ICT Management > Staffing Issues, Strategy & Planning

Allocating and recognising responsibility for IT

By Lasa Information Systems Team

In the last two years one advice centre found that it had doubled in size. They had been using a small network to share documents and printers and were using PCs for word processing. Gradually more computers were added to the network and the Internet and email were added to everyone's desktop. No person in the organisation had responsibility for IT, though people did have expertise. The centre was gaining the benefits but also experiencing the problems of running a large network.

Eventually it became obvious that someone was needed to keep a log of the problems and communicate them regularly to the support company; to keep an itinerary of all the equipment and licences; to do basic administration on the server, for example, add a new user, do the backup and ensure the anti-virus software was up to date. It was decided that these tasks would be the responsibility of a part-time IT Co-ordinator.

It may be the case that somebody is already doing these tasks in your agency. If creating a specific IT post is not a viable option, then identifying this person as a "superuser" might help your agency manage its IT more efficiently.

A superuser is a person within an agency who everyone can go to with a question on particular software or basic hardware. Typically it might be the admin worker who everyone turns to for help with word-processing, or the finance worker who knows about spreadsheets. Identifying these individuals formally will encourage others to ask questions, no matter how stupid they think they may sound.

Remember to build into the superuser's job description dedicated time for helping others. By doing this you will ensure that the superuser can effectively pass on their skills without feeling that they are doing this at the expense of their other work tasks.

Importantly, recognising these skills and including the area of expertise in the person's job description will formalise their role.

In addition to being available for ad hoc queries, short organised sessions in which superusers pass on their skills to other workers is one way of capturing the knowledge these workers hold for the organisation.

A superuser might also be responsible for:

• Server administration
• Back up
• Antivirus software
• Creating a purchasing plan
• Maintaining the IT inventory
• Checking personal computers for unlicensed software
• Keeping a log of day to day problems with equipment and communicating them to the support company
• Reviewing staff development by organising each year's training needs analysis
• An IT induction for new staff

Remember that if the superuser is expected to do all of these tasks, they need to be built into the superuser's job description.