Democratizing IT Work Requests with Project Scoring

Kevin Kern serves as Innotas' President and CEO, leveraging his 20 years of operational experience with high-growth software companies. Innotas is a leading provider of Cloud Solutions for IT Management.

  Business Case   Strategy  

We’ve all heard the adage, “By failing to plan, you are planning to fail,” but for IT departments trying to handle myriad work requests on a continual basis, a more apt adage would be “By failing to prioritize, you are planning to fail.” This article is designed to give you a high-level view of how IT teams can prioritize projects, why it’s important and how it benefits the entire company.

Most IT departments develop what they think are a bullet-proof plan for handling IT requests, but outside factors interfere with carrying out that plan effectively. These factors include the “squeaky wheel “(a C-level executive or a persistent individual putting pressure on the IT team to bump a project to the top of the list); people within or outside of the IT department independently determining certain projects should be made higher priority; and the “just do it” mentality where the IT department decides to jump on certain projects, not considering how well the project aligns with the company’s business goals. 

Far beyond causing confusion and irritation, prioritizing tasks in a reactive way can be counterproductive. Without a system in place to prioritize IT projects--and tie the successful completion of projects to corporate business objectives--IT teams tend to get blamed for not focusing on their …

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