forward as planned. Task lists and calendar views give stakeholders a monthly overview of progress to keep them informed.

Track Progress, Costs and More in Real Time

Instead of using a software development template to report on progress, use one of our customizable reports on status, portfolios, workload, variance, timesheets and more. They can be filtered to go deep into the details for teams or a more general overview for stakeholders. For a high-level overview, toggle to the real-time project or portfolio dashboard. It automatically collects live data, which is displayed on easy-to-read graphs and charts that show time, cost, workload and more. There are also secure timesheets that can help managers track labor costs.

ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams whether they’re in the office or anywhere in the world. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Join teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who are using our software to deliver successful projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

The post 14 Free Software Development Templates for Excel, Word & More appeared first on ProjectManager.

First, we need to understand what an IT budget is, how often they’re made and what is the best size for one. We’ll also discuss the importance of an IT budget, who’s involved in making one and what’s included so you don’t miss any crucial steps.

What Is an IT Budget?

An IT budget consists of all the IT spending for an organization over one year. That spending can come from a range of sources. Anywhere the organization incurs IT operations costs, though not limited to the IT organization, will be included in the IT budget.

This will include an accurate estimate of decentralized IT spending and shadow IT spending, the former being the distribution of functions, control and information, while the latter is IT-related hardware and software use without the knowledge of the IT department.

Some of the items that are included in an IT budget are hardware, software, personnel, outsourcing, disaster recovery and any occupancy costs associated with the support of the IT in the organization. Taxes, except value-added taxes, are also included.

Planning and managing these resource costs in an IT budget can be facilitated by project management software. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that can plan, manage and track IT resources, both human and nonhuman, in real time. Use our robust Gantt charts to plan all your IT costs and view your planned costs against your actual costs as you move through the year by setting a baseline. This real-time data will then be available across our software features. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

How Often Are IT Budgets Created?

As stated above, an IT budget is usually created once a year. This is a common budget cycle, though all budgets should be reviewed throughout the year. It’s never a good idea to create an IT budget and forget about it. Remember, the IT budget is the plan for the organization’s IT expenditures for the financial year. But those forecasts are estimates and to ensure that you keep to your IT budget, monitoring and tracking costs is imperative.

What Is the Ideal Size of an IT Budget?

The ideal size of an IT budget is relative and depends on many factors. There isn’t a definitive answer to that question. In general, you’ll find that banking and financial services spend the most on their IT budget, which is understandable as security and integrity are paramount issues for this sector. Media and entertainment are behind banks and financial institutions, followed by software publishing and internet services. Construction tends to have the smallest IT budgets and less complex IT management departments.

What Is the Importance of IT Budgeting?

The importance of having an IT budget is to align technology requirements with an organization’s business strategy. You can’t manage your IT finances without an IT budget. But these are relatively obvious reasons. Let’s explore some other reasons.

Ensure the Continuity of IT Operations

IT operations are all about the implementation, managing, delivering and support of IT services. This must align with the larger business needs of internal and external users. This important part of IT service delivery needs to be well funded as it’s a crucial part of the financial, telecommunications and retail industries, just to name a few.

Fund the Execution of Future IT Projects & IT Roadmap

Then there are the future IT projects, which will also require substantial investment. Using an IT roadmap, businesses can develop and share a strategic-level plan for future IT initiatives. Not only does this create a more strategic approach to IT costs and future investments, but it also helps to save money by identifying those tasks and systems that are costing the organization money. It also keeps the organization’s technology systems running smoothly by staying on top of mission-critical items.

Support the IT Asset Management Lifecycle

Then there’s the IT asset management lifecycle, which goes from request, fulfillment and deployment to monitoring, servicing and retiring. The IT budget creates a centralized, cost-effective way of procurement by identifying opportunities for consolidation. But IT budgets also fund the streamlined provisioning of this process through effective planning and optimizing utilization.

Establish a Cost Baseline to Control and Track IT Costs

The ability to track these costs is essential to keeping to your IT budget once it’s been created and approved. By creating a baseline, you capture the IT budget as planned. Then you can use this baseline to compare it to your actual spending at any time in the year. This allows you to see the difference, if any, between what you planned to spend and what you spent. If there’s a discrepancy between the two, you can work to reconcile it and stay on budget.

Who Is Involved In IT Budgeting?

Various people in an organization can be involved in IT budgeting. It depends on the organizational structure of the company. However, there tend to be a few professionals who are mostly involved in this process. They include the CIO (the chief information officer); they’re responsible for creating business value, approving invitations and establishing policies, strategies and standards.

Other IT professionals involved in IT budgeting include the CFO or chief financial officer, who is responsible for all financial decisions for an organization. There are also IT managers, IT directors and even the IT team who should be consulted. If the organization has a project management office (PMO), it’ll be part of the IT budget-making process, but even leaders in different departments who use IT should be part of the IT budget decision-making process.

What Is Included in an IT Budget?

There are many things to consider when creating an IT budget, but the first and most important is what is your priority. Before you put pen to paper, know what your business goals are for the year and prioritize each. It’s also helpful to look back at last year’s budget. Now, let’s look at what should be included in the IT budget.

• Staff and compensation: This includes the salaries of your staff, any contractors and whatever rewards you expect to provide, such as bonuses.
• Hardware: This includes costs such as laptops, servers, desktop computers, printers, telecommunications equipment, phones, phone systems, networking equipment and firewalls.
• Software: Any programs that you own or subscribe to.
• Infrastructure expenses: This includes the purchase price and the cost of using the infrastructure, maintenance and disposal when it’s retired.
• Cybersecurity expenses: This includes any items that are used to secure your network and data, such as an IT-managed service provider.
• IT audit costs: This includes external auditor costs and the costs needed to implement the suggested changes.
• Disaster recovery costs: There needs to be set aside funds for the organization to restore access and functionality to its IT infrastructure in case of a disaster, whether man-made or natural.
• IT asset requests: There needs to be funds set aside for employees who might submit requests so that an organization can buy new IT assets at any given time.
• IT asset maintenance expenses: This is any cost that is incurred by the organization to keep its assets in good working condition.
• IT project management costs: These are costs related to the execution of specific IT projects, as opposed to recurring costs that are required for the normal IT operations of an organization. While these costs should be reflected in the overall IT budget, IT projects should also have their project budget.

How to Make an IT Budget in 7 Steps

We’ve talked about the various items that need to be included in your IT budget. Now, it’s time to list the steps you should take to create that IT budget.

1. Define the IT Goals for Your Organization

The first step is to understand what the strategic goals are for the year. These IT goals, of course, must conform to the overall strategic goals of the organization. If the organization sees IT investment as a critical part of its strategy, then there might be more funding for it. If they’re trying to save money, then it might get less. Therefore, the IT manager has to figure out what’s needed in terms of IT operations and infrastructure as it aligns with the organization’s strategic goals.

2. Create an IT Roadmap

Whatever you define as your strategic goals in the prior step needs to be planned out on an IT roadmap. This high-level visual plan will help you communicate the organization’s IT strategy. The IT roadmap shows all your IT initiatives on a shared timeline, which makes it easier to determine the best way to share resources that benefit all the projects involved. The IT roadmap lays out current IT capabilities, projected IT needs and any improvements that will be executed over the coming year.

3. Identify the IT Costs for the Last Year

If you made a budget the year before it can prove a valuable tool for creating the new year’s budget. That’s because you can see what you needed over the last year and what those associated costs were. This provides an idea of what your costs will be for the coming year, though you’ll have to adjust for inflation and any other factors that could be impacting those costs. It also helps you understand what you need then and what you’ll likely need again.

4. Make an Inventory of Current IT Assets

Having an inventory of your current IT assets helps you identify, track and manage those assets. In doing so you’ll also have a better understanding of what you’ll need in terms of assets for the next year. Therefore, make sure you have a thorough list of all servers, laptops, mobile devices, printers, network devices, software licenses and other IT-related assets used by the organization.

5. Estimate the Costs of IT Projects for the Upcoming Year

With this information, you can now start to forecast what your potential costs will be for the coming year. But don’t forget any IT projects that are looming. They’ll bite into your budget and should be accounted for in the IT budget. Therefore, if you’re planning to purchase new devices, add servers or whatever other project is coming up, be sure to make accurate an estimate of what they’ll cost.

6. Create an IT Disaster Recovery Plan

You’ll also need to create a fund for any major issues that might occur over the year. This is part of your risk management plan, called a disaster recovery plan. It’s a set sum that you believe will cover any disasters, such as a weather-related outage or a man-made hack that compromises your infrastructure and data. It must be enough to get you back up and running quickly.

7. Determine Optimum IT Staffing Levels

We’ve discussed equipment, software and projects, but it’s important not to neglect your staff. They are the ones who will manage the IT and respond to any issues. Every organization has a different amount of necessary staff to man its IT department. This depends on what you’re tasked with and how much the organization will fund those staff members.

IT Budget Template

Creating an IT budget can be a daunting task. Using a template can help you make sure that nothing crucial has been overlooked. ProjectManager is more than an award-winning project management software, it’s the online hub for all things project management. We have dozens of free templates for every aspect of managing a project across numerous industries, including IT. Download our free IT budget template for Excel and get a head start on building an accurate IT budget.

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IT Budget Template

Use this free IT Budget Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Download Excel File

How ProjectManager Helps With IT Budgeting

Our free template can help get you started, but like all templates, it can only do so much. It’s a static document that has to be manually updated if you want to monitor cost variance. What you need is project management software. ProjectManager is cloud-based project management software with features to make budgets and track costs in real time. Create your budget on our powerful Gantt chart and, once you set a cost baseline, track your resource costs to make sure that you’re not going over your budget.

Monitor Costs and More on Real-Time Dashboards

Whenever you want to check on your costs, you can toggle over to our live dashboard. It automatically captures real-time data and displays it on easy-to-read graphs and charts. One of the metrics is cost, which shows the actual, planned and budgeted costs in a color-coded bar chart to give you a high-level overview of how much you’re spending. Unlike lightweight alternatives that make you go through a complicated and time-consuming setup, our dashboard is ready when you are.

Prepare for Unexpected Issues With Risk Management Features

Nothing can disrupt a budget faster than a problem that brings your IT systems down. Our software helps you plan for unexpected events with risk management features. You can identify risks, note the likelihood of it happening, and, if it does, the impact it will have on your IT. Then you can describe a plan of action and who on the team is responsible for carrying it out. This way, when an issue shows up you’re prepared to act fast and mitigate the problem before it has a greater impact on your IT budget and business.

Another tool to help you monitor and keep to your budget is our customizable reports. Our reporting features go deeper into the data than the dashboard. View costs on status or portfolio reports, but there are also variance and timesheet reports, the latter can help you monitor your staff costs. All reports can be filtered to show only the data you want to see and then easily shared in various formats to keep stakeholders informed.

ProjectManager is online project management software that connects teams in the office, out in the field and anywhere in between. They can share files, comment at the task level and more to foster better collaboration. Managers get transparency into the team’s progress and performance as well as being able to track other resources and costs in real time. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

The post What Is an IT Budget? IT Budgeting Basics (Template Included) appeared first on ProjectManager.

IT financial management is a bit more complicated than that and we’ll explain by more thoroughly defining the term. Then we’ll list the professionals who are tasked with IT financial management and their key objectives. To close, there will be some of the best practices to employ for more successful IT financial management.

What Is IT Financial Management (ITFM)?

IT financial management is made up of the processes and tools that are needed to manage and analyze IT costs. There’s also the communication of the value of these processes and tools to IT leaders in order to prove their value to the business.

Part of the process is explaining the costs for IT services to executives and aligning the investment with business objectives in order to increase value for the business. This is done through analysis, planning and managing costs that are related to IT operations, projects and services.

IT financial management must be transparent, accountable and optimized for efficiency when dealing with the costs of these systems. To accomplish this requires financial governance, creating and controlling an IT budget, tracking expenses and doing cost-benefit analysis of IT investments. All this helps to make more insightful decisions that can save money and lead to better business outcomes while improving IT performance.

That’s a lot of responsibility, but it can be handled more effectively with project management software. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that gives IT leaders the features they need to do their jobs on a cloud-based tool with real-time data to better track their costs. One way to gain efficiency is through our workflow automation, which uses any number of triggers to automatically create actions to save time and keep the IT financial team focused on more important tasks.

Who’s Responsible for IT Financial Management?

There are several financial managers who are responsible for IT financial management in a business. They’re tasked with the financial health of the business in terms of its IT systems. They have many responsibilities that go beyond cost, such as making sure the business’ data and computational resources are accessible and secure.

Chief Information Officer

The chief information officer (CIO) manages all aspects of the delivery of IT activities. This position is also responsible for IT governance, ensuring that standards, rules and proper procedures are being followed. This includes IT operations management, IT service management, IT asset management and IT risk management. This executive-level position works closely with the chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

Chief Financial Officer

The chief financial officer (CFO) is responsible for the management of a business’ finances, including those related to IT. This high-level executive will track cash flow and financial planning as well as analyze the business’ financial performance and suggest ways to improve it. A CFO can be seen as the business’ controller or treasurer as they all manage finances and accounting to ensure accurate financial reporting.

IT Director

The IT director can be seen as a bridge between the CIO and a business’ IT staff. They’re the team leader, in a sense, who reports to the CIO, but unlike that executive position, are tasked with the daily operation of the business’ IT department. An IT director is responsible for the IT team and ensuring that they follow guidelines defined by the CIO and other regulations.

Key Objectives of IT Financial Management

IT financial management is tasked with many things, but there are key objectives that are most important to keep in mind. Of course, though objectives can vary depending on the company and industry, but for the most part there are core objectives that every IT financial management process is going to follow. Here are a few of them.

Creating and Managing IT Budgets

When we’re talking about IT budgets, what we mean is the total allocation of IT spending over the year. This spending can come from anywhere in the business that has IT costs. It’s not limited to the IT department. It should include estimates on decentralized IT spending as well as shadow IT, that is IT used without knowledge of the IT department. That includes hardware, software, personnel, outsourcing, disaster recovery and occupancy costs for supporting IT within the business.

Tracking and Reporting IT Costs

IT costs consist of operational costs (running IT services daily), staff costs (hiring, training and retaining employees), core costs (overhead) and capital costs (money invested to acquire or upgrade assets). In order to know what you’re spending and to monitor that it doesn’t go over your budget, it’s important to track those costs. This can be done with dashboards and reporting features for greater detail.

Ensuring IT Spending Supports Business Operations and Aligns With Strategic Goals

Strategic goals are defined in a business’s strategic plan. The IT infrastructure should support the operations of the business. Different departments, such as marketing, sales, production, etc., should operate as efficiently as possible. This allows them to contribute to the overall strategic goals of the business. Therefore, IT spending should be focused on the acquisition of IT assets that help the IT infrastructure achieve the business’s strategic goals.

Evaluating the Feasibility and Profitability of IT Projects

Each project the IT team evaluates has to meet certain criteria. If not, then the project shouldn’t be initiated. Those criteria can be different from business to business and across industries, but the tools to evaluate them tend to be the same. There is a feasibility study, which is used to analyze the viability of the project to determine whether it’s worth pursuing or not. Businesses will also perform a cost-benefit analysis to see if the project will prove profitable. This looks at all costs involved in executing the project and compares them against the return of the project. If the project proves feasible and delivers a return on investment, then it’s more likely to get approval.

IT Financial Management Best Practices

It’s clear that IT financial management is important. What might not be so clear is how to effectively manage IT finances. Let’s look over several of the best practices in IT financial management

Do an Inventory of Your IT Assets and Human Resources

An IT asset inventory is the process of identifying, tracking and managing all the hardware and software assets in your business. This includes everything from servers, laptops and mobile devices to printers, network devices and software licenses. You’ll also want to know who does what in the IT department. This helps you monitor costs for IT assets and human resources, which will help you plan for the future and determine a budget that can maintain or improve your levels of service.

Assess the Current IT Costs of Your Organization

Understanding what you’re currently spending on IT allows executives to make more insightful decisions regarding future plans and budgets. With this information they can weigh the costs of IT against the benefits or profits that are coming in. IT executives will want to determine the most effective technical and economical solutions for a business, which cannot be done without having a clear picture of what IT costs are currently.

Understand How IT Assets are Used By Different Departments

IT assets are used across a business. Different departments will use assets differently or not, but it’s important that the IT team understands how those assets are used by different departments. By understanding this, changes can be suggested to find a more cost-effective solution to meet the IT needs of the business.

Identify IT infrastructure Gaps

An IT infrastructure gap is an insufficient investment in IT that has left an inadequate infrastructure plan. This is going to negatively impact a business’ performance. While the solution can have a high upfront cost, it’s worth it in the long run to have infrastructure that provides full coverage. This will permit your business to work more efficiently and effectively.

Do a Cost-Benefit Analysis Before Purchasing IT Assets

Just as a cost-benefit analysis is helpful in choosing the right project, so can it help with purchasing IT assets. Just like a project, an IT asset can have a price tag that is never going to see a return on that investment. Using a cost-benefit analysis of IT assets prior to purchase can help you save money and run your IT better.

How ProjectManager Helps IT Teams

In order to plan, manage and track IT financial management, businesses will need to first invest in project management software. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that helps IT managers track costs in real time. But there are also planning tools to implement, manage and track new projects in real time. Whether that’s managing IT assets or a new project, such as implementing a new service or software installation, our tool helps you control the process and costs to have better outcomes.

Plan With Multiple Project Views

One tool is often not sufficient when planning and executing projects. Managers tend to prefer Gantt charts, but IT teams don’t need all that information. They tend to execute projects with task lists or kanban boards, which allow them to manage their backlog and collaborate on sprints. Our software had multiple project views so everyone can work on whichever tool they’re comfortable with, from Gantt charts to kanban boards, task lists to sheet and calendar views. All project views update together in real time so everyone is always working on the same page.

Track and Report on IT Costs

After you’ve made your plans, you’ll have to monitor them to make sure that spending doesn’t get out of hand. Our real-time dashboards give you a high-level view of your costs anytime you want them. Just toggle over to the live dashboard—there’s no complicated setup required as you’ll find in inferior alternatives—where you’ll find easy-to-read graphs and charts on costs, but also workload, time and more. For more in-depth data, use our reporting features. You can generate reports on project status or portfolio status, but also timesheets, variance and more. Each report can be filtered to show only the data you want to see and they can then be easily shared to keep stakeholders informed.

Those are only a couple of things our tool can do. There are also resource management tools, as your IT teams are often a large part of your IT costs. We have features that allow you to set rates, track time with timesheets and balance workload with a workload chart. All this and more help you manage and track resources to keep your IT costs within the plan you made for your IT financial management process.

ProjectManager is online project management software that connects teams in the office, out in the field or anywhere in between. They can share files, comment at the task level and much more to foster better collaboration. Our task and risk management tools help you keep to your IT financial management plans. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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First, let’s explore the definition of an SLA in greater detail, including the different types of service agreements and why they’re so important. Then we’ll outline what goes into an SLA so you can make one, with an example to flesh it out and make it more comprehensible.

What Is a Service Level Agreement (SLA)?

As noted, a service level agreement is used to define the level of service that a customer expects from a supplier. This definition includes metrics that will be used to measure the service and the remedies or penalties that will be incurred if those service levels aren’t reached.

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Service Level Agreement Template

Use this free Service Level Agreement Template for Word to manage your projects better.

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It’s common to find a standard service level agreement from most service providers, though there can be various types, which we’ll get to shortly. Whichever SLA is used, it should be reviewed and modified by the customer and legal counsel as they skew in favor of the supplier.

Project management software can help you keep track of SLAs. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that has customizable kanban boards to collect and track your service level agreements and ensure that they’re being followed. Our unlimited file storage means that you can attach the SLA to a task card and include all pertinent information in the description of that card, including assigning it to a team member responsible for ensuring that the vendor is keeping to the terms of the agreement. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Types of Service Level Agreements

There are three different types of service level agreements: customer, internal and multi-level. That’s because one user’s needs aren’t always the same as another’s. Therefore, to better understand what an SLA is, we’ll define the three types below.

Customer SLA

As the name suggests, this SLA is used for an individual customer and covers all the relevant services that the customer needs. It’ll consist of only one contract, which will have details on the type and quality of the service that’s agreed on. For example, that service could include voice, text and internet services, but there’s still only one contract.

Internal SLA

An internal SLA is when both parties know the responsibilities and duties of the other team, which creates a better understanding between different departments. This helps to avoid ambiguity surrounding each team’s expectations, roles, deliverables and more. This means that departments in a company can have an internal service-level agreement, such as marketing providing a certain number of leads to sales per month.

Multi-Level SLA

The multi-level service level agreement is one that’s split into different tiers. Each of those tiers will address a subset of customers or departments in a company. They cover all relevant aspects of the agreement, including expectations for each party when there are multiple vendors or users. So a multi-level SLA could have a section for all customers and another for customers who have a specific subscription.

Why Is It Important to Write a Service Level Agreement?

The importance of a service level agreement is that it clearly defines the commitments between the service provider and the customer. These SLAs are very common in telecommunications, an industry that needs a guarantee of certain standards being upheld.

The supplier will also find the service level agreement important as it offers them a detailed framework of expectations. Therefore, they know what to do and can be protected if a client demands something unreasonable.

That’s because the service level agreement outlines obligations between the service supplier and the customers. It stipulates that a mutually agreed set of quality standards will be followed for the services provided. They also allow for contingencies and compensation when those service standards aren’t met.

What Should Be Included in a Service Level Agreement?

When you’re writing a service level agreement, there are various necessary components in order for it to cover all the bases and provide the client with what they need, while making sure the service provider is protected from going beyond what’s expected. The following is a list of those essential elements to consider when writing a service-level agreement.

Description of the Service

The type of service that’s being provided needs to be clearly specified, including the functions and any other pertinent information. This section will define the scope of service and the expected performance and quality of the work. This should be thorough so that all parties are clear on what’s being offered, how it’s delivered and what’s expected.

Payment Terms

This section is a contractually binding agreement between the service provider and client that ensures that the agreed-upon services are performed and paid for at the agreed price. This is a figure that’s been agreed upon by both parties and verifies the legal rights and obligations of the parties involved.

Service Levels

Here is where the SLA defines the desired performance level, reliability and responsiveness. That means the service shouldn’t exceed minimum disruption over time and is available when needed. The service will perform the actions it’s delivering promptly when customers request it.

Services That Won’t Be Included in the SLA

This can include SLA exclusions, which are one-time instances where the service level agreement isn’t in effect, such as server maintenance or upgrades. It will also outline services that don’t fall under the provider’s responsibility to further clarify for both parties what is and isn’t expected of the provider.

Service Level Agreement Metrics

It’s important that there is monitoring and reporting of the service level to ensure that it is being delivered as contracted. Here, supervision and monitoring are described, including the gathering of different types of statistics, the frequency those statistics are gathered and how the customer will be able to access them.

Conditions for SLA Cancellation

If the provider is unable to meet the requirements of the SLA, there will be consequences. Those consequences will be outlined in this section, such as the customer’s right to terminate the contract or seek a refund for losses incurred by the failure of service.

Indemnification Clauses

The indemnification clause is used to compensate a party for loss that’s caused by the other party’s actions or failure to perform. Unlike the above cancellation clause, this one is to protect against damages that result from defects in the service purchased.

Service Level Agreement Example

Let’s take a moment to look at how a service-level agreement would work in a real-life situation. Let’s look at a call center. They might have a service level agreement that defines the number of calls they answer in an hour. But a bakery could also have an SLA that defines the number of baked goods that they can deliver to a client each day.

The IT industry uses service-level agreements most for everything from cloud computing to network management and database management services. But you’ll also find SLAs in customer service, healthcare, logistics and education.

Service Level Agreement Template

This free service level agreement (SLA) template for Word has the basic elements any SLA should have including service standards, termination terms, payment terms and more. The best part is that it can be easily customized to add or remove any sections that might be needed.

More Service Level Agreement Templates

The following are some examples of service-level agreement templates from a variety of sources that you can use to get started when partnering with a service provider or customer. These outlines will make sure that you’ve not left anything out that is essential to legally protect both parties and ensure that the services are rendered as defined by the contract.

• Service Level Agreement Template by Slatemplate.com.
• Service Level Agreement Template by Columbia University
• Service Level Agreement Template by PandaDoc
• Service Level Agreement Template by RocketLawyer
• Service Level Agreement Template by Template.net

How ProjectManager Helps Service Providers

Once you have a service level agreement you’ll want to keep track of it to make sure that the services are being provided as determined by the contract. Project management software can help you monitor the SLA. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that has unlimited file storage to keep multiple service-level agreements and have them easily accessible anywhere and at any time. Each can be tagged to make them easier to find and tracked over the course of their life cycle to ensure that services are rendered properly.

Use Reporting Tools to Track SLA Metrics

Once you’ve defined clear and measurable SLA metrics, you’ll need to create reporting and monitoring processes to track your SLA. Our customizable reporting features allow you to collect, analyze and report on SLA data, from costs to time and more, whether one service level agreement or many. We have status reports and portfolio reports, as well as other reports, all of which can be filtered to capture only the data you’re interested in. The reports can be shared in a variety of formats to keep your stakeholders informed.

Get a High-Level Overview With Live Dashboards

When you just want to get an overview of how your service level agreement is performing, toggle over to our real-time dashboard. It’ll automatically gather metrics and display them on easy-to-read graphs and charts. Users can view time, cost and other metrics to monitor the SLA whenever they want to, quickly and easily. Unlike lightweight alternatives, there’s no time-consuming setup required. Our dashboard is ready when you are.

Managing your service level agreements can be done on any of our multiple project views. We’ve already mentioned the kanban boards, but there are also Gantt charts, task lists, sheet and calendar views that allow you to work with the tools you’re comfortable with. There are also recurring tasks that can be set to remind you when SLAs are expired or need to be renewed so you never have to suffer a service disruption.

Related Service Management Content

Managing the delivery of services is a complex task, but it doesn’t have to if you use the right tools. That’s why we’ve created dozens of blogs, templates and guides to help you master service management.

• Professional Services Work & Project Management Software
• Project Management for Professional Services Providers
• Field Service Management: Key Areas, Challenges & Tools
• Service Report Template
• Service Level Agreement Template
• Service Blueprint Template
• Service Proposal Template

ProjectManager is cloud-based project management software that connects teams whether they’re in the office, out in the field or anywhere else in the world. They can share files, comment at the task level and more to foster greater collaboration. Use our risk, task and resource management tools to better control your work. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

The post What Is a Service-Level Agreement? (Example & Templates Included) appeared first on ProjectManager.

Of course, there’s more to it than that. We’ll explain in more detail what service request management is and what a service request is, including examples to make it clearer. Then we’ll outline the steps of service request management from submission to follow-up and a lot more.

What Is Service Request Management?

Service request management is the process by which a service request is delivered to customers, employees and vendors. It also includes the tools that are used to run this process. The goal is to do so efficiently to deliver business success. It must work seamlessly with all involved departments, such as compliance, IT, marketing, finance and human resources.

When utilized properly, service request management will streamline the process and be well-aligned with the needs of the organization it is serving. It does this by allowing users to submit service requests, assign responsibility for the request and track its status from submission to when the service request is closed.

Project management software can control the service request process. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that helps you manage each step in the service request process and tracks it in real time. Use our customizable kanban boards to create a column for each step in the service request management process. Each service request can be a card, with all the pertinent information added, including priority, tags and attachments. Now you can visually track the work in real time as it moves through the steps from submission to close. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

What Is a Service Request?

A service request is a formal request from a client or employee of the client that asks for a service provider to give them something for their business’s day-to-day operations. In other words, it’s another way of saying procurement but done through electronic channels.

IT Service Request Examples

There are many examples of a service request and here are a few to further illustrate what a service request is.

• Information, such as customers who want more detail on a procedure or policy
• Permission to access a service or resource
• Ordering a service or resource
• Service delivery action, such as for a piece of hardware
• Feedback and complaints

Service Request Management vs. IT Incident Management

While service request management relates to IT incident management, they’re not the same thing. An IT incident is an error or some kind of flaw that prevents services from being done or done properly. IT incident management is identifying, managing and resolving these issues so that things are working again quickly.

A service request, as we’ve been describing, isn’t an error when a user wants something. The user is asking for something rather than an IT incident when something bad happens. Both must be responded to, but a service request is a fulfillment and an IT incident is a repair.

For example, in IT management an incident would be an unplanned interruption to an IT service that requires a technician to fix it. A service request, on the other hand, is a formal request for something to be provided, such as a software upgrade. It’s not a risky endeavor, such as an IT incident, and just needs approval to move forward.

Why Is Service Request Management Important in IT?

IT is inundated with requests for hardware, software and more. Having a structured process to oversee, monitor and execute these requests is advantageous to business. Having this process well-established will help your IT team focus on my critical issues without sacrificing the customer experience.

Service Request Management Process

The structure of a service request management process can be outlined in five steps. They are as follows.

1. Submission

First, an employee will submit a service request of some type. This can be done using a variety of media. A more established organization will have a service desk, customer and employee portals or a mobile app to streamline the process and document the submission. But email, telephone, and even social media have all been used in the submission process.

2. Assessment

The request then needs to be understood. A team or department will review the request. This is done to see if it’s urgent, which resources or tools are required to fulfill the request and if it needs approval from a supervisor. It could require verification from the IT department or a business office. This step will involve the collaboration of multiple departments.

3. Fulfillment

Once the service request has been submitted and assessed, it’s time to fulfill it. The information gathered over those prior steps will lead to the plan for fulfillment. Departments will be assigned responsibilities, contact information will be collected and the completion date will be determined.

4. Completion

After the fulfillment has been done, the request ticket should be closed and archived. This is also an opportunity to review the process and evaluate the performance of all involved to see if there are areas that could be improved.

5. Follow-Up

Reaching out after completion of the service request is always a good idea. There may be some disappointment or dissatisfaction from the employee. Feedback is always helpful whether the service request went off without a hitch or there was some problem. It’ll ensure the service request was done correctly and also demonstrate an ongoing commitment to employee success.

IT Service Request Management Best Practices

When done correctly, the service request management process will lead to the successful delivery of the service request and satisfaction from the party who requested the service. But there are always means of improvement. Here are some IT service request management best practices.

Prioritize Service Request Tickets

Part of any IT service management process is prioritization. Service requests don’t come one at a time, but often all at once. Being able to prioritize will help you better fulfill all the service requests. It can be helpful to start with the easiest ones, which will bring instant value to employees and customers while providing a useful experience for new members of the service team.

Create Service Request Management Documentation

Documentation is essential for record-keeping, obviously, but it will also collect all relevant questions, the approval process, procedures, service level agreements (SLAs) and more. This documentation will help the service team deal with more complex requests and provide data to create improvements and better fulfillment strategies.

Establish Clear Communication Channels Between Users and The Service Desk

The clearer the communication between users and the service desk, the more efficient the service request management process. It helps to have multiple channels for users to submit requests more conveniently, such as a self-service portal, phone, email, web chat, etc. Make sure that everyone is aware of these channels.

Automate the Service Request Approval Process

Automation will streamline the process and move the submission through the process. It’ll reduce the workload of your IT team and likely create greater employee and customer satisfaction when their requests are fulfilled faster. It’s important, however, to have some approval process involved to make sure that the automation isn’t processed incorrectly.

Establish Reporting and Tracking Guidelines

Being able to report and track service requests will help the IT team manage the life cycle of the service request process better. They can use reporting tools and dashboards to track resources, assignments, costs and the quality of service delivery. This can provide insights into improving performance.

Offer Self-Service Resources for Users

Having a more actionable service catalog can further streamline processes, making employees and customers happier with the service request process and also helping IT teams fulfill those service requests. For example, you can make it possible to log service requests simply by clicking on a service.

How ProjectManager Helps With Service Request Management

Another best practice for service request management is using project management software to plan, manage and track service requests from start to finish. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that has real-time data to plan, manage and track service requests more efficiently. Our software gives IT managers and their teams the tools to track the progress and costs of service requests and monitor their resources to make sure that IT teams stay productive and fulfill service requests promptly.

Automate Workflows to Streamline Service Request Fulfillment

Our software helps IT teams stay focused on more important tasks with automated workflows that move the service request more efficiently through its life cycle. Set up as many triggers as you want to create as many actions as you need to streamline the service request process. Then set up task approval settings to ensure the quality of the service request process. This brings the work to the attention of an IT manager who will make sure the work is ready to move forward to the next stage.

Monitor the Workload and Availability of IT Personnel

Being able to keep your IT team working at capacity can be a full-time job. They need to get the service requests fulfilled, but you don’t want to burn them out and not retain talent. Our resource management tools allow IT managers to keep their IT teams productive but not overworked. First, our tool makes it easier to assign tasks by having team availability in the software, from PTO to vacation and even global holidays. Then toggle over to the color-coded workload chart and see who’s overallocated. You can balance the workload right from the chart to keep IT teams working at capacity.

Using our software to plan, manage and track your service request process gives you transparency into everyone’s work, with email notifications and in-app alerts so everyone is always on the same page whether they’re working in the office or remotely. Customizable reports and real-time dashboards help monitor the service request process and keep stakeholders informed. Also, our unlimited file storage makes it easy to access SLAs.

ProjectManager is online project management software that connects teams anywhere and at any time. They can easily share files, comment at the task level and more to foster better collaboration. Use our task management, risk management and resource management features to stay on track and avoid overspending. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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Before we go into the process of IT incident management, let’s first understand what the term IT incident means and how IT incident management is defined. Then we’ll offer a few free IT incident management templates to help you control issues in your IT and how project management software can do what templates can’t.

What Is an IT Incident?

Where an incident is somewhat neutral in natural speech, it’s a different matter when you’re talking about IT management. An IT incident is unexpected and tends to be disruptive to the operational processes of an organization. It can also reduce the quality of a service.

However you define it, you’re not going to want to have an IT incident, and if you do, then you’re going to want to be prepared to address it quickly. While many might use the word ‘risk’ to describe this, and they’d not be wrong, ‘IT incident’ is the nomenclature used by development and IT operations teams.

When an IT incident happens it can cause a service interruption or worse. Having project management software is a way to quickly restore service. ProjectManager has IT incident management features that allow IT teams to identify, mitigate and track issues in real time. IT incidents can be captured on task cards that show the priority, impact and likelihood of the IT incident occurring. The card also will have a plan of action, attached files as needed and be assigned to an IT team member. It can then be tracked on a kanban board as it’s being resolved. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

IT Incident Examples

An IT incident is unexpected, but there are many examples of IT incidents that IT teams are always on the lookout for. Any violation of security policies and controls is a problem, whether it steals data or disrupts systems. Here are just a few of the potential IT incidents.

• A network device that causes a hardware crash
• A bug that prevents the software from working properly
• Phishing scam to gain illegal entrance to a network
• Malware is introduced to a computer
• Application attack to illegally enter a website
• Ransomware that holds data hostage for payment
• Unauthorized access
• Email virus
• Theft
• Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.

What Is IT Incident Management?

To control IT incidents, development and IT operations teams use IT incident management, which organizes the response to unplanned events or service interruptions to resolve the issue quickly. This is clearly one of the most important functions of an IT team, as the loss of IT functionality can be devastating to the organization’s operations.

IT incident management helps IT teams to respond effectively to recover fast. It also addresses customers, stakeholders, service owners and others in the organization by communicating clearly about the IT incident. IT teams need to collaborate in order to get the system back up and running and continuously improve by learning from past IT incidents so they’re less likely to occur again.

Recovering from an IT incident using IT incident management should be done without affecting service-level agreements (SLAs), which define the level of service expected from a vendor. There can be penalties if the agreed-upon service levels are not achieved.

IT incident management usually starts with a report of an issue from an end user. The benefits of IT incident management include proactive identification and prevention of major IT incidents, improved productivity, consistent service levels, heightened visibility of known issues and more. By mitigating IT incidents and preventing others from happening, businesses can stay in operation and meet compliance and regulatory standards.

IT Incident Management Process

The process for IT incident management is used to identify, prioritize and resolve IT incidents quickly while also reducing their negative impact on business operations and customer satisfaction. IT incident management follows these five steps.

1. Identify Potential Incidents

First, you have to identify potential IT incidents. This can be IT incidents that have yet to occur or capturing those that have been reported. That identification process can include using user logs and solution analysis. Whatever the process, IT teams need to be thorough and collect all the data to keep the recovery process moving swiftly forward. They can also use support teams to set up relevant channels for end users to report issues.

2. Create an IT Incident Log

The IT incident log will collect all the pertinent information and help to classify the IT incident. Use the information you gathered in the first step to name the incident, add an ID number to more easily track it, describe the incident, the date it was discovered and who the manager of that IT incident is. In the incident log, you’ll also want to categorize it.

3. Prioritize IT Incidents

Next, you’ll want to prioritize the IT incident. This is especially helpful when there are many and you have to manage your time and effort to address the most severe IT incidents first. You’ll have to look at all the IT incidents that have been reported and prioritize those against one another. This will allow you to start with the high-priority incidents that will have the greatest impact on your IT first.

4. Create an Incident Response Plan

Now, you’re ready to make your plan of action. IT teams will investigate and analyze the IT incidents and come up with a plan to resolve them. This will require a series of tasks that will need to have resources and costs attached.

5. Execute IT Incident Response Tasks

With the plan in place, the IT team will then go about executing the tasks of that plan. This will result in eliminating the threat and restoring systems or services to normal operation. Once the IT incident is resolved, the incident is closed. That process includes documentation, reporting and evaluating the steps taken to discern any improvements that can be made the next time an IT incident is reported.

IT Incident Management Templates

In order to facilitate the process of IT incident management, ProjectManager has many free project management templates for Excel and Word that can be downloaded from our site. We have dozens of free templates that cover every phase of the project. The following are three IT incident management templates to help you implement a more successful process of eliminating incidents in your IT.

Risk Matrix Template

An IT incident needs analysis and our free risk matrix template for Excel helps you define the incident to know how to best respond to it. The color-coded matrix allows you to determine the priority of the incident as well as its severity and likelihood of happening (when preparing for a possible IT incident).

RAID Log Template

RAID stands for risk, assumptions, issues and decisions and our free RAID log template for Excel helps with the planning and execution of IT incident mitigation. It helps to mitigate those incidents by describing them, their impact and what the response should be. You can also prioritize and assign an IT team member to be responsible for the IT incident.

Action Plan Template

Once you’ve prioritized and analyzed the IT incident, the next step is to create a plan to resolve it. Use our free action plan template for Excel to create the steps you’ll need to execute, assigning team members to those tasks, with start and due dates. This planning document will give your IT incident management a framework to get things done efficiently.

How ProjectManager Helps With IT Incident Management

As helpful as these free IT incident management templates are, they’re not great for collaboration and must be manually updated, which will take the IT team away from the more important work of resolving the incident. Project management software is a more powerful alternative to respond effectively to IT incidents. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that helps you identify, manage and track IT incidents in real time. Our software has multiple project views so you can use IT incident management with the tools that best fit your work, whether that’s Gantt charts for managers, task lists or kanban boards for developers.

Log Incidents and Assign a Priority Level

Whichever project view you use, you’ll be able to log the incident and add all the details you need to better address it and have it resolved quickly. For example, our robust task lists can list each IT incident, assign a priority level and tag to make it easy to find. You can attach photos and documentation to help with mitigation and then task a team member with executing it. This provides users with an IT incident log to identify, plan and track the response in real time. Managers can make sure the work is being done quickly without interrupting their team.

Assign, Schedule and Track Incident Response Tasks

Another project view that helps users with IT incident management are our customizable kanban boards. Incidents are registered on task cards, which show priority, tags, due dates and can be assigned to teams. You can customize the columns on the board to reflect your IT incident management plan and managers can view the card as it moves from column to column to make sure it’s being executed in a timely manner. Meanwhile, teams can collaborate by sharing files that can be attached to the cards and commenting to connect them whether they’re in the same office or working remotely.

With our risk management features to capture, plan and track IT incidents, task management features to manage that work and resource management tools to ensure that everyone has what they need when they need it, our software covers every aspect of your IT incident management process. You can even automate workflows to keep teams focused on what’s important. Adding task approval settings makes sure work is properly done before moving forward.

ProjectManager is online project management software that connects teams in the office or anywhere they’re working. They are always working on the most updated, real-time data no matter which project view they’re using. Email notifications and in-app alerts keep them on top of any progress or changes, fostering better collaboration. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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