Forrester: 20 ways to make IT work

Sometimes the CIO has to convince the boss that he's on the right path. To help him do that, Forester Research put together a list of best practices that can offer some help in making IT work well. That includes developing new metrics, rescuing outdated processes and making sure your company's business side knows that IT is pulling its weight. All this may help CIOs and their IT managers show superiors their value. Sometimes the business side has to become invested in the IT struggle, and it's the CIO's job to make sure business colleagues are up to speed.

The Forrester list includes plenty of easy solutions, along with some complicated ones. Nothing is every easy in this arena, as most CIOs know. It is important to break down legacy habits and get everyone on board to get IT right. Some days, it seems like a snail crawling, and other days, there are plenty of triumphs. A CIO must know how to roll with the punches.

"There's a ton of these things out there," said Forrester research analyst Phil Murphy. "At least take an inventory of what you're doing and what you're not doing and be aware there are this many things and rate yourself on what you're doing and what you're not doing because changing that could help you."

Forrester's ideas include: Using IT systems performance management audits and software to increase application throughput and managing costs and implementing data center automation to reduce operating costs.

For more ideas to make IT work:
- check out this CIOUpdate article