Help Desk Value

“You know all the problems; you’re going to run operations.”

Those lofty words from the company VP of Systems 25+ years ago launched a career into Operations

and sealed my commitment to the help desk as an integral part of any IT Operation.

Not having a clue of what a help desk was didn’t deter me from accepting the assignment, and along with the role came Cindy, a particularly no-nonsense person with great tenacity, and my first managerial report.

ITIL was just being borne in the UK, and hadn’t made its way across the pond. Fortunately, IBM had a process model we were able to use, and some software we could use to track “calls.”

We printed labels for every telephone in the company and with their application the Help Desk was open. By following some very simple processes, such as tracking every ticket until closed, making sure the Help Desk phone was always answered 24x7, producing reports of every problem type and every resolution type we were able to begin to form analysis of how we could best work to prevent calls in the first place.

This led to the publication of a Help Desk guide…a sort of User Manual for folks to consult for self service prior to calling in to the help desk.

And once we knew what all the problems were, and were able to address them, we were off and running expanding the Help Desk to take calls for telephone communications and some building maintenance items.

Over the years the Help Desk has become a more formal part of each IT organization, and with a variety of process models to choose from (ITIL, ISO 20000, HDI), organizations can select and implement processes comfortable and effective for their organization.

Help Desks also frequently do first level support, accessing PCs remotely and performing trouble ticket resolution. Whenever support can be provided at the first tier, client satisfaction is raised and the service is provided at a lower cost.

Telecommunications technologies make it easy to queue calls, and implement work from home and/or follow the sun models.

Analysis of root cause is still an important factor in help desks. By understanding root cause, the real underlying issues can be addressed.

There’s an adage that the more things change the more they stay the same. The sophistication of Help Desks and Help Desk tools has increased substantially. The basic tenants of customer service remain – be helpful, take all calls, follow through, keep the customer informed.

Cindy is a Principal IS Technical Analyst for a major retailer.

Big Bang Doesn’t Work

“We have no choice. We have to do a hot cut Friday night. It’ll be tough, but we’ll have the weekend to clean up. We’ll be fine on Monday.”

Ever hear words to this effect? I have. Multiple times. And I’ve always regretted not pushing back when I hear them! Whenever I’ve been lulled into the wisdom of the “big bang”, minor issues are amplified due to the scope.

Whether bravado, fact or simply be worn down, the charge to victory was compelling. While nobody likes hearing “Big Bang,” words like “simpler, cleaner, quicker, less risky, technically required” get tossed around like a football on a fall weekend.

My contention is people lull themselves into a sense of “Big Bang” being the only way to do a deployment. The ugly truth is with the exception perhaps of the Year 2000 a decade ago, most times a “big bang” isn’t needed. In fact, NOT doing “big bang” often requires more planning and creativity and yields a more satisfactory cutover.

For example, when deploying a new phone system, why not do a group or floor at a time? And can’t the old phones be kept in place for a week or so (if only for outgoing calls?)

When deploying a trading system, perhaps start with one commodity type.

Moving a data center? Bring up the network to the other center, and move servers/applications/data a little at a time.

Yes, you may have to run systems in parallel. You may have to have contingencies for “failing back.” Your users will have to understand how you are doing the transition, and will have to help make sure systemic controls are in place.

These are good things.

You will have to make sure you keep the books and records of the firm intact. There’s no excuse for values getting corrupt due to the transition.

If they worse thing happening during a transition is your users declare the target environment solid and want to accelerate the transitions…that’s a good thing. And this isn’t an invitation for “big bang” after a short trail….stick to your guns for an orderly transition as planned. Acceleration is good, having an excuse to do “big bang” isn’t!

The Next Generation

This is a post about the generational differences in IT staff work habits. First, there needs to be a disclaimer. This is not about age…this is about work ethics and habits, and generational differences in the IT environment.

As a father of two twenty somethings, there are differences in how we think, how we act, and what we do in the office environment. So, to distinguish between the two groups, I’ll draw parallels to fathers/mothers and children.

As a father, my first set of IT jobs required a suit and tie. Even my summer job as a computer operator required me to wear a tie, with the jacket hung smartly on the back of the chair. In those days, computer printers were BIG, with 132 hammers noisily pounding on a rapidly spinning chain requiring oiling similar to a chain saw. Big, noisy, and oily. A machine’s machine.

Today, casual is the order of business. Not business casual, either. It amazing staunchly conservative financial services companies now allow shorts. Why not? We have laser, ink jet or ion deposition printers…operating quietly in the halls and on desks of many businesses. Having to load the paper or replace the ink/toner cartridge is something akin to a messy task. Come on kids, when was the last time you oiled the printer?

My peers have a work ethic definable as “old school.” They “do what it takes” to get the job done, even if it means serious personal sacrifice and long hours.

The newer crowd tends to work their assigned hours, and often little more. They’ve seen their parents toiling long hours, and missed their moms and dads at different events. They’ve also see companies where layoffs were once never considered reducing headcounts to achieve financial targets. The next generation has said they are going to keep their priorities straight.

The day a large financial services firm fired a large number of people for sharing a piece of pornography (“the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life” commented the hip HR person) is engrained in my mind. Pornography has no place in the workplace, and this firm was (appropriately) stamping it out immediately. “Company resources may only be used for legitimate company business,” was the mantra.

Yet a 23 year old recently commented her internet access being restricted at work was ‘harassment.’ “How can I find another job if I don’t have internet access? I’ll simply die without Facebook.” While Facebook and pornography may not be the same thing the concept of “internet access as an entitlement” vs “internet access as a company resource,” is an interesting dichotomy.

Of course, this brings up the whole topic of social media. Yes, I had sausage and eggs for breakfast and catfish for dinner, and can tweat this to the world immediately posting on my Facebook or LinkedIn pages. While an innocuous tweat arguably of little interest anyone, I’ve noticed parents using Twitter to comment on their lives in intriguing 140 character tweats. And obviously my perception of the importance of tweats is misguided since now Google is indexing all this vital information. Most parents are somewhat cautious in what they tweat because they have lived through the Watergate era.

The young’uns use Facebook to post the immediate details of their lives, and do so in gory detail for all their “friends” to see. It’s like Facebook has become a psychiatric journal for all to see and comment on. “After last night…I have NO idea how I am going to survive the pub crawl on Saturday lol,” is an example of a self incriminating statement from Facebook.

Larger companies have little discussed portions of their firms mining this data. It’s arguably no different than clipping services from years ago scouring the papers for executive and company names on police blotters and news columns, with the exception of being self reported and self published.

So generations change, and I’m not my Dad and my kids are themselves. Who has it “right” or at least better? What are the tensions between the two styles? How can the two work together well?

Each group brings unique perspectives to the environment, and we should work to accept the best of all worlds and move forward together. Parents often have wisdom, and children just don’t know what can’t be done and therefore often surprise be exceeding expectations.

The truth is I’m OK with smart business casual, and think shorts in the office environment are a little too casual. Working to get projects completed on time is a good thing, and let’s not mess up our family lives. Company resources are just that, company resources. And I’m OK if you want to share the intimate details of your life, and respectfully suggest you do so either with a smaller, intimate group or with the decorum appropriate for an auditorium of people.

That’s my perspective. What’s yours?

The Middle Management Crisis

The VP of a major retailer was very clear, “The biggest issue I have is helping my managers learn to lead people.”

This was in response to the softball question, “what keeps you up at night?”

And he was serious in his response. “We’ve taken technicians and put them into management roles. This created a gap in the technical space, and now has us scrambling on how to pair the new managers up with experienced managers so they can begin learning the art of people management.”

This sentiment was echoed by a mature contributor in a financial services IT organization. “I watch managers 10 years my junior make mistake after mistake leading people…it’s very frustrating. People are unhappy in their jobs, when the economy turns staff will begin jumping.”

While both organizations are in different industries, they share many characteristics. They are leaders in their industries, and reacted quickly to the 2008-2009 downturn with immediate staff reductions. Like many organizations, the middle management tier was immediately impacted: the “top of the house” was needed to lead during the crisis, and the front line technical staff was needed to “keep the lights on.” The middle management ranks were the first to suffer reductions.

As the recovery begins slowly gaining steam, companies should begin examining how they are positioned to lead into a recovering time.

We are not advocating a return to the management structure in place before the downturn; some of the reductions and realignments position companies with strength going forward. (“Placeholder” managers are best left finding other more suitable roles!)

It is wise to begin assessing middle management bench strength and making adjustments appropriate for continued growth:

• Training – have newly minted managers received the necessary support to effectively succeed in their new roles? We’re specifically talking leadership training, not training in administrative aspects of a managerial role so many companies pass off as management training (salary administration, reviews, etc.)
• Mentoring – a low cost, high value approach ensuring high potential managers receive the coaching needed to lead
• Role Assessment – do the managers have the “right stuff” to successfully lead, or is it best to begin the process of allowing them to return to their technical roots while backfilling the managerial role they’ll be vacating

We’ll leave it to scholars (and the 1983 comedic movie Trading Places) in determining whether leaders are born or bred (nature versus nurture.) Our view is more pragmatic.

Companies are wise to examine their IT leadership structure and begin addressing any gaps so the IT staff stays engaged building the company rather than building their resume.

Where are Businesses with DR and Business Continuity?

I recently refinanced my house for a lower interest rate. The final days leading to the closing give insight to the business continuity and DR improvements companies can strive to achieve.

My refinance was with the mortgage holder. This US bank, one of the big four and the recent benefactor of bailout funds, was more than happy to accept my refinance application.

As a bill-paying-never-in-arrears-with-my-mortgage customer, the approval process was lengthy. (“If only you’d missed some payments we could make this happen quickly” Argh.) Once finally approved, I wanted to move quickly to the closing to immediately begin reaping the benefits of the lower rate.

The closing was scheduled with great expectation for 8AM on a Wednesday.

This is when the company flaws became pronounced.

At 2:00PM the day before the closing the bank called, “We’re sorry, we don’t have the final closing numbers because our computers are down.”

“So a big name bank with billings of dollars (and bonuses to match) can’t access my closing account information. OK, interesting… banks should have generally available systems, outages are really unacceptable. Oh well, I’m sure it is temporary,” I thought.

Wrong…the next day, around 9:00AM, we rescheduled to 2PM.

And then we rescheduled to 4:30PM.

At this point, I asked for a manager. The manager sheepishly acknowledged, “We’ve now got the final numbers, but the Title Company we use has staff ‘working from home’ due to heavy snow in Maryland. They not able to work effectively from home.”

So this bank subcontracts certain key elements of the closing process to other firms…and obviously the business continuity plans are ineffective. When was the last time these plans were exercised? If Maryland is getting hammered with snow, why not redirect the work to the west coast? Why isn’t the bank asking these questions of the firm they use?

Another day goes by, and I’m still paying the old, higher rate on the mortgage. Somehow, this doesn’t seem right. And what reasonable recourse do I have? I am paying the bank for a service, and they hired the other companies. The DR and continuity plans are clearly inadequate. How do I get reimbursed for the extra day at the old interest rate? How do we address the poor service issue?

As a customer, there’s little we can do beyond being vocal, especially at the end of a long road. The companies providing the weak service get paid no matter what, and are not held accountable.

Ironically, if a gas pump at a local gas station doesn’t work, you either use a different pump or go to a different station. There is a direct impact on the sales and profitability of the station. It’s a simple model.

How does a bank get held accountable by their customers? Go to a different bank…easily said, and harder to do at the end of a process. I don’t envy Department of the Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner trying to sort the bank accountability issue!

Did I eventually close? Yes. I did discover this bank has an active social media monitoring effort. To their credit, they picked up on some tweets in the waning moments of the process and tried assisting.

The closing attorney and I did have a bit of a disagreement; I insisted the computer generated forms use my name and not someone else. We’ll talk data quality in another post!

Let’s Replace Employee Surveys

Companies spend large sums of money on employee surveys. What do they really learn from them?

Human Resources’ (HR) types frequently argue anonymous surveys give the timid a voice. While it’s important for everyone to have a voice, my sense is the process is fundamentally flawed. Please note upfront lifelong learning and improvement is something we value deeply, it’s the tool we are questioning.

HR spends time pulling together the reporting relationships and making sure there are ‘enough’ staff to assure anonymity. Often, newly minted front line supervisors, where often the most learning can take place, aren’t measured as they have too small a staff. To see the impact of the survey and subsequent improvement planning, surveys take place over a number of years. Since few organizations are static, managers/staff change roles making year over year comparisons difficult.

In my experience, year one establishes a baseline. Clearly everyone has improvement opportunities. Managers getting feedback is an imperative part of the process. And admittedly, it does force discussions. One very senior manager I know was stunned to find all her staff gave her low scores on recognition. Where it was a uniform rating, the veil of anonymity was pierced. The subsequent discussion was valuable, and indeed the manager evolved the behavior. Was a survey needed for this gold nugget?

Generally, the second year tends to have declining overall scores. While there are many hypotheses for this, one resonating for me is an improvement expectation is established with the staff by simply doing the survey. The second year exposes a gap between the improvement potential and the expectation. Managers are often dismayed when the rating hasn’t improved in year two.

Then the staff gets more work. While managers do improvement planning in year one, it tends to be a minimally engaged effort as many managers do the minimum needed. When the improvement isn’t as substantive as the manager expects, the staff must be engaged in an overall improvement process. HR submits this is a good thing…the discussion continues. Many staff members, however, feel they are asked to do additional work on the manager’s behalf, yielding an unintended boomerang effect.

Year three tends to have an improvement over years one and two. HR types suggest this indicates a valid and valuable process, and managers feel they are vindicated. Many staff members submit it is easier to give improved scores than have to do all the planning work. Have things fundamentally improved?

Having experience with two household name firms providing survey vehicles, they each have questions (in the same space) generating a great deal of debate. One asks a question along the lines of, “Do you have a best friend at work?” The controversy tends to come from the word,”best,” staunchly defended by the survey company. Many people look at a “best” friend as someone where long term deep relationships are established with an unwavering support structure. I can still like working at an organization and really like the people I work with…and frankly I’m “ok” if my best friend doesn’t work there.

Another firm uses a question we like better, “Would you recommend your firm to a friend as a place to work?” Both questions get to an affinity of the staff to the company as a whole. We like the work reference question better because it nets out ALL the inputs (the company/department culture, benefits, the cafeteria, parking, managers) to a single litmus test. The answer to this question is key.

Do employee surveys lead to improvement? Of course. Any vehicle giving managers feedback for improvement must provide some value. Do they provide the best return on investment?

While there are many alternatives, well orchestrated 360 feedback can often provide some valuable highly leveragable feedback. The manager selects staff and peers where feedback is valued. We don’t get to choose our managers in most cases. The feedback tends to be unvarnished, and discussions can take place in a more private setting.

Caution: “Analytic-type” managers often take the numbers too literally. They can get obsessed with the standard deviation of every response. A third-party coach can help interpret and focus on the improvement opportunities.

Real-time surveying is another tool. (Think GE-Workout in the digital age.) This requires a large group of people. You pose a question. People “vote”. The aggregate results are shown to all. The manager either responds to the group, or seeks clarity from the group. The group really feels like the manager is listening and engaged. It also shows initiative on the part of the manager, rather than the manager just doing the survey because their manager (or HR) instructed them to do it.

One of my favorite observations comes from working with a new HR generalist. The HR generalist was seen as part of the IT organization, attending all team meetings, etc. We’d have regular 1:1s, often in my office as we were in an area removed from HR and the generalist wanted to be seen. Whenever she left our 1:1, she’d head back to her work area. Inevitably, she would be stopped by staff repeatedly to talk about family, training needs, weekend plans, their latest project, etc. HR was seen as someone genuinely interested in people’s growth and development. While this is a part of the manager’s job, having a non-managerial resource for trusted conversation is invaluable. What a shame many companies have relegated this to an 800 number!

The other managerial vehicle often overlooked is the 1:1. 1:1s are supposed to be about the people, not about the projects. Staff should be greeted with the same question for each 1:1, and should learn the 1:1 is about them. Once trust is established in the 1:1, everyone’s voice can be heard.

There are many manager tools available in this space. Managers should use these types of tools to keep their managerial skills current.

To be clear, we don’t think employee surveys damage an organization. Something is better than nothing. Ongoing conversation in a non-punitive, growth oriented manner is where we believe the biggest impacts can be realized.

Let’s work on the values of honesty, highest ethics, open candid discussion, leadership…

The Insanity Must Stop

“The insanity must stop,” the newly minted IT director shouted in shear frustration.
After numerous outages caused by people making mistakes combined with some equipment malfunctions, the IT team was just beaten down. .

Too many long days, combined with long nighttime problem resolution conference calls, prompted a vocalization capturing what everyone was thinking. Saying it out loud informally made it OK to discuss the situation and even chuckle about it.

“Being lucky” often means covering the contingencies so when things go awry the organizational and computerized systems can recover gracefully. When you find yourself in a “bad patch,” don’t invocate “Murphy’s Law” as the culprit. The culprit is…you.

You are positioned and expected to lay out the processes and procedures to enable stability. A “Production Stabilization Program” is often indicated when the organization has grown very quickly and/or implemented more change than the organization/systems can tolerate.

Understanding what is going on in a “bad patch” is critical. Analyze logs and incident reports identifying common themes and root cause. Talk to your staff about what they are feeling and seeing, and what solutions they may offer.

It is often useful to categorize the situation using a cause and effect diagram (Fishbone / Ishikawa ) or borrowing from a SWOT analysis (SWOT is as an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, categorized by internal vs. external factors.) Such a categorization allows you to visually identify the opportunity areas for the organization. On this, the tool selection is far secondary to the capturing and categorization.

With the knowledge of the impacting factors, plans can be put in place to address. Some of the fixes may be quick (i.e.: we need to reprovision some storage to address the failures) and others may become longer term, strategic initiatives (i.e.: we need to implement a disaster recovery strategy we can use “daily” mitigating outages). In this case, having a plan and implementing becomes a very sensitive issue, and one teams can rally behind.

We often hear it’s hard to be responding on a daily basis to issues and working what’s essentially a separate project to identify impacts and develop plans to address. Managers need to be sensitive when the long hours are taking a toll…when staff becomes “snappy” or “grumpy”, it’s not the best time to add work. Often a fresh set of eyes and external perspective is invaluable.

Anyone being brought to bear on Production Stabilization Programs needs to have the professional maturity and sensitivity to be perceived as not out to “shoot the messenger” or solve all the problems of the world. They are working through a separate process, and their role is about process. If the staff misunderstands this, morale will suffer substantially!

The root cause identification and articulation (at a high, process level) and subsequent planning effort can be best put together by a team external to the issues, clearly with input from the affected team, with a review and vetting by the team for management consumption.

So when you are tempted to enlist Murphy’s Law as the cause, remember what Abe Lincoln said, “when you’re being run out of town on a rail, get in front of the crowd and make it look like you’re leading the parade.” Take the bull by the horns and lead the team to stability!

Respect thy Operators

Information Technology runs with two shifts in many companies. The day shift is made up of executive meetings, board rooms, and initiatives. The night shift is covered by the heart and soul of any Information Technology (IT) group, a group of people huddled in dimly lit rooms staring at flat panels.

The night shift is covered by computer/network Operators, often the most modestly paid in IT. Have you ever considered the irony of the success of many companies resting in the hands of someone rarely seen?

Being a computer operator is analogous to being a police officer. There are hours of boring, mundane work occasionally highlighted by periods of shear adrenaline. It is during these periods where misalignment between the day shift (CIO) and night shift are highlighted.

CIOs spend a great deal of time shaping strategy, and communicating same to staff (often in large group settings.) While these sessions are being presented (often with catered food), the night Operators are sleeping. Operators need to support strategy in an appropriate way, and this often means keeping things running smoothly. For example, while the CIO will work on new means for transportation, Operators keep the trains running on time.

CIOs achieve longevity of 4.4 years, according to a 2008 “State of the CIO” report, often striving their entire career for the role. Most operators are in their role a much longer period, outlasting CIOs, and often fall into the role.

Due to their unique hands-on perspective galvanized over time, Operators are often a wealth of information. They know the stable applications; they know the staff members who will respond and (most importantly) help solve issues. They often have a 6^th sense for when something is going very, very wrong. With a little attention, Operators can become trusted allies for any CIO – literally the CIO’s eyes and ears at night.

How does a CIO build rapport? It’s not hard. Spend some time with the Operators on their turf, on their shift. Ask what they do “during the day,” and where their interests lie. Make note of their spouse’s names and children (as appropriate.)

And listen. Listen to what is working, and what isn’t working. Ask what you can do to improve their world, and act on it.

If subsequently an Operator makes an error, build on the rapport you’ve established to understand how you can help them succeed. Operators know when mistakes are made, and genuinely feel bad about it. When mistakes are made, consider what you can do to help the Operator be more successful.

Having sufficient processes in Operations is a management function. Operators are accustomed to doing the same thing on a predictable, repeatable basis. They want and need to understand when changes are made (in a respectful way.) Operators want to please. Often, the instruction they receive is in the form of a never ending series of corrective emails. A single, living process and procedures guide (written, wiki, web) is something operators can reference is a necessity. When you spend time with the Operators, ask them to see the processes and procedures so you can determine if the materials are reasonable and up to date. If not, charge your management team with getting them updated, with the “clients” being the Operations team. Make the solutioning a collaborative team effort. External facilitation can be used if the team is unaccustomed to working in a collaborative manner or if the task seems insurmountable.

Operators are no-nonsense people, and an informal session with them on their shift to explain major changes succinctly will help them buy in.

While it may take time to build rapport, with the Operators generally reticent to open up, the CIO who drops by the Command Center regularly to acknowledge efforts and “catch people doing things right” will solidify their relationships. Remembering Operators are often working holidays, a quick call to wish them the best, and checking how the food you sent in tasted, will help the Operators see you are a regular person, too.

And like the police, night Operators know where to get really unique food at odd times of night. Enjoy!

Campaign Technology – A Voter’s Perspective

The Massachusetts senatorial three way race offers an interesting look at how technology is being used to garner voter commitments between Republican Scott Brown, Democrat Martha Coakley, and Independent Joe Kennedy (not related to the Massachusetts’ Kennedy Dynasty). The special election selecting a replacement for the late Senator Kennedy offers an unfettered view of technological use, from a voter’s perspective.

The following table includes hyperlinks to the candidate’s social media sites harvested from each candidate’s main web page.

Scott Brown	Martha Coakley	Joe Kennedy
		-

The independent Joseph L. Kennedy has largely limited his campaign to debate appearances. From a technology standpoint, Candidate Kennedy’s technology use is all very basic, somewhat surprising from someone who is a Vice President - Architecture & User Experience for a major Boston-Based Financial services firm. Mr. Kennedy’s materials do not have the appearance of being professionally produced.

Candidate Coakley’s website was developed by Liberty Concepts, with Candidate Brown’s put together by the Prosper Group. These are obviously specialist groups and both sites look very well designed.

Telephony is a major weapon in the Brown and Coakley camps.

Massachusetts voters have received phone calls from Presidents Obama and Clinton, American Idol contestant and Scott Brown daughter Ayla Brown, and Red Sox hurler Curt Schilling.

Brown and Coakley’s websites also encourage individuals to make telephone calls from their homes. This has created an annoying number of calls to individual homes (up to six a day.) Scott Brown is using technology from FLS Connect. This technology opened the campaign to callers from outside Massachusetts, dramatically increasing the number of available callers against an unwavering (in size) voter population. Better integrating these technologies would allow lesser annoyance to voters.

Social media is playing a major role. President Obama is issuing tweets in support, and sending You Tube videos.

While each candidate gives the impression of being active with social media, each is using to varying degrees.

Brown is issuing Tweets, including some rapidly corrected “Apparently, you are having a rally tomorrow and I’m invited: http://bit.ly/5gfbXl ” became “You are having a rally tomorrow and I’m invited: http://bit.ly/5gfbXl” an hour later. Facebook and YouTube were updated regularly, while flickr became stagnant since December 21. TXT messages were used to update followers on campaign activities.

To her credit, Coakley kept all her social media updated and active. Her tweets were generally thank yous…and appreciation of people waiting for her scheduled arrivals.

Kennedy sent a series of Tweets asking for information to be sent on to the media and updating campaign issues on the fly, “Joe Kennedy For Senate Campaign Promise: I will erase the “DO NOT CALL LIST” political exemption so you will not have to tollerate calls from Political Campaigns.” His last YouTube update was November 17.

The search engine optimization (SEO) race was won handily by Scott Brown’s campaign. Martha Coakley’s campaign was easier to find, especially after the DNC started to help. This author had to search to find Mr. Kennedy’s web site (using Google).

What are the lessons for the candidates?

• All the web sites identify issues easily. This is a help for voters doing research
  


• Search Engine Optimization is understood, and you need to use it.
  


• Social Media can be used to your advantage. COORDINATE/REVIEW/SPELLCHECK your tweets as you would other messages. If you are not going to stay up on a given media, don’t include it as part of your strategy.
  


• Try not to annoy voters with too much use of a media…repeated home telephone calls on the same topic are not endearing.
  

Good luck!

The Argument against Organizational Silos

Being from the Midwest, SILOS were a common sight. A silo is a structure for storing bulk materials. Silos are more commonly used for storage of grain, coal, cement, carbon black, wood chips, food products and sawdust.

Why are SILOS in place in IT organizations?

We have organizational silos in IT as a way to structure the department or division into components we can manage. While the organizational structure is often started around a “target” (often defined by external factors around responsibilities or metrics for depth/breadth of a targeted managerial scope), they often evolve to being structured around people. For example, we may start with an organization defined by ANALYSIS, DEVELOPMENT, OPERATIONS with a pure distinction, and then move “maintenance & adhoc reporting” between development and operations based on the people in these roles.

With the target organization in place, we then build management systems reflecting this structure. Objectives, budgets, headcounts, reporting and bonuses all get layered around this structure. Each silo begins to have a well defined culture with unique operating norms.

While fine on paper and intriguing to consider, the SILO structure breaks down when a project transcends a silo. We forget the reason we have an IT area is to support and improve the business process. Wherever there’s a handoff there’s potential for friction or something to be missed.

For example, when the CIO makes a commitment for delivery, one would expect all departments to line up around said commitment. In some organizations, the only group aware of the commitment is the business analysis area, who then transitions a commitment to a project request to development, who then makes a valiant attempt to release something to production only to get pushback from Operations on why something is being “slammed” into production.

When commitments are shared across the organization, success is often more readily attained.

Another example is around procurement. Procurement may be within the IT organization, or external in an administrative area. How does IT interface to procurement? If by providing simple requisitions yielding a purchase order, the contribution of procurement is minimized. When procurement is involved throughout the process, breakthrough performance (total lowest cost) can take place.

You may be thinking here’s another bigot for a matrixed organization, and I’m not. In my experience people often get confused when in a fully matrixed organization as to who is calling the shot.

I believe organizing around the process is the key. Yes, the traditional model can stay in place; the components are rewarded based on successful delivery. Everyone is pulling on the same rope regardless of the functional area. There is ALIGNMENT across the organization.

With alignment, great things can happen!