In a small organization, there can be a lot of pressure on IT to deliver a lot of different services and capabilities. A careful balance has to be found between providing rapid response and providing organized response. An IT manager can simplify the challenge by determining what types of projects or requests can or should be fulfilled quickly and which ones require more thought. An IT manager should also develop skills to identify when a short project should be stopped and turned into a more organized and planned project.

The types of things that classify as rapid response projects are those that can be completed in a very short amount of time, perhaps a week or two. In a small organization, a week's time for an IT manager is not a week of dedicated project time but time from project start to project end. It's debatable whether such a thing should be classified as a project, but it is useful for IT leaders to be conscious of the things they are expending efforts on both for their internal management and for communicating with the organization's leaders.

The next form of project is one that could be short term but is uncertain. If something can be done as a proof of concept to test out the project on a smaller scale, an IT manager should use the opportunity to evaluate the project for greater planning or further implementation. For example, my organization was struggling with the volume of email that was circulating among the staff, and there had to be a way to reduce the impact of email overload. With some time spent brainstorming and looking at potential solutions, I determined that an instant messaging system could reduce email management headaches without taking away the means of communication. I initially installed the tool for a handful of users that I knew probably suffered the most from the email overload. After a couple weeks, their feedback was very positive, and it became easy to make the decision to roll out the application to the entire staff.

Sometimes a short-term project grows into a larger project. The ability to identify a project that should be stopped and re-evaluated is a very useful skill for an IT manager in a small organization that is trying to provide rapid solutions as well as innovative and impactive projects. Without this ability, the manager could inadvertently allow a potentially very valuable project to struggle and fail when it should have been halted and re-evaluated. A project that should be halted could have more budget allocated to it, have its scope expanded, or have more research done to determine goals, feasibilities, and costs.

Finally, an IT manager who provides some solutions very quickly while still avoiding the perception that anything is possible needs to have the ability to stand in the truth of a situation. If a project can't be done without extensive planning or without significant budget allocation, an effective IT manager needs to be able to discuss it with the organization's leadership. If you show good wisdom and the ability to react to changing situations, organizational leadership is more likely to have the trust necessary for that type of relationship.