In my critique of Nicholas Carr's "IT Doesn't Matter," I made mention of choosing whether or not IT is strategic for an organization. In a sense, this choice is between strategic IT and operational IT. Strategic IT is the use of information technology to play a vital role in an organization's business plan by creating opportunities, interacting with customers and vendors, and improving efficiency. Operational IT is the use of information technology to support the functioning of the business with such things as accounting software, email systems, and electronic file storage. In a small organization that uses IT as an operational tool, there will be times that new IT capabilities need to be implemented to stay in the game. For example, just about every business has at least a basic website with information about the company, how to contact them, and the products or services they offer. For some of those organizations with an operational IT approach, they talked to people they know are IT savvy to find out what they needed to do and how to get it done as quickly and cheaply as possible. What about the others who use IT in an operational capacity but know they want to have a website that is more than just an electronic brochure? How do they go about a project like that where that type of IT expertise is needed but is not in-house?

Exactly this issue came up for a friend of mine working at a small print publisher that needed to do a serious overhaul of its website but internally had no web skills beyond basic HTML and image editing. They knew they needed to hire a person or company to do the work, but they weren't sure on how to do that. I offered to do for them what I think every organization that lacks IT management skills should have for IT projects: independent IT consulting. In order to help them, I offered to work with them to identify their needs, identify potential service providers, choose which one to use, help plan the project, and manage the project. In other words, organizations without internal IT management need to have at least temporary IT management skills to successfully complete their IT projects.

Why not just talk to the service providers to get the project done? All of the good ones are going to gather requirements, plan the project, and manage the project, but they are doing so in their own interest and not necessarily in the best interests of the customer. An organization shopping for IT services needs to have an objective insider that is working for them and their interests that can also identify the vendors that do not have good practices. Relying on the service providers can be risky since they will have their own vision of how things should be, what add-ons they can sell to the customer, and how best to go about completing the project. Part of the challenge even comes from choosing which company to use for the project.

Finding someone who can provide you with objective, independent IT consulting is not a trivial task. The best advice I can offer here is to rely on your network of contacts. Most people know at least someone who works in IT who either has the right IT management skills or knows someone else who does. If you ask around enough, you will find someone who is able and willing to help you. You are looking for an IT leader and not for the best PHP programmer your network can find (although it might be the same person with both skillsets). With that in mind, these are the traits you should try to find in your independent IT consultant:

• Business savvy
• Translating business needs into technical requirements
• Vendor assessment capabilities
• Project management (if you don't want to rely on the service provider)

I put project management as an optional skill because most vendors have worked with non-IT people as their main contact at a customer and have their own project mechanisms in place. Being business savvy and being able to translate business needs into technical needs are critical though. A business savvy IT person understands issues like return on investment, cost management, revenue generation, and marketing. Having the ability to identify potential service providers and evaluate their capability to successfully complete the project is not to be looked over either. By getting someone with these skills to help out, an organization can more safely move forward on an IT project when IT is not a strategic component of the organization.

So what happened with my friend and her company? They decided to use a vendor that someone in the company was familiar with. They ended up going over budget, over schedule, and without some of the features they wanted. My friend really wishes they had listened to my advice.