Managing and Staffing an IT Team
Managing an IT team and creating one are two very different, yet crucial, aspects of a company’s IT infrastructure. In order to maintain the integrity of a team, you must demonstrate effective management techniques while respecting the knowledge and skill of every member.
The following are successful tips on how to manage an IT team:
- Maintain professionalism: Make sure they know that they were chosen for this particular job for a reason.
- Keep them educated: They are specialized members of this team for a reason, and extended knowledge will help your security system as well as their professional advancements.
- Allow independence: Though they work as a team, individualism brings forth effective solutions and ideas.
- Stay informed on the team’s progress: Management requires involvement; use your credentials to assist any way that you can.
Staffing an IT team requires utilizing management skills as well, only rather than managing a team, you are organizing one. You need to find out what kind of team will best suit your company regarding your IT infrastructure.
Traits that are essential for every IT team include:
- Creativity
- Productivity
- Resourcefulness
- Trustworthiness
Building a system that safely secures the backbone to any business – their network – requires essential knowledge and trust. The information that this team is exposed to is confidential and critical; a wrong employee could be a bigger threat than any security breach or disaster.
These are the reasons why managing an IT team is such an imperative task. Essential skills go into IT management which is why a manager’s involvement is critical when implementing attributes in a business’ IT infrastructure.
Should I Outsource My Disaster Recovery Needs?
Imagine a world where you can design a recovery plan, inform an outsider of your needs and requirements, and have that ideal plan successfully implemented within your business without the hassle of training time…
A good disaster recovery plan will include extensive personnel training, data backup, insurance problem contronl, and vulnerability metrics – among other things. This is an overwhelming amount of work that requires time, money, and employees to accomplish.
That is why outsourcing has become a popular tactic used by many businesses to find staff that will successfully fill this essential task.
The process of outsourcing diaster recovery needs is actually different from hiring employees, because you are looking to hire a specified group who specializes in disaster recovery (and in many cases, a group that has successfully worked together before or an IT consultant who can work on a very temporary basis). This process is all used through something that works similar to employment agencies called “Staff Finders.”
It works as easily as informing “Staff Finders” of what it is you need, and they will take care of the rest for you. These types of agencies refer to a database that views a surplus of qualified candidates that would best suit your company’s disaster recovery needs. This saves you and your employees the time of training and effectively implements a recovery plan by IT specialists educated in this process.
Outsourcing for a disaster recovery plan seems like an ideal solution for all of your IT security needs. This process executes the purpose of all of Guidance Consulting’s services by allowing businesses to focus on their reputable nature of doing what it is they do best.
Vulnerability Metrics, Simplified
In its most basic form, vulnerability metrics is a set of values assigned to networks and applications. However, in order to use it to prevent an IT disaster, you need to know how to use those metrics effectively. Vulnerability metrics are best used when applied to determine how at risk a business is from a network threat as well as how great of an impact that threat will be.
Imagine the following scenario:
You suspect theft from within your company. What kind of measures would you take to catch the thief, prevent it from happening again, and regain whatever it is that has been affected? What actvities can be set aside while you focus on this task, and what simply cannot be sacrificed at this time?
Vulnerability metrics is basically the network of professionals behind the hero in an action-packed thriller movie. While the hero is responsible for going out there and getting things done, he can’t do it without someone he trusts processing his information, warning him of risks, and providing a sounding board for making the right decisions.
In the same way, without the metrics allowing you to compare and identify your most important threats, you not only leave your network exposed and defenseless, but it will be difficult to recuperate from the threat and you would not know how to prevent it from happening again. After all, you have to keep that hero alive and working.
There is a weakness to every organization, it is finding it and controlling it that is the true task. Once you are aware of your company’s weakness, you can understand the affects of it and learn how to prevent it.
Though it is easy to obtain vulnerability metrics, implementing them is a harder task if you are not properly trained. A well-qualified employee or an IT consultant has been trained to use the metrics system specifically for your business and your bottom line. With the correct training, vulnerability metrics can be an essential service in protection your business.
IT Professionals: Why You Need Task Automation and Corrective Processing Skills
With the IT market booming like no other industry in the world, the skills needed to administer task automation and corrective processing will help professionals of all shapes and sizes move ahead.
Task automation is the process that requires the creation of scripts and simplifies interactive tasks created by programs. Corrective processing (the more complicated of the two) requires more attention and detail. Though it is more complex, corrective processing is used almost everywhere. It is what seems to be the logic behind the IT industry.
If you have the skills and knowledge to perform both of these tasks, then your future in the IT industry may be very profitable and successful. At almost any job in the world, you want to be the one that knows most and best. Obtaining the knowledge of task automation and corrective processing can put you ahead in the IT field by just having a thirst to learn more.
Part of staying on top of these types of skills requires you to undergo regular training and education. When you work with an IT firm like Guidance Consulting, many of these skill-building exercises are built in to your placement process. This equals good news for both professionals and companies looking to hire you: the most highly-trained IT professionals will get better results.
IT Career Planning
Despite a rough economy, choosing a career in the IT field has never been a better idea. Not only is the field poised to grow over the next decade, but there are more options than ever before in temporary, part-time, or even overseas placement.
Whether you are starting out straight from college, or you have years of experience in the field, there are opportunities in information technology that will keep you operating at your best.
For College Graduates
One of the key components that college recruiters root into the brains of students is: NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK. It is all about who you know. Get your name out there by interning, volunteering, and working on related school projects. This will often help down the road when you are hunting for you suitable career.
You might also want to consider working with an IT staffing company to help build experience and diversify your resume. Because jobs are offered on a temporary and part-time basis, you can grow your skills and undergo training as you work out in the field.
For Experienced Professionals
Internet employment agencies have become a new wave for companies pursuing new faces because they broadly cover individuals rather than focusing on one group or area. These types of agencies also offer greater competition, and it is convenient to update your portfolio/profile as you expand your experience and skills.
Companies like Guidance Consulting also provide a helpful tool to use for IT information of any kind, including employment opportunities as well as “how-to” steps toward fulfilling IT needs in any industry. Because you are working with an established firm, you also get to make contacts with a wide network of individuals and professionals in information technology.
Understanding Security Breaches
An important part of a disaster recovery system is preparing for security breaches. A security breach is any intentional act on a network of any kind. Even though a company might survive a breach and successfully retrieve its ‘stolen’ information, the biggest problem of the entire disaster is that this information is no longer secure. In this case, the use of recovery tools is simply not enough to regain client’s trust – or even meet all federal guidelines.
This incident is similar to that of identity theft. The results can be disastrous to an individual regarding credit, stolen money, and the hassle of resolving it all. The same goes for a company. If this situation were to occur, a company’s reputation would be on the line as well as the threat of their security system.
So, how can you prevent this from happening again? How can you recover from the damage?
In order to secure companies after a major disaster like this, it’s best to first secure the software and hardware of the network. Make certain that all non-vulnerable areas (such as firewalls and verification servers) are secure. Secondly, make certain to involve an IT specialist. Although you are dealing with machinery and technology, specialized human monitoring could be the key to preventing these disasters from occuring again.
At the end of the day, the most important part of a company is its INFORMATION. That is the answer, nothing else. Without it there would be no profit, no clientele, no business. We use technology to protect technology but that is simply not enough. Without the proper specialist to operate the security system, resources are vulnerable and recovery tools are useless.
How to Outsmart Hackers
Hackers are a form of intelligent disease geared toward businesses. When it comes to IT infrastructure, the only way to outsmart hackers is to think like them. This is vital information to keep in mind while developing an IT team. Hackers may use any aspect of business vulnerability in order to gain a connection to the desired information. Social engineering is also a key method for these threatening individuals because of the information that they can potentially obtain.
If an IT team successfully secures a company’s system, than breaching into that network becomes more difficult for a hacker; unfortunately, these individuals are specialized in manipulating people to get the information they want. This is known as social engineering.
Techniques of social engineering to be aware of are:
- Smooth-talking or flattering potential information holders
- Suspiciously gaining trust
- Manipulating employees to learn information on system operations
- Impersonating authoritative personnel via phone or e-mail
Though these are difficult traits to identify, suspicious individuals asking for access to e-mail accounts or password changes (or any other task that should be operated by a system administrator) should be taken into consideration as a potential hacker. Simple solutions toward avoiding hackers include educating employees about hackers and their methods, securing private information by informing only qualified personnel, and implementing procedures for password protection that ensures no outside party gains access to it.
If employees are not properly trained to avoid a violation from a hacker, than the company becomes more vulnerable to these threatening individuals. Thinking like a hacker can result in keeping your business vulnerable and securing its most vital information.
How Important are Data Backups?
Preparing for an IT disaster should be an essential task for any company. The unthinkable can occur at any given time and in order to overcome such things, a system providing data backup is critical. Disasters such as power outages happen frequently and we cannot solely rely on our computers to save the information that we have faithfully store on them.
Data backup is the process of duplicating the information that the computer stores in order to restore vital information. There are two reasons why data backups are exceedingy helpful:
- In order to restore a dysfunctional computer after an incident
- In order to recover corrupt, deleted, or unsaved files
Guidance Consulting believes that, though data backups are the final state of defense in the event of a disaster, it is the most important component. Evidence has shown that if a company loses access to data for more than two days, that company is likely to close within a year. Information is a key factor toward building a business as well as stabilizing it.
Data backup requires a great amount of strategy and planning. It requires a time-consuming process that is vital toward its success. Without the essential steps toward developing a successful data recovery system, the well-being of a company could be at stake.
Hiring an IT Team
When hiring for any job, you search to find the most qualified applicant. The same goes for building the ideal IT team, only this task is more extensive, complicated, and rewarding. The ideal candidates must not only be well trained with experience and credentials, but also be skilled in creativity and individualism. When you have a goal to reach levels of high safety and security, you trust that the professionals providing this service are the reliable and proficient at building this system.
In building a business from the ground up, there is much time and money invested in creating the best possible professional environment; building clientele, staffing efficient and qualified employees, and choosing the right technical machinery and support. With all of this at stake, running the risk of not having the most suitable IT team could be catastrophic.
The right team should be focused on the following criteria:
- How much experience and training you need for the team
- Compose a flexible thinking team-members who will compose a system best for a certain business and their employees
- Members who can successfully pass a background check
- Trustworthy, creative and resourceful individuals who can compliment one another as a team.
IT staff teams are made up similar to how a successful business is. Each member is carefully analyzed in order to resourcefully use all of his or her IT skills efficiently. Hiring this particular team is worrisome because they will have access to all of a company’s important and confidential information. It is only good sense to use the most reliable tactics to build the team that is most suitable for individual businesses.
Getting to Know Guidance Consulting
It’s impossible to offer tips, advice, and information on the field of IT for too long without eventually feeling the need to make a formal introduction. That’s especially true for us here at Guidance Consulting, since our primary focus is on creating the kind of relationships that allow for collaboration and a true team environment.
So without further ado, we’d like to introduce you to our company and what we do.
The industry of information technology is growing rapidly throughout the professional world. Though this seems fit for most businesses, Guidance Consulting has abundant services that assist every type of business. Rather than the common technology queries and renovations, Guidance Consulting implements solutions that increase productivity.
Aside from the basic needs of IT, Guidance Consulting focuses on keeping a successful clientele doing what it is they do best by establishing network safety and providing them with professional growth. These businesses in turn earn the ability to expand in this growing IT environment and successfully become industrial leaders.
Among these services offered are:
- Information Security Consulting
- Enterprise System Monitoring
- Contract Recruiting
- Technology Staffing Solutions
- Information Technology Outsourcing
The purpose of Guidance Consulting is to secure the safety of companies in order for them the keep their hard earned reputation. After all, a disaster in any area of life may occur at any time. We, as individuals, prepare for them by providing ourselves with medical insurance and practicing safety precautions. Businesses should be given the same protection as their downfall may be catastrophic, as well.
In order to introduce clients to efficient business tactics, Guidance Consulting provides all of these services and grants companies stabilization, progression, and expansion toward achieving all of their professional goals.