Whenever our team has attended a Connectwise event, we are often looked at as if we are strange alien creatures because our firm actually uses the workflow rules.  The workflow rules within the application are a little clunky, but their power is the factor that will take your service team to the next level.  We have found that by automating certain processes, the return is not only found in saving time, but creating processes because we know what the expected outcome will be each time an event happens.  Let me walk you through an item I love and one that I find very limiting.

I will assume you all have figured out SLAs and Agreements and how all of those play into the execution of workflow rules.  If you have not and I get enough feedback- I will be happy to discuss this in another blog.

LOVE It:

• Change Board Action- Whenever a criteria is met, the action is set for the board to change.  We use this rule for a couple of very important reasons.  We have a Service board that is monitored for incoming issues.  If one of our support team members needs to escalate, we have them set the ticket to a certain status.  After the ticket is in that status for 5 minutes, the action is set in the rule for the ticket to move back to our incoming issues board.  With good notes in the ticket, our team can now assign an escalation person or assign the ticket to another resource.   This is one of the best action items Connectwise has built.  **Be careful- the ticket takes the default status of the board it hops to.

NEED It:

• There is no Negative value in rule creation-  This drives our team crazy.  If Connectwise could put in a value that was “NOT =” or “NOT” we could RIP UP the workflows into something even more amazing.  WE have learned to work around the formula creation without this basic programming command.  We do not understand why it is not included- but we want it!

This blog is pretty brief on a very broad subject.  I am testing the waters to see how many users out there comment and are looking for some input on this subject. I hope to hear back from you guys on what is working for you with Workflow Rules and possibly being able to help one another!

Looking at ramping up for the 2010 recession breakout? What should be the most important area of your business to focus on for the coming year? I would suggest looking at the most important commodity you have, your people. Understanding that a managed services company is in the business of providing SERVICE! Service comes from people and employee management is critical to a 2010 rebound. Many companies can automate areas of service delivery, but the bottom line is that clients are looking to develop a trusted relationship with their IT service providers.

Understand that many employees have been hanging tough through the recession. With little pay increases, bonuses or employee perks over the last 18 months, many employees have cabin fever. After the snow begins to clear, many employees will begin to see that the market bears more for their services than you have compensated them over the last year.

Understanding that turnover is a financial killer, many MSPs should see a cost savings by implementing some much needed employee programs. If this philosophy is coupled with a clear understanding of who MSPs hire, then the programs can become very clear.

How much does turnover cost? According to an article in Inc.com (http://bit.ly/8OYD95), turnover for a service employee can cost over 3 times their annual salary. There are many online calculators online to help understand real cost for turnover.

Who are MSPs hiring and building a company for? Information Technology is a business for younger employees by nature. The people in the field will typically be between 22 and 35 years old. Born from 1977 to 2002, Gen Y employees are looking for a great job, not for work to be their life. They are looking for a blended life, where work and home are more intertwined. USA Today has a great article on Gen Y (http://bit.ly/4wm3rT).

If we put the pieces together, we have a recession that looks like it is thawing, which means more companies are going to be looking to attract good talent. We can also see that MSPs are hiring Gen Y employees for support and service positions and that turnover costs can kill profit for any business.

2010 should be the year of happy employees! Over the next few weeks, I will look at specific areas where turnover can be mitigated. But to give some ideas, MSPs should be considering 9/80 schedules, work from home opportunities, company volunteer programs for community involvement and special programs. Special programs can be anniversary recognition, catered lunches, happy hours and dinner or weekend gift cards.

Applying focus on employee retention will create happy employees, lower turnover costs and will increase customer service and client referrals. All of this will increase profitability!

What's in a name?

The name of the Service Desk alone sheds light on the perception of itself and how others look at it.  “Service” denotes something much different than a group designed to be the front line for the face of your company.  In a managed services support model, the remote support center will be the most important factor in driving down costs for flat fee clients.

A name should be considered that gives the members a reason to provide exceptional customer support.  Naming the “Support Desk” the “Care Center” could accomplish this goal.   “Care Center” provides a whole new way for the remote support personnel to see their group.  In building a Service Desk, there should be considerable thought put into how it is named.   Promoting a positive face for the Center and expressing that posisitve image to the clients who call in for help should be examined as an important function for the creation of any Service Desk.   Living up to the name of “CARE CENTER” will provide value for years to the leadership of your firm and the remote support team who work in that group.

Check out Help Desk Institute as a foundation for building your support center.

Understanding what makes a business tick is a very difficult task.  The best way for most of us to comprehend how a business works is to boil it down to a few key areas.  The most important of those factors is people.  Today is not different than 1920 in that people still comprise the core of any business.  All companies are made up of people who lead one another and perform work to create products or services.  Since people are the core of all business, it is critical to understand how to motivate them to achieve goals and create long term success for any company.

Business leadership and management are the core of a successful business and it is important to understand the difference between the two.  Both of these areas exist hand in hand with the other, but a good manager knows that a leader does far more than manage.  The easiest way to equate the difference between a leader and a manager is to understand the difference between goals and vision.

Goals are the day to day set of attainable benchmarks that a company sets forth through management to create success.  Goals can be large or small.  Many large goals are broken into smaller more easily achieved tasks.  The key for managers in all organizations is to understand how to create goals for their employees and help them achieve those ambitions.  According to Jim Collins a good manager “Organizes people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives” (Collins, 2006).  Organization of resources toward objectives is the key to a manager’s position in a company.  Managers fit a single role and it is one of setting and meeting objectives.

It is also important to note that a goal is very important for a business.  Many companies have a set of clear goals that must be met in order to be profitable or move towards the overall vision of the business.  When Microsoft had a goal of releasing its software before the end of the year for Vista, that goal was crucial in moving towards its vision of being the most important software development company in the world.  The release of its new Operating System software was also critical for Microsoft’s need to compete in the software market that has Apple and Linux moving in on its market share.  Microsoft needed to remain a competitive force in the software market in order to move forward with its vision and to achieve its financial goals.

This brings us to the concept of vision.  Vision is as broad a term in business as the concept should be in practice.  A company needs vision in order to find its center.  A vision should be broad and exciting.  Google has created a spectacular vision.  “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (Google, 2006).  The vision of a business is reflected in everything that it does and all that it wants to be.  Again, Google even used vision in its name.  “”Googol” is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, “Mathematics and the Imagination” by Kasner and James Newman. Google’s play on the term reflects the company’s mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web” (Google, 2006).

Vision is the core of leadership in business.  “Great leaders imagine an ideal future for their organizations that goes beyond the ordinary and beyond what others may have thought possible. They strive to realize significant achievements that others have not”  (Bateman, 2004).  Vision is also described by Jim Collins in this manner:  “Vision is simply a combination of three basic elements: (1) an organization’s fundamental reason for existence beyond just making money (often called its mission or purpose), (2) its timeless unchanging core values, and (3) huge and audacious—but ultimately achievable—aspirations for its own future” (Collins, 2000).

For a business to find true success the overall vision of the company must permeate into the goals of its managers.  Those managers in turn must use vision to create objectives to meet those goals. The integration and use of vision in order to achieve goals is critical in leadership.  Leadership can be found on all levels of a business or organization.  Managers, team leads and executives can all be good leaders.  But the importance of understanding vision in leadership is very important.

A leader in an organization must understand the dynamics of their team and the people that they have been entrusted to lead.  A leader will work to discover its team’s or organization’s core values and how those help align the team with its vision.  “First, you cannot “set” organizational values, you can only discover them. Nor can you “install” new core values into people. Core values are not something people “buy in” to. People must be predisposed to holding them. Executives often ask me, “How do we get people to share our core values?” You don’t. Instead, the task is to find people who are already predisposed to sharing your core values. You must attract and then retain these people and let those who aren’t predisposed to sharing your core values go elsewhere” (Collins, 2006).   A good leader will take the vision that they have been given or created and use this to create a tangible objective for their team.  The group will need to buy in to the vision.  This is where a good leader will understand that the need exists for balance between achieving goals and placating the team.  As a leader begins to develop their strategy, it is important to remember that they need the group in order to be a leader.  A good leader must have good followers.  The leader will take the time to get their team members to but into the vision and to make sure there is harmony in the team.  A combination of task performance and group maintenance based leadership skills is very important in becoming a well rounded leader (Bateman, 2004).

The overall understanding of vision and goals is the key to creating a good leadership set.  A leader must always remember that their loyalty is to their company and to their team.  A leader must use vision as a way to create a tangible buy in for their team and as a benchmark to create goals.  Managers will always be tasked with running day to day tasks, but leaders will rise to create opportunity and vision for their goals and get the people they work over to follow them towards long term objectives.

References:

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

Level 5 Leadership. JimmCollins.com. Retrieved Nov 3, 2006 from http://www.jimcollins.com/lab/level5/p3.html

Google Corporate Overview. Google.com. Retrieved Nov 3, 2006 from http://www.google.com/corporate/index.html

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

Understanding the process of making a decision is crucial for every executive and most managers.  The formal systems used to come to decisions are usually broken out into smaller bite sized models.  Each person in management must implement these models in their organization in order to move the business forward in a prudent fashion.  After some time, it will become apparent what helps the business in its decision making processes and what does not.  The templates become more refined and the processes become more streamlined as success is focused in on especially in regard to employee management.

For many businesses these decisions are critical to the life of the company.  In one instance, the decision making process for the company was critical to the lives of the employees.  This was the case with the Israeli division of Intel.   Dov Frohman was the executive in charge of the Israeli division of Intel.  Israel was the largest sector of Intel outside of the United States in a multi-billion dollar, global company.  Intel is the manufacturer of semiconductor chips and computer processors.

Dov was faced with the most important decision of his personal and professional life.  During the first Gulf War, Israel came under attack by Iraq and its SCUD missiles.  At the time the Israeli government has asked all non-essential businesses be closed and people prepare for chemical and biological warheads carries by the SCUDS.  Dov and his management team made the decision to remain open and ask their employees to come to work on a full schedule of day and night time shifts.

The decision to remain open was not made on the fly or without input from senior management.  As most companies in unstable areas of the world, Intel Israel had developed a Business Continuity plan.  The plan was developed by senior management and was based on the assumptions of a conventional war.  Yet, the war that was coming for Israel was different than what the plans had been developed for.  “But almost from the moment we finalized our contingency plan, it became clear that this war would be very different. The politics of the U.S.-created anti- Iraq coalition made it imperative that Israel stay out of the war. For that very reason, it was in Saddam Hussein’s interest to provoke Israel into intervening.  By September, U.S. satellites had detected the transport of ballistic missiles to western Iraq – a mere seven minutes’ travel time from Tel Aviv. Israeli defense officials were saying that a chemical attack on the country’s major population centers was likely –“ (Frohman, 2006).

Internal forces came into the decision making process as much as the external geopolitical forces at work. Over the few years before the war, there was a growing rumble from senior executives in the business that Intel Israel was unsafe for travel.  Other issues had arisen over control of key projects for Intel that the Israeli division was overseeing.  All of the forces came together with a strong feeling by Frohman that if the Israeli division saw any interruption in production, even for war, that not only would it spell the end of Intel’s support of the Israeli section of their business, but the tech sector in Israel would suffer as a whole.

Frohman called a meeting with his senior managers and assumed a very tough role as a leader.  “So as I drove to the task force meeting, I formulated what I saw then as an against-the-current decision to assure the company’s survival: We would ignore the civil defense directive. I was going to ask our people to come to work” (Frohman, 2006).

Frohman used a series of decision making tools in order to make a good choice for not only his employees in the sort term, but the business in the long term.  Frohman used a series of planning groups to develop a solid plan for war time business production.  As the new war came into formation, Frohman realized he would have to make a more complicated decision.  Internal company struggles coupled with external issues in Israel forced Frohman to meld a gut feeling of long term success for the business with the well being of his employees in the short term.

Frohman knew if he closed down for war, the Intel executives in the US would be justified in their beliefs that Intel Israel was unsafe and not fit for a development of critical projects.  If the plant was cut from large projects, the prestige of the tech sector in Israel as a whole would falter and the division would certainly face cutbacks and may even be relocated after a few years.  Frohman believed it was in the organization’s best interest to stay open.

The decision was made through careful critical thinking.  Each issue fed into the other and was part of a process in which the ultimate conclusion was clear.  Some of these decisions were made on gut feeling, but were corroborated by a group of senior mangers who helped to form the plan for implementing the overall strategy for the business during war.  Jim Collins believes that good decisions are made with careful thought and participation.  “Mediocre companies tend to make big decisions fast. Instead, the actual process of how great companies make their decisions [is that] they tend to engage in tremendous dialogue and debate. They have disagreements, and it is infused with analysis and fact finding, leading to a point of decision. Sometimes–usually–it is a long dialogue; sometimes it is relatively short” (Greatness, 2006).

In retrospect, the decision to remain open was a key factor to the long term success of Intel in Israel.  The Israeli division proved that it could shoulder the load of Intel it was asked to, even during war.  “Today, Intel Israel is the headquarters or the company’s global R&D and product development in wireless technology, s well as a major center for hip fabrication. The organization is Israel’s largest private employer (and second largest employer overall), with workforce of about 6,600, which is set to reach nearly 10,000 by 2008. In 2005, Intel Israel’s exports totaled $1.2 billion and represented 14% of the total exports of Israel’s electronics and information industry. And in December 2005, Intel announced that it would invest an additional $3.5 billion in a new fab in Israel, the largest single investment by a corporation in the history of the country” (Frohman, 2006).

References:

Frohman, D.  (2006, July).  Leadership Under Fire.  Harvard Business Review, 84 (12), 124-131. Retrieved November 20, 2006, from EBSCO Database

Measures of Greatness.  Associations Now. Retrieved Nov 20, 2006 from http://www.asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/ANowDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=20825

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