I manage IT for a 15-person training company that runs in-person, hybrid, and online classes. We also have a managed service provider and a developer maintaining a custom ERP, but management is concerned about IT costs.
There is a lot to sort out, and I have been making some automations without much coding experience. How do I decide what to work on first?
Start by separating things that are actually disrupting classes or business operations from things that are old and annoying. Pick the recurring problem that costs the most staff time or puts a class at risk, and focus on getting that under control before starting a broader modernization.
Keep a simple list of the other work and review it with management. That gives them a way to choose priorities instead of expecting everything to happen at once.
Map out who owns what before taking on more work. Ask the service provider what they cover, what costs extra, and how to escalate problems. Do the same with the ERP developer for the custom system. Gaps and duplicated work are easier to spot once those responsibilities are written down.
Since cost is already a concern, bring management a short comparison of the recurring costs and the services they support. That is more useful than assuming the custom ERP or the provider is automatically a bad deal.
Don't make learning to code your first emergency. For the automations already running, document what each one does, where it runs, who depends on it, and how to stop or recover it if it fails. Avoid adding critical processes to code nobody has time to maintain.
Then ask for some protected learning time or help reviewing the code if automation is going to remain part of the job.
There is also a workload question here. If management wants lower costs and one person to handle every problem, ask them to choose what can wait or what support they are willing to fund. If the expectations stay impossible, looking for another role is a reasonable option.
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++almost!organized:
For hybrid and online sessions, that could mean checking what happens when the meeting setup or internet connection fails. The most urgent issue depends on what is actually breaking.