During my career as an IT consultant, I have been asked by many different clients and by various members of my team for information on policies, procedures and templates.  There are thousands of small businesses that do not have the time or resources to draft documents or polices for items like acceptable use of computers/media, setting up new computers/users or change control.

Work Without Process is Burn Out

I believe that there are certain critical documents and policies that every IT department should have regardless of the size.  The level at which the policy or documentation is implemented is entirely up to the company.  Below are the links to 4 great templates or policies documents that every IT department should have with a brief explanation of why.

• Acceptable Use Policy – All companies need one.  These are critical to employees so that they understand what a company computer and email is for. Many people get offended at the idea that a company computer is not meant to check personal email or to develop home business web-sites on.  Mitigation of risk and having a clear set of rules governing electronic media and systems is critical to all companies that have PCs and email.
• Change Control Request Form –  Change control…  most companies- especially small companies do not use a change request for for their IT staff.  How many times has a small business owner come into the office and heard his IT guy call out, “Hey, I’m restarting the server.”  It is 10AM on a Tuesday.  Turns out the IT Admin installed a piece of software on the systems without getting permission or telling anyone.  A simple change process can save all of these headaches.
• New User/Equipment Form – How man managers think that the IT department has an unlimited number of PCs and all the time in the world on a Monday morning to setup a person that HR made an offer to 3 weeks ago???  Haw many IT people are frustrated by the lack of planning managers have when a new person starts.  Having a simple forma that is given to IT when a person accepts their offer for a PC and user account is so simple and so critical to an employee being productive on their first day.  Not to mention, the employee feels they are working for a weel organized company that CARES about their productivity.  There are hundreds of forms online that many colleges and government agencies use.  I would recommend taking the best from those sources and develop your own.
• Support Request – IT Admin… walking down the hall and then someone grabs him.  ”Hey I need you to look at my PC.  I have a problem looking at this website….. It will just take a second.”  2 hours later….  The idea is to give the IT team a chance to set their priorities and organize their work by using a form and a process.  A good idea is to use a ticketing system like Spice Works or Track It.

The use of these forms and some basic process behind the paperwork will instantly make your IT team more effective and provide some much needed insight into the workload of your technical staff.

Don't Let Your Passion Destroy Your Dream

At seeing the Whale-  Ahab lost his last sense of reason.  ”All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” Melville

What does all that crazy talk mean?

Let’s start with Hubris- Excessive pride, presumption or arrogance… the flaw that leads to the downfall of the tragic hero.

Basically the story goes that Ahab had a run in with the Whale many years before.  The quest to find the Whale and make it pay for the pain it had inflicted in him, consumed Ahab.  It consumed him to the point that he was willing to destroy his boat, his crew and himself in order to accomplish his goal.  Hubris personified.

Ever work for someone like that?  Ever felt like that?  Look at the quote.

Ahab became crazy; visibly personified his demons and had he been given the opportunity he would have used his heart- his very core of life- to inflict damage upon the Whale to meet his goals.  Paints a very bold picture of a tragic hero. A person who is not leading with the best intentions for his team, company or family.

It is important for leaders to understand that they are not always right.  They should rely on the counsel of others and take a step back when they are beginning to become consumed with their quest.  Leadership is about far more than having people follow you.  Leadership is about empowering the people you work with and looking out for the best interests of the team.

Think about your end goals.  Jim Collins Says, “The most productive relationships are partnerships rooted in a freedom of choice vested in both parties to participate only in that which is mutually beneficial and uplifting.”

Before it becomes about you as the leader-  write down the end goals and discuss how those can be achieved WITH YOUR TEAM.   The idea is not to talk them into your position.

Leading is not about the leader-  but about the goals.  Just to leave you all with a note about a study done on Civil War leadership.  The study showed- and I quote “…lack of information sharing and consensus building resulted in serious disadvantages (in battlefield losses). In the cases examined, the pressure for prompt decision making was not sufficient to justify the loss of information that resulted from the determination to act alone.”

I have been doing a great deal of self evaluation over the last few months.  I have a mid-life crises about every 2 years or so.  I have realized that my latest crisis is pretty big.  I am having a professional crises. I had a personal Armageddon right after I began dating my wife.  I had to come to terms about who I was as a man- personally.  I fought a war for months, internally.  I finally came to the conclusion I wanted to settle down and get started with building a family.   I shortly there after came to terms with who I was as a professional.

Are you propping up your firm?

The idea at the time was that I was a technical person who wanted to run an IT department one day.  I came from a father who built his own businesses.  It was all I ever knew.  I tried my hand at running my own business at age 22.  This was more of the E-Myth problem.  I was working IN my business and not ON it.  I liked setting my own schedule and coming up with my own ideas.  The problem was that my visions were too big.  I did not have enough capital or resources to execute what I wanted.  I had no idea how to think small and build from nothing.  Had I been given enough operating capital to set my cash flow and build a foundation for my vision-  I may never have been anything but a business owner.   I digress….

The point is that there are thousands of people like me in the world of business.  People who are creative and have ideas and have always known the road of building a company as a business owner.  Yet- these people  have chosen to remain within a company.  This process is known as Intrepreneurship.  Intrepeneurs are focused on building a company from the inside just like they would create their own business.  Scott Allen says Intrepreneurs “will buck the corporate malaise, risk his or her career to get things done and, is willing to “do the right thing to serve the customer”.  The scary thing as that many people with a drive to be an Intrepreneur may never speak up out of fear of corporate culture or may get beat down as a crazy person within a firm.  I have been lucky in that this has not happened to me.

If I am going to go as afar as to say I am an Intrepreneur- I wonder if I am a stereotypical one??  In a recent personality test, I scored abnormally off the charts in regard to creativity and artistic expression.  I have an above average intelligence and a strong desire for personal growth and success.  My ethical position is very core to how I work and I am focused on protecting my work above myself.  So-  If this is a typical Intrepreneur-  is there one in your firm?  Are you an Intrepreneur?

I would recommend that if you believe you know an Intrepreneur or are one yourself-  that you try the following:

• Ask for or provide opportunity for that person to do something creative
• Criticize the work of that person fairly and do not drive towards the person themselves with criticism
• Follow up, but do not take control of the project at the end. Be involved, but only to provide focus
• Set very lofty goals-  Intrepeneurs think BIG
• Help keep them grounded in reality-  Budgets and timelines keep focus on the goal
• Allow them to lead others-  they are best when getting buy in from others
• Praise is critical- give them lots of it

I am still not sure why I am not an entrepreneur, today.  I used to think being the President would be awesome, but I am beginning to think that Chief of Staff would be more fun.  There is always a need for a strong person running the show in the background.  Maybe you are that person or know someone who could be.  Remember to help them grow by following some of the steps outlined above.

After taking a great webinar from www.threebeacons.com and a good talk from Nathan Eror www.neror.com; I have a better understanding of Agile and how QA works in that team.  Using this information and the process of actually scoping an Agile project with my team-  I believe we have a general concept of how Agile works.

The first things we needed to understand were the words-  the jargon….  I have also learned that there are like 8,000 different ways to do Agile and every team takes what works from the best versions…
Release-  the actual final piece of software.

Iteration-  Time frame used to break up each development cycle within the entire release cycle.  Usually 1 to 2 weeks in length.  You want at least 4 iterations per release in order to take advantage of Agile methodology.

Epic-  It’s like a phase-  more like a block of functional pieces that are logically grouped together. Ex:  Login Page for Online Application

Story-  mini, functional pieces of the release within each epic.  Ex:  I am a Acme customer and I need to login to the Acme site with my email address.  Stories should be phrased as a functional need-  not CODE or DEV work.  Clients do not care about Tables and embedded graphics.  They want to see what works.

Unit Testing-  The heart of Agile.  Test everything as you build it.  Automate the testing if possible.

I will go into a whole different blog about testing-  I am sure I am about to learn a lot as I am being helped by a developer on setting up our testing, repository and bug tracking systems next week.

Basically what we learned is that Agile works if you sell it to the client as collaborative.  Your team MUST buy off on how iterations work and that everything- including testing and build deployment go into each iteration so that at the end of the iteration, you have a functional product for testing and sign off.   The product does not have to have all functionality, just what the client needs to provide a more defined scope as each iteration is completed.

We had to define optimal programmer hours available for each iteration.  We determined for our first project that we would sell 50 “points” for each iteration.  Those points were  based on programming hours and difficulty of each story.

That brings me to my next revelation-  you have to basically scope the project down to the story level before you can quote it-  so planning and pre-project fact finding is critical.  The idea is to pre-qualify the lead and plan the hell out of the project before you walk in with a presentation.  Then the client can shoot it apart through the Agile process by redefining needs.

I will post more as I get deeper.  What we have found makes Agile great for us-  although  a bit cumbersome for smaller projects.  We are finding our middle ground.

In a very support oriented industry, I have noticed that delegation of tasks is crucial in the success of any manager on every level.  In working with a series of small business clients to help them manage their IT needs on a day to day basis, there is a constant challenge when it comes to deciding task priority, project management and resource allocation for our clients.  Understanding the need for delegation is critical in what we do, but implementing the process is entirely different from person to person and account to account.

I believe it is critical for a manager to look at larger issues and bottom lines.  This requires a good manager to understand the skill sets of his employees and their ability to deliver effectively.  Managing the knowledge of our group of consultants is a difficult job.   Our mangers must understand the concepts behind Knowledge Management.  “Knowledge management is the set of practices aimed at discovering and harnessing an organization’s intellectual resources—fully utilizing the intellects of the organization’s people.

Knowledge management is about finding, unlocking, sharing, and altogether capitalizing on the most precious resources of an organization: people’s expertise, skills, wisdom, and relationships” (Bateman, 2004).    Understanding skill sets is a key of delegating and scheduling resources properly.  In our business scheduling is critical.  Utilization of resources is the key to maximizing profit because we sell services.   As the skill sets of our consultants get more diverse and our client needs become more robust, a great manager in our company will need to fully utilize the people in our organization based on best fit.  This type of delegation of responsibility is the top most level of our business model.

The delegation of client needs through the project and daily care of our clients is a trickle down system and rests on the shoulders of lesser mangers.  These managers may not have authority within the hierarchy at our company to effect immediate change, but they do have almost complete authority with their clients to delegate and schedule resources form within our organization and the client’s business.  The managers I refer to are the account mangers and the project leaders.  These managers are critical to the delegation process for an account.  Although, many of the consultants I work with are able to resolve most issues and projects on their own, there are a few clients that require a larger set of skills or just plain hours of work.

Project leaders within our group do a good job of handling many of the primary tasks in a project on their own.  The most critical tasks are rarely delegated and are taken under complete control of the project manager.  This attitude is a double edged sword.  While a consultant can often take a positive lead in regards to accomplishing milestone tasks, they can also push a project behind or overwork themselves trying to do too much.  This area is a very sticky place in our group.  Ultimate responsibility lies with the project lead, but the delegation of project tasks and their completion can often be lost in translation.

I believe that a good project manager within our consulting team takes the time to draw out a project plan with milestones, goals and resource allocation.  The success of the project may lie in their hands, but the completion of individual tasks can be clearly laid out.  The manager could then mentor the other goals not being directly worked on and create opportunities for others rather than a fear of incompletion.

Continued support comes with most every client we have after a large project or implementation.  The support that our business provides is not just technical assistance in computer needs, but also guidance in the areas of Information Management.  Information Technology is more than just the use of computers to communicate.  Information Systems are built on managerial decisions and practices that come from the top of an organization down.  IT infrastructure is built to allow a business to grow and collaborate as well as respond quickly to customers and internal needs.

With all of these moving parts, our consultants must understand the core of delegation.  Although the idea behind delegation in our industry is solid, many technical people have a hard time letting certain areas of their jobs be performed by others.  This is where the daily operations can have issues.  When an IT manager is unable to differentiate his need to work on a complex desktop problem effecting one user and his need to form IT policies in a management meeting that affect all users.  I have often called this “being in the problem”.  When a person is lost in a problem, they can often forget other areas of responsibility.  Delegation can be critical in these instances.  More specialized technicians or a person with less major responsibility may need to look at the problem so that a manger can focus on the bigger picture.

Finding the sweet spot can be difficult in IT.  The more that a person delegates in a technical area, the more likely they are to be unable to address the issue.  “Think about who else needs to know what’s going on, and inform them. Involve the other person in considering this so they can see beyond the issue at hand. Do not leave the person to inform your own peers of their new responsibility. Warn the person about any awkward matters of politics or protocol. Inform your own boss if the task is important, and of sufficient profile” (BusinessBalls, 2006).  The softening of skills is a real concern amongst IT professionals.  But, as IT specialists get older and are able to hoe their managerial skills, the more valuable they will be to their business and their fellow IT specialists.

The bottom line is that all decisions ultimately fall on the manager.  If an employee offends a customer or if the fire inspector is coming, the decisions made are the responsibility of the manager.  Delegation of control and being involved enough o guide is critical.  It is also critical that manager know where their employees need to take the ball and do their jobs and where the management needs to back off and handle its own issues.

Without proper delegation of roles and tasks, no manager will be able to achieve what they need to in order to obtain success.  Minor issues and those not involving high level decisions need to be addressed by down level management.  This frees up the store manager to concentrate on high level decisions that affect the bottom line of the store.  These decisions will lead to employment, profit and opportunity within the company for all employees of the store.

References:

Bateman, T. S., Snell, S.  (2004). Management: The New Competitive Landscape, 6e(pp. 1-102).  New York:  McGraw-Hill

Effective Delegation Skills. Business Balls.com. Retrieved Oct 16, 2006 from http://www.businessballs.com/delegation.htm

A company’s controlling interests and management should never forget that the business is a living, breathing entity.  A company will and always should have its own character and demeanor, much like a person.  Certain companies have been able to create a organizational architecture and business behavior model that is unparalleled in business and is often looked at as innovating in its design.  One such company is IBM.  IBM has over performed as a business for over 100 years.  The critical success for IBM has been found in its core business development through organizational culture, decision making and organizational structure.  It is crucial to understand what a driving force IBM has been in business in the last century and how its culture, structure and decision making defined business.

The foundation of any successful business over a long period of time is reflected in two critical components; “preserve the core and stimulate progress. What preserve the core/stimulate progress does is create an institutional set of processes that map to a very, very deep primal human distinction: our need to believe and our need to create” (Fast, 2004).  IBM has used these business fundamentals to create its core values and business culture.

IBM was founded as three smaller companies in the late 19^th century.  At the time IBM was known as the Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR) Corporation.  The name of the company as it stands today, International Business Machines (IBM), was adopted in 1924.  IBM is an international business in over 170 countries with 91 billion dollars in annual revenue (Wikopedia, 2006).   From its inception IBM has been focused on the needs of its customers and not on its need to grow.  That is not to say that IBM has not put considerable thought into its development as a business.  IBM was a leader over the last 75 years in creating a culture of remarkable achievement in business.

With high marks for sales, service and customer satisfaction, IBM has created a very sales-centric culture.  This culture puts a high mark on satisfying the end user of the IBM products and services.  IBM has created a series of training facilities and takes great pride in its extensive orientation process for new employees.  IBM has a rigorous program for managerial advancement.  It is rare that IBM hirers a manager from outside its organization.  IBM has created what some might consider a cult like culture.  IBM prides itself on finding young, ambitious talent in new hires.  These new employees are trained and trained on IBM practices and culture.    IBM makes it very clear that employees will do things the IBM way or work somewhere else.  With a stringent culture in place, IBM will do what it takes to bring up its best internal employees into management.  This preserves the culture and enforces achievement through embodiment of the cultures guidelines.

The IBM culture is successful because it focuses on bringing up employees from within.  The culture works because it has always worked.  IBM does not attempt to do something in business as its core value that no one else has ever done.  IBM simply creates a very unyielding culture that emphasizes the satisfaction of the customer as the most important part of their business.  With the values of the customer in mind, IBM has created a culture its employees need to get behind.

In identifying a successful company, a person must appreciate that the culture of a business is its soul.  After the vision of a business the culture is what drives the rest of the company’s direction (Collins, 1994).  Many companies lose focus on their need to guide their culture as they get larger and the end product often suffers.  IBM has made sure this does not happen because they have used satisfaction as the core value of their business, building their company culture around it.  In the paradigm of the seven primary characteristics of organizational culture, IBM most reflects attention to detail.  From the signature IBM white shirts, black ties and dark pants; IBM screams professional service and satisfaction to the customer.  IBM has created facilities for training, research and development of services and products that are geared toward the complete fulfillment if their customer’s needs.

For a complete analysis of how IBM has used its culture to provide a model for world class management, feel free to download the complete whitepaper:  Organizational Behavior and IBM

Walking through a simple technology rollout:

Let’s explore a relatively simple IT issue and solution.  Let’s look at how an IT manager might introduce the solution, project plan, implementation plan, training and maintenance of the new solution.  We can use the example of the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES).

As the IT manager, your company has begun to move into new markets.  The company has begun to acquire smaller firms with a more disparate sales team.  Not to mention that as the senior executive have begun to meet with the newly acquired companies and explore other markets, they are traveling often.  The sales team and executives are missing out on critical communications because they are only checking email over their VPN connections on the laptops they carry.  Many sales people cannot get wireless data signal in some of their client areas and are out of the loop for hours at a time.

POP email is used some, but the security and overhead of the firewall and mail systems is making this an issue.  POP does not offer the option of calendar sync either.  People are clamoring for an easier solution.

BES is an easily integrated software solution that uses a minimum hardware set in order to integrate existing mail systems such as Microsoft Exchange in order to deliver email, calendar and tasks systems to handheld phones over the air with security and centralized management.  Research in Motion provides the following notes on BES:

• “Organize email messages that require follow-up with the use of flags, as they do in Microsoft® Outlook®1
• Easily access network drives using the remote file explorer directly from their BlackBerry smartphones*
• Open and forward calendar appointments, including attachments1
• Browse folders on the BlackBerry smartphone to view and attach files to email messages*”, (RIM, 2009).

With a need identified and a solid solution in hand, an IT manager should research the cost of the system and confirm integration points.  The cost of a BES server can be mitigated in many ways.  If there is already a virtual server farm in place, a new instance of a server would suffice and not cost more than the operating system license and the BES software and user licensing.  If there is no virtual server option, then a true hardware server may need to be purchased.  Hardware should be planned out based on best practices from the software vendor.

The software vendor will also discuss best practices regarding software interaction.  Blackberry Enterprise Server 5.0 will not integrate with Exchange 2000 or run on Windows NT 4.0.  If additional infrastructure upgrades need to happen, then these should be considered when designing the plan and understanding ROI.  For the sake of our project, we determined we need a new hardware sever running Windows Server 2008.  The existing mail server is Exchange 2003 and all smart phones are compatible with BES v5.0.

It should be stressed that no IT manager should ever present hardware and software for approval before creating a project plan for implementation.  Many projects are killed mid stream or after the hardware is approved but when the senior managers see implementation costs for labor or downtime.  A well defined plan should include hardware and software, hours and interruption schedules.  In order to gain approval, it may be necessary to project the lifecycle of the solution and discuss ongoing maintenance fees or costs for expansion of the systems past current capacity.

At this point we will provide a project plan for implementation of the systems that include a well defined schedule for milestones and possible break points.  Each break point should include a backup plan for fallback.  Fortunately, a BES install is relatively easy on interruption to production systems.  Once the plan is approved by the senior managers, it is time to consider training of end users before the systems are even installed.

Training should be geared toward end users and should focus on the key pain points identified in the scoping of the project.  If the majority of the users want to be able to wirelessly sync their calendars and integrate to a central mail system, then the focus should be on those feature sets.  It is important to begin to float documentation or provide lunch and learns before the technology is rolled out to everyone.  This allows people to get a feel for what is coming before it is implemented.  Providing ongoing training in the form of online content or additional training sessions is critical to ongoing adoption of the technology.

It is time to move on to implementation and support.  Implementation should be a time when all stake holders are well communicated with.  The best implementations are ones where you pull he tablecloth out from under the china.  No one should know you did anything.  IT managers should provide onsite or highly available support during the first 24-48 hours of a system change or installation.  This support provides a smoother transition and can often mean the difference between long term adoption of a new system and having vocal stakeholders upset with what was over all a very good deployment.  It is often said that if a completely new network was installed and it worked 98% perfectly in the first week, but the president of the company could not print, then the entire project was a failure.  Perception is reality.

The success or failure of a successful implementation creates touch points at many levels.  An IT manager must manager their technical staff to research, design and implement the right solution in a timely manner.  They must also communicate with internal and external stakeholders to confirm budget, ROI, design specifications and time tables.  Once all is said and done, end users must be trained and the systems must be maintained over time.  All of these factors must be considered and executed with little margin for error because of how the perception of the project effects its outcome regardless of reality.

Quick Study- System Development Life Cycle. Computerworld. Retrieved July 12, 2009 from http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/71151/System_Development_Life_Cycle?taxonomyId=011

Blackberry Enterprise Server v 5.0. RIM. Retrieved July 5, 2009 from http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/server/5/benefits.jsp

Delegating Without Losing Control. TeamTechnology.co.uk. Retrieved July 5, 2009 from http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/soft-skills/project-management-training-part7.html

Understanding the groundwork for a business technology deployment:

In order to manage a change in technology, there needs to be a clear plan in place before during and after the implementation.  The systems that are being changed will stakeholders in both the technical and non-technical portions of an organization.  It is important to remember that communications, planning and follow through are the keys to a successful change in any company.

There have been formal processes for how to handle these types of implementations in an organization.  The System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a good example of a process by which a technology is designed, implemented and supported through its useful life.  The SDLC has many iteration.  There is the oldest model, the waterfall which falls in line with many IT system deployments regarding infrastructure today.  This model is becoming outdated and is being replaced with Rapid, Spiral and other deployment and upkeep models.  “The synchronize and stabilize method combines the advantages of the spiral model with technology for overseeing and managing source code. This method allows many teams to work efficiently in parallel. This approach was defined by David Yoffie of Harvard University and Michael Cusumano of MIT. They studied how Microsoft Corp. developed Internet Explorer and Netscape Communications Corp. developed Communicator, finding common threads in the ways the two companies worked,“ (ComputerWorld, 2009).

Regardless of the deployment methodology, there must always be a findings phase at the beginning of any project.  The client or customer must be interviewed to understand what the need is.  There is almost always a business need that must be addressed.  The core of any IT systems deployment is a business need.  It is critical that technology not be implemented for the sake of technology.  IT professionals should listen for pain points and find the needs for their clients and customers.  The need to track documents through a manual audit may be streamlined by tracking the physical papers with a bar-coding system.  A client may need to be in touch with vendors regardless of time or location.  Tracking of issues in real time with automated auditing and archiving may be a need for an oil and gas company due to high levels of uptime and statutory needs for their industry.

All of these examples provide an IT manager a juicy opportunity to install backend communications systems for knowledge workers or relational database systems for multi-application integration and data analysis.  The business needs are very clear and the ROI for these systems is evident and relatively simple to calculate.

Once the need is identified, then the project manager must take the time to identify the appropriate technology to solve the issue.  Many times the issue will be found straight from a vendor.  Installing a Blackberry Enterprise Server will allow a company to seamlessly integrate smart phones to their existing email systems for the sharing of email, calendars and tasks.  The challenge for an IT manager is when there is an existing system or systems that require creative integration.  Taking a proprietary application or legacy database and allowing a newer system to integrate for a seamless deployment can be very difficult.

In the next blog we will look at an example of how to walk thourgh an actual deployment.

An effective technology team is only as good as its weakest link.  In order to optimize the team, a good manager will need to identify the strengths of each member and rely on their abilities to complete smaller pieces of complex tasks.  The members of the team should be able to communicate, check their egos and manage their responsibilities in a timely manner.  It is the responsibility of an Information Technology (IT) manager to ensure his team learns, stays on task and intercommunicates in order to provide high quality solutions.

The core of all human interaction is rooted in the personalities of the individuals working together.  Personality is the fundamental of how a person reacts to stress, delegates responsibility and achieves their goals.  Managers in any are must come to understand how individuals cope with internal and external factors in order to maximize effectiveness.  Some people react adversely to stress.  Information technology can often be a reactive industry.  IT is a profession where issues arise out of the blue and the urgency to correct those issues can mean thousands of dollars to a company.  When a person cannot be relied on to make good decisions in a crunch, the team finds they are unwilling to rely on that person.  William Cross, the CIO for Seminole Semiconductor discussed IT stress in this manner, “IT is a stressful occupation for a lot of reasons. One of the big reasons is we work very closely with computing equipment that in today’s world doesn’t fail. That’s high stress because if there are errors, they are probably ours. We also have this high desire to please others and that tends to get IT people to put in more hours and take things more seriously then perhaps another group, (Computerworld, 2009).”

A leader should know how his team members handle stress and make sure they are well trained in the areas that they may encounter failure in.  Running scenarios for support based stress issues and role playing for those situations can aid in the ability for team members to feel confident when abnormal situations arise.  IT managers should provide their team members the ability to rely on more seasoned personnel on the team for technical remediation and provide growth so that stress is minimized as skill sets develop in controlled situations.

At the core of stress in IT there is an underlying issue that many people may not see as interrelated.  The need is for proper communication to internal team members and stake holders outside of the team.  A good manager should provide an open communication path with his team.  Cross addresses this in the following manner, “You can deal with expectation by having the [worker] set the goals and the deadlines, or at least participate in that setting, rather than just dictating. One of the most effective techniques in leveling the stress is participant management — let your people participate in the process, “(Computerworld, 2009).”

Team must communicate with their members in a proactive manner.  It does not provide for a healthy team when an issue has gotten out of control and then the flag gets raised.  It is critical that the team knows to alert possible issues to one another and their manager in a proactive manner.  This is also critical for interaction with external stakeholders.  When deadlines may be missed or a technology implementation may not provide the desired the results, it is extremely important that everyone be alerted early in the process so that there are no surprises.

Ego has a good deal to do with the success of many teams.  In many instances it is the ego of a manager or a team member that provides the driving force behind success, but in a good many instances that same ego can be counter productive.  “The ego wants to look good, be right, not make mistakes, not admit failure, manipulate, and control or appear in control at all times, (eetimes.com, 2009).  When an ego gets out of control on a team, the team suffers.  This can be either from the manager or the players on the team.  IT professionals are often people with large egos and they can often find it difficult to check their egos and participate as a team.  A manager must focus on promoting a lack of self within the team.  The more a team is willing to sacrifice for one another, the more successful the team will be.

IT managers must also focus on the performance of the team and drive metrics that promote team accomplishment and interaction with one another.  A manager in IT is often promoted from within a team.  These managers have found that running a team of people is difficult because the people on the team are not as skilled as they are in technology.  Often managers find themselves jumping in and doing tasks that others may take longer to perform.  Rather than being a multiplier, the manager has become a bottleneck.  A manager needs to set realistic and well communicated deadlines in order for his team to learn, grow and gain confidence in their ability.

By providing realistic deadlines with firm deliverables, a manager provides his team with the ability to forecast their tasks and needs.  When issues are communicated, the manager should push for the team members to work together to solve their own issues rather than jumping in and doing it themselves.  “Have strategic checkpoints that tell you how each person is progressing with their work.  Take close interest in the checkpoints, but let people get on with their work between them, (team technology, 2009).

If an IT manager focuses on commutations, team egos and delegation of work; the team can be very successful.  It is critical that managers understand how to get the most out of their team by building them up and mitigating risk.  By emphasizing commutation and selflessness within the team, managers allow their team to build a strong relationship.  At that point the manager can delegate tasks and check to make sure that these tasks are executed in a timely manner with a high degree of quality.

References:

Q&A: Type A personalities, long hours contribute to IT stress, says CIO. Computerworld. Retrieved July 5, 2009 from http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9002504/Q_A_Type_A_personalities_long_hours_contribute_to_IT_stress_says_CIO

Your ego is a performance killer. Eetimescareers.com. Retrieved July 5, 2009 from http://www.eetimescareers.com/articles/in-management-your-ego-is-a-performance-killer-1615-article.html

Delegating Without Losing Control. TeamTechnology.co.uk. Retrieved July 5, 2009 from http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/soft-skills/project-management-training-part7.html

Part One- Setting up the Story-

One of the most difficult areas for a company providing services is how to track employee time against accounts.  There has always been a struggle between management and the personnel who provide the service.  The evolution of the IT Consulting industry has made the tracking of time more difficult.  In order to understand where we are today, I believe it is critical for us to look back and where we came from. 

IT Consulting – at least for the SMB space- began with a few rogue administrators who helped their friends or parents with their business IT needs.  These folks began to branch out on their own and work for a few small companies at an hourly rate.  Microsoft and other developers such as Intuit and RIM found an untapped market in the SMB space.  With the advent of Small Business Server, BIS and QuickBooks- many small business found electronic communications and finance more palatable and began to need strong IT consulting.

As admins began to delve into this world, they would bill companies by the hour.  Most of the work was done from a reactionary or project position.  The client would request work and admins would show up to perform the task for an hourly fee.  This worked well until there began to be growth in the market and firms began to employ multiple consultants.  Being able to predict revenue stream was difficult.  Some firms began to sell pre-billed blocks of time.  Tracking this was difficult and many companies did not have a good method for tracking the time of their consultants.

I know that I had worked for a firm that tracked all time in Outlook and Exchange.  Other firms tracked time in spreadsheets and Word documents.  The need to track time was essential because of the billing at an hourly rate.  The problem was that entering time was difficult and was not a part of most IT administrator’s culture. 

Enter companies like Connectwise and Alert- These firms were able to create a time tracking product specifically for IT consulting firms in the SMB space.  Now the SMB IT market was in the same boat as legal, accounting and other service verticals.  There were industry specific pieces of software to aid in their tracking and delivery of service. 

The Connectwise revolution was tracking on the cusp of an even larger movement-  the shift from billing by the hour to billing as a flat fee service.  Much like the pre-billed blocks of time- Managed Services was a focus on a flat fee for all the needs of a client.  The need for tracking time was still critical- but different.  Rather than losing revenue for time not accounted for, the ability to track the profit margins on accounts for flat fee clients was now the focus of attention.  All of this seems simple if taken in a homogenous billing system.  But- as firms shifted from hourly to flat fee, there were challenges in how to track time, reinforce the need for time tracking with consultants and ensure effective rates were measured against hourly bill methods in an accurate fashion.

Part Two will discuss the solution to entering time for firms focused on an hourly model and the setup for tracking time and employee satisfaction for Managed Services Firms