IT teams play a huge role in essentially keeping businesses running smoothly. Whenever there’s an IT problem, big or small, it can completely disrupt your day-to-day workflow.
Internet in the office goes dark? You’ll need IT. Someone clicked on a malware link and now your computer and potentially the business’ data files are corrupted? You’ll need IT.
It’s alarming to consider how many issues businesses would face without a strong IT team to prevent and resolve them.
But, they can only do so much – and inefficient workflows can become their worst nightmare.
We’ll be looking at a few of the most common IT workflow challenges and ways to navigate them.
4 Common IT workflow challenges
Privacy and Security
Arguably the biggest challenge businesses face today is keeping their data safe. With so much sensitive data involved in IT projects, poor workflow management can lead to some serious security problems.
Whether that’s outdated software or even just a lack of oversight – both can pose pretty severe problems like data breaches and compliance issues. This could end up costing your business thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars to rectify.
Scheduling Problems with IT Staff and Equipment
Managing IT resources—whether employees, servers, or other equipment—requires careful planning.
Many companies choose to offload infrastructure management by outsourcing hosting solutions, such as cloud services or reseller hosting. This reduces the burden of maintaining servers and uptime, allowing IT teams to focus on delivering strategic solutions rather than troubleshooting backend issues.
Without a reliable scheduling platform, staff may be double-booked, meetings missed, and essential tools unavailable when needed.
Confusion Between IT Projects and Business Goals
If you’ve ever worked in IT, or know enough about what goes on behind the scenes, you’ll know that IT teams often juggle multiple projects. However, if these projects aren’t aligned with the company’s goals, both time and resources can end up being wasted.
It’s important to set standards, expectations and goals from the get-go. If you don’t have a clear strategy that your company understands and can get behind, it could lead to additional and unnecessary work and missed revenue opportunities. Everyone needs to be on the same page when it comes to understanding business goals.
Difficulty in Managing Workloads and Capacity Planning
When workloads aren’t balanced properly, some employees end up overwhelmed while others have too little to do. Poor capacity planning can lead to burnout, project delays, and inefficiencies that impact the entire business.
At Q Agency, effective resource management is critical to keeping projects running smoothly. Their resourcing team, along with 40 other users—including line managers, team leads, and finance—relies on Ganttic daily to track workloads and billable client hours.
As Marija Donkov, one of Q’s resourcing coordination experts, explains, “Ganttic for us is kind of like a big database, not just for planning, but for keeping all that data in one place. It’s a way to see who is currently on bench for the next project.”
With the right tools, businesses can ensure workload balance, prevent bottlenecks, and optimize resource allocation for maximum efficiency.
Take a look at our article on effective resource planning if you’d like to learn more.
The Cost of Poor IT Workflow Management
When IT workflows are inefficient, the financial consequences can be significant. Here’s how poor workflow management directly impacts revenue:
Missed deadlines and delays
IT projects that fall behind schedule can stall business operations, leading to lost opportunities and frustrated stakeholders. And the reality is, missed deadlines are a widespread issue—one that costs businesses more than just time.
According to research, only 43% of projects are completed within their original budget, and just 29% finish on time. Delays often stem from poor resource planning, shifting priorities, and a lack of clear visibility into project timelines. Without a structured approach to scheduling, IT teams can quickly fall behind, leading to cascading bottlenecks that impact the entire organization.
By implementing better workflow management and resource tracking, companies can mitigate these risks, ensuring that projects stay on schedule and deliver real value without unnecessary setbacks.
Wasted resources
Poor scheduling can result in overworked employees while others sit idle, leading to inefficiencies and higher labor costs. For companies that operate on a time-based business model, balancing workloads is even more critical.
As Dribia, a data science company, co-founder Oleguer Sagarra explains,
“We essentially sell hours. So as to ensure that employees aren’t burnt out, while at the same time making sure no one is doing too little, we needed a way to track our resources and projects against our work hours.”
Without structured resource management, businesses risk losing both productivity and profitability—either by overloading staff or underutilizing available talent.
By implementing smarter scheduling and workload distribution strategies, IT teams can optimize efficiency, reduce unnecessary labor costs, and create a more sustainable work environment.
Unplanned downtime
System failures and delays in maintenance can disrupt workflows, causing productivity losses and potential revenue hits.
As Marija Donkov, a resourcing coordination expert, at Q agency, a digital product development company, explains:
“Ganttic for us is kind of like a big database, not just for planning, but for keeping all that data in one place. It’s a way to see who is currently on bench for the next project.”
Without a clear overview of who is available and when, companies risk either overloading key employees or leaving valuable talent underutilized.
By using a centralized planning tool, IT teams can proactively manage workloads, anticipate maintenance needs, and reduce costly disruptions—keeping operations running smoothly and minimizing the financial impact of downtime.
Security risks and compliance issues
Disorganized processes increase the risk of data breaches, fines, and reputational damage, all of which carry financial consequences.
Increased operational costs
A lack of structured workflows can lead to redundant work, rushed fixes, and last-minute budget overruns.
As you can see, the risks of poor IT workflow management are pretty severe. Despite these problems, there are ways to address and alleviate them.
Overcoming IT Workflow Challenges
The problems that come with poor IT workflow approaches are clear, but the good news is that with the right approach, you can bypass them quite easily.
Of course, every business might encounter different IT problems and have different ways to address them, based on their internal problem solving solutions and processes. However, the below should offer some strong starting points that can be applied to most scenarios.
Keep IT Projects on Track with Smarter Management
Juggling multiple projects is standard in IT, but drop the ball on any of these tasks and problems can pop up. Not only does this waste time but the cost of these errors can add up quickly. Having a structured project management approach (one that includes clear milestones, defined roles, and progress tracking) can help keep your projects on course and keep everyone aligned.
Teams should have access to project management tools that support flexible planning, allowing for quick adjustments when priorities shift.
For example, Dribia, faced challenges in efficiently managing projects and allocating the right resources at the right time. By using Ganttic, their IT and data teams gained a clear visual overview of workloads, ensuring optimal resource allocation and preventing scheduling conflicts. With a structured workflow, they improved efficiency and minimized wasted time.
By leveraging tools that provide a clear overview of ongoing projects and available resources, IT teams can reduce inefficiencies and keep work aligned with business objectives.
Dribia uses Ganttic for resource planning and to help mitigate any IT workflow challenges.
Plan for Workload Balance, Not Just Deadlines
Balance is key when it comes to workflow. If you’re over relying on one team, things like burnout, mistakes and poorer performance are likely to happen. Capacity planning helps distribute workloads more evenly to make sure that no one is stretched too thin. Plus, this will help them get their best work done and potentially increase revenue into the business.
For example, Q Agency, needed a better way to handle resource allocation across multiple development teams.
With Ganttic, they streamlined planning, allowing managers to easily assign tasks, track team capacity, and adapt schedules in real-time. This not only kept projects on track but also helped balance workloads, reducing burnout and improving overall productivity.
Connect IT Workflows to Business Growth
Gone are the days when the IT department operated in isolation from the rest of the business. In today’s digital world, IT teams play a pivotal role in driving growth, making it essential to integrate their workflows with broader business objectives.
A strong strategic approach to project and resource management ensures that IT initiatives directly contribute to revenue—whether by improving infrastructure, enhancing cybersecurity, or supporting digital transformation. The more aligned IT workflows are with business goals, the more value they deliver.
As Dribia co-founder Oleguer Sagarra put it:
“Today we’re 20 people, but tomorrow we might be 50. We needed a clear plan of what was coming next.”
For growing IT teams, the ability to scale efficiently depends on having a structured workflow that enables better forecasting, resource allocation, and strategic decision-making. By implementing the right planning tools, IT departments can stay agile, anticipate challenges, and ensure their work contributes to long-term business success.
Build Security into Every Step
Again, security should never be an afterthought in IT workflows. Poorly structured processes can lead to gaps in access control, overlooked software updates, and an increased risk of data breaches.
In fact, network breaches ranked second for the most frequently detected cyberattack worldwide, with almost 19% of the detections.
By investing in security measures like role-based permissions, automated compliance checks, and encrypted data access directly into resource planning, you’re far less likely to suffer cyber attacks or breaches.
Making IT Workflows Work for You
IT teams make our businesses more secure and easier to run. But when scheduling is chaotic, projects get derailed, and security takes a backseat, these problems don’t just slow things down – they cost money.
It may seem straightforward, but with the right tools and processes in place, IT teams can focus on what truly matters—ensuring system stability, supporting business goals, and driving revenue.
Small changes can make a big difference. By streamlining scheduling, balancing workloads, and tightening security, IT teams can work more efficiently and help businesses grow without unnecessary setbacks.