I keep reading posts and articles talking about how "companies are deploying AI agents" and, for the life of me, few to none of my peers are actually doing so. Maybe it's because I spend most of my time in small to mid-sized business or that I define "AI agent" differently.

Curious, are you deploying agents at your company?

If so, what does an agent mean to you?

What are the tasks they are doing?

What is the experience like?

Help me understand! :)

Thank you.

Our biggest nightmare as an NGO happened, we lost a major funder that covered close to a third of our operating budget, and I’ve been asked to take software spend down by half before the next financial year (which is only 2 months away). We’re 80ish staff across 6 countries.

We use Microsoft for email and Office, but they ended the nonprofit Business Premium grant last year and ours ran out in March (they made the decision right after our yearly renewal so it bought us some time), so we dropped to the free Business Basic licences, forced everyone onto web Office, lost Intune/Defender, and moved our vault off 1Password to Passwork, whose nonprofit rates saved us another €600/month. That bought us some breathing room, but I still have 3 massive headaches left:

→ ArcGIS (mapping): 6 years of survey data and every report we’ve published sit inside it.

→ Mailchimp (email campaigns): priced per contact, and our list kept growing while the funding shrank.

→ Xero (accounting): every grant is tracked as its own fund and each funder wants its own report format, so the setup is years of work I’d be rebuilding.

Across these 3, I either found no replacement at all that monetarily justifies the switch or found one that we’d be hosting ourselves. Licence cost lowers but I get a lot more work on my plate than I can accommodate (and we’re not even talking about what self-hosting would cost us in overhead).

Which of the 3 to move and which to keep paying for (if we have to)? Every migration I price out costs more in my hours than the licence does in euros, and I can’t tell whether that’s me being pessimistic or whether that’s what this looks like for everyone.

Newish manager in a SMB.

I am currently looking for a new partner to purchase licenses for our Cloud Office Suite/IdP. Big purchase and we are looking to commit for 3 years. First time going with a partner on this as previously we have purchased direct. And this would be my first big purchase for an important piece of software the company lives on.

I have met with 4 different partners. 3 have given somewhat similar pricing with 1 having the lowest. The 4th vendor is the most expensive but also seems to have the more experience so that lines up with their pricing.

When you are all looking for something similar, what is most important for you? Is price the number 1 thing you are looking for or what other factors are you considering?

I feel conflicted because we are an SMB and always look to make sure not to spend too much, so I want to keep our spending low. But we also prefer longer term contracts (for savings) and I dont want to just go with the cheapest option and find out 6 months into the 3 year contract that the partner is just terrible at support.

Any advice is appreciated!

I work for a small aerospace/defence manufacturing company tha has an established AS9100 QMS. I lead the IT department, and am in charge of developing our ISMS, based off of ISO 27001. With that we’re also trying to build up a lightweight ITSM framework, using ISO 20000 as inspiration. We need structured, accountable IT operations, the previous IT manager was more ad-hoc/cowboy style of getting things done.

Our ISMS/ITSM is under development, and we havent persued 27001 certifictaion yet.

I am firm in my beliefs that the ISMS/ITSM, and QSM need to have clearly defined roles/responsiblities/authority, not having one management system be subordinate to another. I am getting serious pushback from the existing QMS manager, who thinks that the existing QMS is the overarching management system and that every thing falls under it.

I feel that the ISMS should be a peer of QMS, not subservient to it.

I do know that the QMS and ISMS/ITSM will need to interact to some degree, I would like to use the ITSM service catalog, SLOs and their associated assurance evidence to act as the “bridge” between ISMS and QMS

Specifically I’ve had pushback over document control. The QMS manager believes that all policies/procedures/work instructions fall under the QMS doc control authority ( numbering, formats, approvals & revisions) I’ve proposed ISMS specific doc control using git for versioning and LaTex for authoring. Even the choice of using LaTex has been challenged as being “incompatible with the company”

The QMS Manager has made statements that they expect the existing QMS representative ( He’s now been calling himself the Integrated Management System representative) should serve as the final authority over other management systems, regardless of scope or domain.

I do see that there are some ( limited )areas that could share responsibilities like user training. A lot of the existing tools/programs skew heavily to the QMS. For example Corrective Actions are tied to customer satisfaction. That may be okay for QMS, but not so much for the ISMS.

My main concern is that allowing the QMS manager to have such a wide swath of authority in the ISMS, I’ll be run roughshod over and the ISMS will be subordinate to QMS.

Please tell me Im not crazy or stupid for thinking that the ISMS and QMS should be equals and that there should be a clear deliniation between the two ( with shared information where appropriate)

I'm starting to look for an audit firm for our SOC 2, and it's been harder than expected to figure out how to choose one. Pricing and timelines are easy enough to compare, but they don't tell you much about what the actual experience will be like.

For anyone who's gone through a Type I or Type II audit, what would you ask a firm before committing? I'm thinking about things like whether you work with the same auditor throughout, how they deal with evidence that doesn't fit their standard templates, how quickly they respond to questions, and whether they actually explain what's missing when something gets rejected.

I'd also love to hear if anything during the initial sales calls turned out to be a red flag in hindsight. I'm less concerned about who gives the best presentation and more about finding a team that communicates well and makes the process manageable instead of dragging it out unnecessarily.

Just wondering how others go about verifying users over the phone for things like password resets ect?

Relying on colleagues knowing their employee ID is problematic, and generic information such as who their manager is doesn't feel secure enough.

My company currently uses a managed print service, and I’m fairly new to the organization. I came from the MSP world, so I have quite a bit of experience with our current print vendor from my previous role. Let’s just say I’m not particularly impressed with them.

They’re quoting us over $40k per year to lease four printers, which seems insane to me. I’ve started looking into purchasing some higher-end HP printers instead. Obviously, there’s a larger upfront cost, and we’d be taking on more of the maintenance ourselves, but even accounting for that, purchasing looks significantly cheaper over the long term.

Has anyone here moved away from a managed print/lease agreement and purchased their printers outright instead? How did it work out? Were there any hidden costs or headaches that made you regret it?

I feel like I must be missing something, because the numbers on the managed service just don’t seem to make sense.

Leaders at my company are saying DLP is too strict and keep complaining about how their reports are now creating much riskier workarounds so they're not also sacrificing productivity. How do we balance this so everyone is (somewhat) happy and our data remains secure?

If you are a salesperson, vendor, SaaS app, or anyone else who isn't an IT manager that wants to share news, ask questions/get feedback, etc. then please post below!

My company is looking to purchase new laptops for a small number of employees but it’s been hard finding a supplier who will give us the time of day. Working directly with Dell has been a pain and Data3 has “been working on a quote” for the past 4 weeks. I only need like 15 computers a year and I’m having a difficult time finding someone to supply and support them. Any recommendations?

I work at a company with fewer than 100 employees, where our small Business Solutions team is responsible for developing and maintaining internal business applications.
I find myself getting pulled into hands-on development to help meet delivery timelines, sometimes at the expense of the broader responsibilities I thought would come with the role.
My responsibilities also include guiding developers, establishing development standards, governance, architecture discussions, reviewing solutions, and helping ensure applications are maintainable, secure, and fit for purpose.
My director handles much of the project management, prioritization, and communication with senior leadership, so I’m trying to understand where my role should fit within that structure.
For those of you working as IT Managers:
How much of your time do you spend coding versus leading and providing technical direction?
Are you expected to jump in and develop features to keep projects on schedule, or is your focus more on architecture, standards, governance, and enabling the team? (The standards role seems to die down as the team matures)
How do you balance immediate delivery pressures with testing, technical debt, documentation, and long-term maintainability?
What does your typical week actually look like?
I’m interested in hearing how others handle this, particularly in smaller companies where management and technical responsibilities can overlap.

So i made a post asking for suggestions on KPIs because i needed suggestions. I just got a notification that Mods deleted my post and no explanation was given. What rules did i break? Isn't this community meant for helping others?

Greetings all.

I'm implementing the vulnerablity management programme at my org. I would love to get an understanding of what KPIs you track and report to senior management or the board for vulnerabilitymanagementand patch management.

Thanks in advance for your input.

Got a question for IT managers? Please post it here! Got something silly to share with IT managers? This is the right place! Come share it with us.

Almost a month into my management role and I absolutely love it. I accomplished a lot so far but still have a long ways to go. I just want to note a few things thats making my experience awesome

1. A director I have a great relationship with that actually develops me, gives me insight and opportunity to make things my own.

2. A young team that I can develop into being greater than what they already are.

3. Finding my way and establishing ground at my own pace while being proactive

I inherited a lot of foundational things but now the focus for me is standardization, optimization and continuous improvement. Also, increasing my People skills. Learning how to approach different personalities and behaviors. Looking forward to how I transform this into an Enterprise IT experience while retaining the great culture the team and company already offers.

Coming from a one man shop & COO start up experience prior. I must say less stress and tense. I actually enjoy and like my job. That’s hard to say in today’s tech market.

For context, I've been an IT Manager for about 10 years, but only pertaining to desktop support operations. When I was brought into my new position which I started a few weeks ago, I was informed they saw a wider range of responsibilities I will take ownership of desktop support along with operations which includes server and network administration (which is fine, it just wasn't disclosed to me during the interviews). At my previous position, I was the IT Manager along with the server/network admin building out the office and cloud infrastructure so I'm comfortable navigating this territory but more on the technical side and not managing a network admin.

What's the best route to go determining what KPIs in terms of network and server performance we should measure? Besides talking about projects and issues pertaining with network/servers, what other topics are you discussing during your check-ins?

Hello friends,

A school is offering an IT management masters, is this as good as an mba for getting it management jobs (director,vp,cio) thanks!

If you are a salesperson, vendor, SaaS app, or anyone else who isn't an IT manager that wants to share news, ask questions/get feedback, etc. then please post below!

My company (about 3000 people) hired a new CIO about 6 months ago and...it's not going well. He came in doing some things correctly, like identifying that there was a lack of governance and ITIL frameworks, but then completely whiffed on hiring a manager to lead the "digital transformation and infrastructure" department. The manager he hired in the first month is basically his deputy CIO (reports directly to the CIO and everyone who previously reported to the CIO reports to him now), has zero experience in our sector and believes that everything can be fixed with AI and contractors. (It's also a union shop, so this sort of talk is not sitting well with the staff)

I came into the agency to run the infrastructure department 18 months ago, which is in charge of our entire MS stack, virtualization, storage, backup/DR, switching/routing/wireless, firewalls, UC, email and security ops and have been trying to reduce our tech debt, and started putting in strict lifecycle rules as a way to start building a reliable CMDB with intake processes. My team is 5 sysadmins. There's another team of 6 sysadmins who manage all the various server platforms and applications, and a help desk team of 6 people. Allegedly 5 years ago gartner said we needed double the staffing. I've never seen the report, but I believe it. It's also something I told the CIO on his first day and something I told the digital manager on his first day.

Flash forward to the present, digital transformation is it's own IT department with 3 new hires and they're resopnsible for...having claude make dashboards. That's it. They use APIs that my team is responsible for to vibe code. They support nothing and can spend whatever they want. All the other departments had their budgets cut to make room for this team and my tech debt is growing while prices for hardware and software are rising. The new CIO meanwhile has basically ignored anything he said about lack of governance and decided that every new idea or request he hears from other parts of the company become a top priority that the "legacy" IT needs to be responsible for.

Morale is in the gutter, one SA has left (the first to leave the org since I've been here) and in a better economy, we'd probably see 3 more out the door by now. I think we're in an IT death spiral and I want to stop the bleeding. Any advice, short of pack a parachute and a resume?

For anticipated questions:

He reports to the COO, and I'm planning to draft up a presentation with the other 3 "legacy" IT managers to bring to the COO's office outlining the concerns, citing a few examples of how this works and basically bringing all the receipts we can.

The union likely doesn't have much leverage here, because the wording on hiring contractors is a little dicey. I they're hired to do things we don't already do, they can get away with it.

I am currently a Senior IT Professional doing support and maintaining the entire IT infrastructure at my current company and I’ve just been offered an IT-Manager role at a different company.

This is exactly the career step I have been looking for for a long time, and it comes with a significant salary increase compared to my current position.

However, I am having some doubts about whether I am fully ready for the jump to a management level and if I will be able to handle the new responsibilities.

For those who made the transition from a similar IT role to IT Management: Is this step worth the leap? How did you deal with the initial doubts about whether you could handle the role?

Thanks for your insights!

I have been offered a leadership role at this company despite only having 1 yr, 4 mos of IT Associate experience. I've attended the interview and passed all the test and now waiting for the final interview. Does anyone else have the same experience? What was the final interview look like for a leadership role at a corporate company? Any new managers who had the same problem in the past?

PS: I have a lot of work experience from informal jobs, 12+ yrs in total and therefore they told me I'm qualified for this specific account/client. It's my first time being on the management side of the company and has no idea what to do. The compensation is great and I don't want to fail the final interview any advice?

Hi everyone!

I’m looking for some advice on building a Customer Support department completely from scratch.

I’m about to start a new role as Head of Customer Support, and in this case “from scratch” really means from scratch. The product hasn’t launched yet, so there are no customer requests, no existing support processes, no CRM/helpdesk system, no knowledge base, basically nothing.

I’ve been asked to put together a rough plan for how I would build and organize Customer Support before the actual customer-facing work begins.

That’s honestly a little intimidating, because there’s very little real data to work with at this stage. For the first period, I’ll also be doing everything myself until the workload grows enough to start building a team.

For those of you who have built or helped build a Customer Support function from the ground up, what would you focus on first?

What would you try to have in place before launch, and what would you deliberately leave until you actually have real customers and support data?

I’m doing my best to prepare properly, but I’m worried that the pressure of having such a blank slate might make me overthink things or miss something important.

Any advice, examples, frameworks, mistakes to avoid, or resources would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Peers

I have been tasked with reviewing my organisation's technical out of hours response capability. I have experience of establishing and operating this function in other organisations but wanted to seek some wider perspectives - ideally from other UK peers.

I'm interested in

1) Do you operate a formal rota, if not, how do you provide an assured response to major incidents - e.g. an active cyber security incident.

2) Do you do anything different over the bank holidays/Christmas periods?

3) If you do operate a formal function, how do you compensate your team? For example, do you provide an annual salary supplement based on their participation on the rota, or pay per coverage slot, or is it just an expected element of the role with no additional compensation?

4) If an engineer is called, is compensation for the hours worked included in the rota participation compensation, or paid as additional overtime?

5) Does your rota include management or escalation coverage?

6) How do you balance skills coverage and fair division of standby available across your teams.

Thank you in advance for any replies. If you would rather privately message, I would be fine with that, any information is treated with confidence.