IT handover

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Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone would have any good questions to ask when taking over an IT department for e.g. the things that are in place, tge structure and why its setup the way it is?

My company has recently bought a business and I am to takeover the IT.

Thanks

@waqkas-ahmed,

A great question. I'd like to see if we can come up with some answer from our team instead of just from my perspective and turn this into a video posting of a sort as well. I'll bring up before the team today!

Hi Waqkas,

Here are a few I can think of
• Ask if they have documented policies, standards, and procedures
• Ask to look at any existing service contracts, for example network, phone lines, critical applications… that sort of thing
• Do they use a ticketing system to track support incidents?
• Do they use any sort of formalized change control?
• Do they standardize their hardware and software or just buy what’s on sale at tiger direct.
• To they use a standard OS image for systems or use the OS preinstalled by the manufacture
• Are they utilizing any cloud services?
• Do they need to follow any government or industry standards, PCI, NIST, or ISO for example
• Do they have a security program in place?

Those are just a few quick thoughts.
Art

Waqkas,

One other thing I should have added. What are the plans your management has for the acquired business? Do they plan to have it operate as a fully separate operation or to integrate into the existing business? Then you’ll need to start thinking about single ERP system, combining email, Active directory, and perhaps setting up a WAN to connect the sites or doing some of that in the cloud.

Waqkas,

I would try to find out what your company found out during the due diligence process of buying the new company.
- such as certifications like ISO9001, ISO27001, ITIL, etc.
- This might give you an idea of the company general approach and culture.

Then I would suggest that you ask softly and listen carefully for the answers, and not look to change what is not broken.
- e.g. how are the IT systems structured? What documentation on architecture and design is there?

And then try to understand the people who are making it work already and their strengths and weaknesses.

I would go gently at first, unless your boss has asked you to do something specifically such as IT integration with your current systems.

Otherwise, changing the IT department a lot could upset the company you have just spent good money on buying as well as their customers.

My employer was bought recently, so we have been going through IT integration and it has not been totally smooth for people outside of the IT department.

I hope that this is useful.

Kind regards,
Tony

I would only ask what is required for you position.

Hi Waqkas,

If the are ISO 27001 then I would hope they would have network diagrams and plenty of documentation.

My starting point would be Network Diagrams, Server/Systems documentation and Security posture reports. If they are using monitoring tools, you might get a network diagram from this.

Mark