MIS 750: Introduction to Information Technology Management (MIS 750)

I started the new semester with MIS 750, the module which has everything related to information, technology, system and the art of managing it. The lecturer who is lucky enough to deal with bunch of crazy people of Class 3B is Associate Professor Dr. Norzaidi Mohd Daud. This blog is created as a fulfillment to the module requirement, thus the content must in relevance to what have been thought in class, practice at work and applied in life. Anything that is related to information technology, other than that, its a no-no.

Prof Zaidi in action :)

I would say IT management is an alien to me. Throughout my working years, I had not have the opportunity to word directly in the MIS department. However, though it may be hard, I would try my best level to absorb the knowledge and link it to the application of information technology / system management in my workplace.

IT management is the discipline whereby all of the technology resources of a firm are managed in accordance with its needs and priorities. These resources may include tangible investments like computer hardware, software, data, networks and data centre facilities, as well as the staffs who are hired to maintain them. Managing this responsibility within a company entails many of the basic management functions, like budgeting, staffing, and organizing and controlling, along with other aspects that are unique to technology, like change management, software design, network planning, tech support etc.

IT Management is a different subject from management information systems. The latter refers to management information methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making.

IT Management, as stated in the above definition, refers to the IT related management activities in organizations. MIS as it is referred to is focused mainly on the business aspect with a strong input into the technology phase of the business/organization.

A primary focus of IT management is the value creation made possible by technology. This requires the alignment of technology and business strategies. While the value creation for an organization involves a network of relationships between internal and external environments, technology plays an important role in improving the overall value chain of an organization. However, this increase requires business and technology management to work as a creative, synergistic, and collaborative team instead of a purely mechanistic span of control.

Historically, one set of resources was dedicated to one particular computing technology, business application or line of business, and managed in this silo-like fashion. These resources supported a single set of requirements and processes, and can’t easily be optimized or reconfigured to support actual demand. This has led the leading technology providers to build out and complement their product-centric infrastructure and management offerings with Converged Infrastructure environments that converge servers, storage, networking, security, management and facilities. The efficiencies of having this type of integrated and automated management environment allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with easier manageability and less maintenance, and enables IT to more rapidly adjust IT resources (such as servers, storage and networking) to meet fluctuating and unpredictable business demand.