Making great strides with IT does not necessarily have to entail massive projects with massive budgets. There are numerous "quick wins" that the IT pros can achieve with few resources expended, reports Dan Tynan at InfoWorld.

One of the quickest ways to boost productivity in almost any organization is to reduce the amount of time wasted in meetings. While meetings are necessary, they do not have to be long and boring. To speed the process, take the chairs out of the meeting room, be sure to come with an agenda, and review the action items at the meeting's end.

The help desk staff can increase its own productivity if it can reduce the amount of time spent working on small, mundane tasks like resetting passwords. According to Gartner Research, password resets account for 20 to 50 percent of help desk requests. The technicians at Enterasys tackled this problem by raising the number of incorrect passwords that users can enter before getting locked out to 12 from three. 

Another easy way to cut back on wasted time is by giving employees more computer display space, experts suggest. Toggling between spreadsheets, browsers, email and business programs all the time may be costing the business more than a second--or a larger--monitor would.  

"The weakest link that diminishes productivity in the flow of information is the 'last two feet'--that is, the distance between the monitor and the user," says Alexander Pasik, CIO of the IEEE. "Humans can process far more information that can be effectively displayed on small screens. If users are given large monitors, they can see their emails, calendars, web browsers and other productivity tools simultaneously."

For more:
- see Dan Tynan's article at InfoWorld

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