Effective ITOps is about maintaining internal IT services and delivering high-impact projects with often limited resources. Here’s how to do it well.
Effective IT Operations (ITOps) are crucial for keeping businesses running smoothly – whether that’s managing systems and networks, safeguarding against cyber threats, or making work-from-home work for everyone.
As businesses rely more on digital systems and connectivity, demand for – and on – IT Operations grows. This is great news for IT professionals’ career prospects. But makes it challenging for ITOps leaders to balancing competing business priorities.
This article explores the role of ITOps, the challenges teams face, and the markers of excellent IT Operations.
Plus, the importance of resource management in ITOps – for maximum efficiency, cost management, and delivery excellence.
IT Operations – often called ITOps for short – is responsible for operating and maintaining an organization’s entire IT infrastructure and systems. This includes everything from hardware and software, to networks and cloud environments.
The aim of IT Operations is to keep computer systems running reliably and securely, so that the business can operate without interruption and – ultimately – achieve its wider goals.
An ITOps team often works as a business-within-a-business, serving a diverse range of internal customers and stakeholders – from the marketing team that wants to implement a new CRM, to the development team relying on cloud environments to deploy new applications. And they’re ALWAYS in demand.
As businesses become more digitally driven and reliant on technology for success, IT Operations has become even more vital - and increasingly under pressure to meet growing IT needs.
From maintaining critical IT services to providing support to internal customers, ITOps teams handle a broad range of responsibilities that support the day-to-day functioning of the business.
Here are 10+ functions IT Operations covers. But note – this list is illustrative rather than exhaustive – as anyone working in this sector will know all too well.
Managing servers, networks, and cloud environments to ensure continuous business operations and keep the organization running.
Ensuring operating systems and software work effectively, keeping systems secure and up-to-date, and minimizing unproductive downtime.
Managing software applications – from procurement to implementation, and relationships with the provider.
Protecting the business from cyber threats, managing access controls, and safeguarding data to maintain public confidence.
Ensuring reliable connectivity and performance, and troubleshooting issues quickly to prevent disruptions.
Helping employees use systems and software effectively, solving problems to keep teams productive and minimize work interruptions.
Responding to and resolving technical issues quickly, minimizing downtime, and ensuring that critical services are restored as quickly as possible.
Identifying areas for improvement within the IT infrastructure and recommending upgrades or changes to enhance efficiency and performance.
Planning for potential disruptions, ensuring the organization can recover quickly and maintain daily business operations.
Ensuring secure, reliable access for remote employees to provide a positive employee experience and maximize productivity.
Investigating and implementing Artificial Intelligence and machine learning tools to streamline processes, automate workflows and improve efficiency.
As you can see from this list, IT Operations are indispensable. But they’re often the unsung heroes in their organization. When things go right, their hard work and expertise can go unnoticed. But when systems fail or issues arise, they’re the first ones under pressure.
It can be frustrating if you only get noticed when things go wrong – but being an IT Operations Specialist is a rewarding career if you love solving problems and helping people get the most from tech.
An IT Operations Specialist is responsible for ensuring business continuity by managing and troubleshooting IT environments. There’s lots of scope to build a career that suits you, depending on the size and nature of the organization.
For example, a general IT Operations manager oversees a broad range of tasks covering the full scope of an organization’s IT systems – this is especially true in smaller businesses. Or – in a larger IT Operations team – you could have scope to specialize in a specific area, such as network management, system administration, or security.
Plus, you might choose to focus more on behind-the-scenes technical work – like maintaining servers and cloud environments – or take a more forward-facing role in customer support, helping employees resolve IT issues and ensure productivity.
Regardless of the specific role, an IT Operations Manager plays a key role in keeping the business running smoothly and efficiently, which means your skills and time are always in demand.
This can be a blessing and a curse. There are strong job prospects for ITOps professionals, but stress and burnout are a risk without careful workload management.
Success in IT Operations isn’t just about keeping systems running. Yes, it’s about supporting organizational goals through efficient, secure, and reliable IT infrastructure. But it’s also about how well you achieve that as a business unit. Here are seven markers of a successful ITOps unit.
IT Operations teams help organizations improve operational efficiency by minimizing system downtime, implementing and maintaining efficiency tools, and supporting more automated workflows. KPIs include:
Of course, it isn’t just enough to help the business be more efficient. ITOps need to ensure their own projects are executed efficiently, which means monitoring internal KPIs around resource utilization, cost control, and more (see below).
Further reading: How to measure operational efficiency in service-based environments ➡️
Alongside day-to-day system management, service desk support, and troubleshooting, IT Operations teams also work on strategic projects – like implementing new software systems or system upgrades. Delivering IT projects successfully – on time, within budget, and according to scope – is crucial. Key metrics for effective project delivery include:
Read on: How to improve IT project success rates ➡️
A secure and resilient IT environment is a top priority for businesses – so that the business is protected from cyber threats and that IT systems are reliable under pressure. You can measure success with metrics like:
We’ve already discussed the importance of cost control, at both departmental and project levels. Effective cost control helps prioritize spending and avoid unnecessary expenses. Key cost control KPIs include:
ITOps should align with and contribute to the broader business strategy and satisfy the needs of the C-suite. This includes responding to business needs and ensuring IT infrastructure supports overall goals. Key metrics to assess strategic alignment include:
User satisfaction is a key driver of success in ITOps. Ensuring that end-users are satisfied with the IT services they receive can boost productivity and overall morale. Key performance indicators in this area include:
Resource management is about how effectively and efficiently you use your (human) resources to deliver project and strategic outcomes. This is our bread and butter here at Runn. We could talk about this forever – and we'll return to it below. For now, some key metrics to consider are:
IT Operations teams face numerous challenges – from technical hurdles in an ever-changing IT landscape, to managerial challenges like prioritizing projects and managing stakeholder expectations.
These challenges can strain even the most skilled teams, especially as businesses grow more dependent on their digital infrastructure. Here are some of the key obstacles ITOps professionals encounter.
IT Operations managers operate in increasingly complex environments, ensuring systems run smoothly, securely, and reliably. Common technical challenges include:
Beyond the technical hurdles, IT Operations managers also face the bigger picture challenges that come when working in collaboration with others in organizations:
With hackers and miscreants desperately trying to steal your data, a backlog of business-critical projects, and the CEO demanding answers about why their pet project wasn’t actioned yesterday, resource management doesn’t always top the ITOps agenda.
But properly managing your team's time and work allocations is key to delivering IT Operations’ mission and addressing the challenges you face. Effective resource management helps you balance the demands on your team’s time, avoid burnout, and deliver high-impact projects efficiently. Here’s a quick overview of how.
Effective resource management ensures the right people are assigned to the right tasks at the right time – known as resource allocation – aligning expertise with critical needs. For instance, system administrators handle server issues while network engineers focus on connectivity.
This targeted approach optimizes outcomes, avoids overqualified staffing, and improves project cost management.
Resource management also provides visibility into resource capacity and utilization, which is important to prevent overload or under-use. If workloads aren’t balanced, you can use workload management techniques like reallocating tasks, adjusting timelines, recruiting to fill skills gaps, and upskilling team members.
This approach reduces burnout, maintains productivity, and keeps morale high – helping you attract and retain skilled professionals.
Plus, this transparency enables you to push back on non-viable requests with data, protecting team workloads and productivity, while managing stakeholder expectations.
And, in Agile methodology, resource management provides clear visibility into team availability and capacity to support agile resource planning and agile workflows, ensuring the right people are ready to support iterative workflows and shifting priorities.
Beyond the daily operational needs, strategic resource management helps you align your team’s capacity with the business’s long-term goals. Liaising with senior leaders on their strategic vision and priorities helps you begin workforce planning and capacity planning to secure the talent and skills you need for future work.
Meanwhile, scenario planning helps you determine the most strategic and profitable projects for your IT Operations team to take on. It also provides concrete data on resource impacts, helping you make informed decisions and set realistic expectations for project delivery.
With a heightened focus on resource management, ITOps managers can balance competing priorities, deliver high-value strategic initiatives, and maintain a positive employee experience – even under pressure.
Cindy Tan is General Manager of IT Planning at TPG Telecoms. She runs a 600-strong team, managing 30 to 40 projects at any given time.
Naturally, we make our hiring decisions based on our capacity and the demand for a skill. But in a large team, it can be hard to articulate what everyone is working on, and what are the skills gaps that we currently have. The result was that we were always coming up against the questions: ‘Hey, what are all these people working on?’ and ‘When can I expect X Project to start’.
Tan's team had built an Excel spreadsheet to try to manage their capacity planning but were only able to model on a monthly level. And maintaining the data was time-consuming and unwieldy. Which meant they simply couldn’t commit to projects with confidence.
Without a proper capacity management tool, we were not able to explain why we couldn’t get certain projects done; why we couldn’t commit to the projects that our business units needed.’
That’s when Tan discovered Runn – dedicated resource management and capacity planning software, favored by IT professionals worldwide. Now, TPG's team leaders have visibility into future projects, project managers can allocate resources accurately, and senior leaders can understand what’s viable and what’s not.
When we can show our stakeholders that overutilization is so high, they can understand the constraints of the situation. It helps facilitate conversations about priorities, about moving things back if needed, because they can clearly see that we’re at capacity.’
Read more: From Weeks to Two Days: How TPG Telecom Streamlined Their Capacity Planning with Runn ➡️
Resource management tools like Runn provide the data, insights, and tools you need to assemble the right teams for high-value initiatives, justify resource investments, and safeguard your team from ad-hoc and unstrategic demands.
.avif)
