In the world of RIM, IT as initiator, culprit, victim...

We all love our IT department don't we? They are the service arm of an organization! Something wrong? Call the IT folks, they'll fix it OR Something wrong? God knows what those IT folks are up to now!! Hmm.. it could go either way ya?

In the world of RIM it is no different! IT can play so many different roles and can be viewed as either an initiator, culprit, victim or so on and so forth. How come? Well, let's take a look into the world of IT.

IT (as initiator): Being the service arm of the organization all technological problems funnel into the IT department. Requirements from all other departments come to IT when it comes to handling of electronic content. This is when IT plays the role of an initiator. But wait! Initiator of a problem or Initiator of a solution? Hmm... it depends! Spot solutions to fulfill departmental requirements related to content could mean nightmare for an organization in terms of managing content from the enterprise perspective. Hence the initiator of a problem. Strategical approach could land them into being an initiator of solution from the RIM perspective.

IT (as victim): Being forced to provide a spot content related solution for departments gives the impression that our IT department does not have a plan and strategy. Why do we have everything? Shared Drives, three types of ECM softwares, two types of archiving solutions, content everywhere! But the poor guys just provided the services that were requested! It is not their fault!!

IT (as culprit): With a bit of clout, IT could also force technology into an organization without gathering requirements or having a technical roadmap. Yep! this is what we need in the organization and so that's it. Get it, implement it, force it. Any tool that gets implemented without proper evaluation or checked with the requirements of the business is going to cause problems. We have all these nice tools but we still don't have a good RIM program or the right technology to manage our electronic content! This is when IT is a culprit adding to the mess that already exists.

Technology is the key contributor in implementing a solid RIM program within an organization. But such programs initiated by IT usually land them being victims or culprits. Sigh!