From The Captain's Chair

Business Leader of the Future: Chief Information Officer

2012-06-19T22:16:00.000-04:00

I found this article and I think it illustrates where the CIO is and will be. I have been caught in this turning point for the last 2 or 3 years.

Business Leader of the Future: Chief Information Officer

By John Earnhardt [view online]

The pace of IT and data is moving exponentially. With a rapidly growing networks across all industries, keeping track of all these connection points will give rise to a new business leader: The Chief Information Officer, or CIO.

Why will a CIO be such a crucial part of future business?

In 2008 alone, humans created more data than all the years of human history…combined. With growths in data creation comes a rapid increase in network speeds. In the past 40 years, network speeds have increased 179,000 times. Not only is there more data to consume, but it can also be accessed quicker and easier than ever before.

Employees believe they should be empowered to tap into these networks of data. In fact, two-thirds of employees believe they should be able to have access to information using company issued devices at any time and from any location. With these remote access points at their fingertips, 60% of employees believe they don’t even require an office to be effective.

By 2015, tools and automation will eliminate 25% of IT labor hours. Data will continue to increase and the rate at which it’s accessed will continue to rise. In the middle of it all will be the CIO, keeping a thumb on the pulse of information and steering companies in the direction they need to move.

Do you have a CIO to keep everything together?

IT Strategic Planning Model

2012-05-29T12:06:00.000-04:00

I found this today online and I want to share it with you all.

IT strategic planning is a one of the principal duties of a CIO, yet paradoxically it is the one activity that creates the most trouble for them. The real shame of it is creating an IT strategic plan can be a very straightforward and simple thing to do. Simple in that it is not a complex activity. Since I prefer to keep things both simple and easy what follows is a very straightforward, linear, strategic planning process.

This approach to IT strategic planning mimics other linear planning models common in IT strategic planning. The linear characteristic of this model should be recognized as being consistent with IT Governance frameworks of ISO/IEC, ITIL/ITSM, and COBIT (ITGI) making it even more useful.

To begin with, allow me to affirm my belief that IT strategic planning must be developed out of and be in alignment with the institution’s planning model. Allow me to also assert experienced planners know the IT strategic planning process begins only after the institutional planning starts to take shape or once departmental plans emerge. This is in part why some industry analysts describe IT strategic planning not in terms of alignment choosing instead to use concurrency.

Purpose of IT Strategic Planning

Many CIO’s will argue the necessity of IT strategic planning is not always clear. Their argument arises from the notion the IT plan should be fully incorporated into the institution’s plan believing a separate plan increases the chances of not being focused on institutional priorities. The predominant view is the IT plan is essential because it serves as both a codification of the IT go-forward strategy and a communication tool for consumers of the plan. The plan accomplishes this by reciting the current institutional issues and priorities which have IT dependencies, the intended response to those matters and the supporting rationale. In other words, the plan solidifies the current thinking for IT governance.

When thought of in this way the plan is seen as an actionable blueprint from the CIO on what IT is going to do and why, so the organization can endorse the plan. This is both an affirmative endorsement and the acknowledgement nothing has been overlooked. To break it down into a more elemental explanation – in the event the CIO gets hit by a beer wagon (I do live in Wisconsin), or runs off to join the circus (also a Wisconsin thing), the institution will have the blueprints it needs to complete the plan.

Finally, many compliance regulations and external auditors require or at least expect to see a plan when taking a top-down approach to compliance and IT controls. The existence of an approved IT strategic plan reduces the risk of IT misalignment and the risk of bad IT investments or insufficient investment in IT.

IT Strategic Planning Process

One thing I have learned is simple models supported with simple visuals makes it much easier to communicate ideas and create consistency between other related ideas. Readers of this blog will recall this diagram from the CIO 90-Day Plan. I use this visual over and over again to help me stay focused, to convey the simple basis for IT governance while communicating to the IT department and our customers how we go about continuous improvement. The visual is also useful tool for developing a plan driven by continuously assessing alignment, approach and results.

A CIO can facilitate a discussion with the IT managers by working around this diagram capturing the responses and ideas into bullets to form the shell of a solid plan. On any area of the diagram where you get stuck take that as an action to develop that capability. For instance, if you can’t really answer if you are doing the right things then record an action item to develop a mechanism to identify the right things but call them priorities or something similar.

If you are willing to go a bit further the ideas from the continuous improvement visual can then support a simple representation of a typical IT strategic planning process. The visual demonstrates the relationships between the questions to be addressed in the planning process and the outputs that correspond to the answers. It is also intended to anchor the use of key performance indicators in a balanced scorecard early in the planning process.

For CIO’s struggling with developing a plan should find these visuals to be very useful in simplifying the intent and the actual task of creating the plan. In fact you can often create a solid plan in a day or less if you focus on these visuals and use bullets instead of paragraphs since it is only when you try to construct a more sophisticated document that paralysis sets in.

So maybe you create a simple chart by merging the two ideas together so that you apply each portion of the continuous improvement diagram across the planning questions. So for Are We Doing the Right Things consider you current state, you desired future state, how you plan to get there and the measures you will use to know when you have arrived.

Just stay focused on substance. Bullets first, and paragraphs when time permits. I also advice CIO’s to avoid the drain of creating an IT mission and vision statement. Your mission is that of your institution and your vision ought to be supporting its mission.

12 critical insights on the state of IT in 2012

2012-05-10T12:14:00.001-04:00

Here is a nice article I came across today by Jason Hiner Techrepublic

As you can see, IT is in a flux….. and at some point you will be able to see a clear point where you can say “IT Before” and “IT After”. The goal is to adopt the change ASAP.
This article and the next to come are all pointing to the same thing, where is IT going.

Takeaway: Today’s IT departments are in flux and under pressure. Here’s an explanation of why, and advice on how IT can change the equation.

I regularly moderate The Great Debate over on ZDNet and it’s always a fun opportunity to get a couple smart commentators together and let them cross swords over a controversial topic. However, this week the debate was especially great, as TechRepublic’s Justin James and ZDNet’s Dana Gardner clashed on the topic of IT Department: Cost Center or Profit Center? It ended up being about the current trajectory of the IT department and how to change it.

If you missed it, then you missed a crash course in why many IT departments are struggling today and advice on how IT can transform itself into an indispensable force. Fortunately, you can still read the entire debate online, but I’ve also selected and curated 12 of the most important insights from Gardner and James into the following list.

1. The problem with IT
Justin James: “Most IT departments consistently fail to deliver value! When all you’ve done is replace the intraoffice mail system with email and IM, and replaced the filing cabinets and accounts ledgers with databases and applications, all for a price so expensive that you wonder if it wasn’t cheaper to just pay people to do it instead, then of course IT doesn’t look like a profit center. And it isn’t. And when folks offer suggestions on how to improve it, the IT department likes to say ‘no.’ Sure, they usually have a good reason for it, but it still feels like stonewalling to the business folks.”

2. Losing the stranglehold
Justin James: “The IT department is losing its stranglehold on the corporate IT resources, now that individuals can BYOD and departments can source IT from the cloud. This forces IT to work harder and smarter within the organization, when in the past they could adopt an attitude of, this is what were giving you, and you had better like it!”

3. A new class of IT
Dana Gardner: “Rather than remove IT in favor of cloud or SaaS — businesses must embrace a larger role of IT as services broker… Already a new class of strategic IT organization is emerging, one that uses cloud, mobile, mixed-sourcing, strategic souring, ecommerce as core components. By delivering business services better than competitors -– even partners — the modern value chain flows to them. Via innovation, they take more share, more margin, more opportunity.”

4. The Amazon revenue model
Dana Gardner: “Before Amazon Web Services, a.k.a. Amazon’s public cloud, IT there was a cost center, enabling their online retail and business functions. Now, IT is a profit center, adding entirely new revenues to Amazon in the form of paid cloud services. I’m seeing companies now following that model, taking their IT capabilities and making them the product, of combining their digital services and market insights to forge whole new services, and bringing in whole new revenues. So the discussion has changed. It’s not how will IT support the old business, it’s how is IT able to create new lines of business.”

5. The Apple innovation model
Justin James: “Most companies view the accounting department as a cost center, a necessary evil. Then you get a company like Apple, who puts a lot of really smart accountants and lawyers to work, and they come up with revolutionary new ways of exploiting loopholes in tax laws, and all of a sudden, the accounting department is adding BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to the bottom line. They transformed the ‘cost center’ accounting department into a ‘profit center.’ How many IT departments are doing the same kind of thing? Not many.”

6. The SMB model of IT
Justin James: ”A lot of IT departments are struggling to define their mission, struggling to be relevant to the business, and struggling to deliver real, provable value and ROI… and I think that in the next few years, we’re going to see the small business model of IT - cloud services bolstered by a small cadre of on-site techs and a handful of part-time experts or consultants for the big stuff - start to move up the food chain.”

7. Measure and report
Dana Gardner: “Measure whatever you can on how IT impacts business. Make the causal connections between a new application that improves a process and the results of the process. Use social tools inside the enterprise to do polls, to ask users to tell the good and bad about what IT is doing. Like with app dev, do scrums in the ops side to determine performance and then share that back to the developers and forwards to the users. A lifecycle approach where there is visibility from IT … will help improve perceptions.”

8. The organizational dilemma
Justin James: “Which departments have the foresight and willingness and open-mindedness to work hand-in-hand with IT? Which employees are willing to make the decisions to go ahead, knowing full well that the process is going to possibly cost a lot of people their jobs? That’s probably one of the biggest issues: folks know in the back of their heads that a push to modernize can cost jobs.”

9. Find a hero project
Dana Gardner: “IT must pick its first battles very carefully. It’s essential to show benefits early on to get buy-in later, and make those perceptions shift to the goodness of IT. So find a pain point for the leadership: Perhaps it’s visibility into some business process, or ability to use data better and faster. Business leaders love a good chart. Make them see that IT is making data, analytics and dashboards a priority. Or find a problem that impacts those tasked with business development and fix it or offer suggestions. IT needs to proactively court those that are building the new business winners and engage with them. It has to be more than repaving cow paths and replacing older servers… It’s a culture thing, as much as anything. And people change culture.”

10. The technical CEO
Dana Gardner: “I expect to see offices of the CEO comprised of a COO-CIO duo. When business operations, market strategy and IT knowledge are combined, big things can happen. The fact that CEOs have one come from sales and founders may need to give way to more technology savvy people at the top. Selling is important, of course, but making the strategy align with what the technology allows is more important nowadays. You need to have something to sell, and the products and services themselves are increasingly about technology. So let’s get more techies in the corner office for more kinds of companies.”

11. The three factors you must have
Justin James: “You need to have … a proactive IT department and a visionary leadership team (not merely the CEO), AND open-minded employees who won’t drag their heels and sabotage the process. That’s a rare combination, and it’s one of the big reasons why we don’t see organizations transforming their IT as much as we see new organizations coming up that use IT to drive profits from day 1.”

12. Dominance of the technically-capable
Dana Gardner: Let’s face it, a lot of companies are not going to make IT a profit center, and they will be in trouble, and then more trouble. It will be very hard to transform a company that is dysfunctional in IT. On the other hand, companies that do IT well, that integrate the technically possible with the business necessary will be able to change and adapt. And they will hire that best minds that can build on the successes and go dominant in a big way. It’s not just survival of the fittest, it’s dominance by the most technology capable.

6 Secrets to Hiring and Retaining Great Employees

2012-05-04T19:51:00.002-04:00

I ran across this article inc.com..... I think it's perfect for what is needed in in IT industry.... Specially in Chile.

Drupal Connect's founder John Florez drives the fast growth of his company by stacking his team with top tier talent. Here’s what he looks for when hiring for his Drupal development company and how he keeps them excited about coming in each day.

1- Hire Awesome Personalities
Hire people who are not only awesome talents, but awesome to be around as well! You're building a team; each member has to be able to work well within a collaborative environment. Hiring someone who is talented but a "lone wolf" is a risky and potentially costly endeavor.

2- Positive People Are Contagious
Hire cool people who have a positive outlook on life. The employee you want to take on is someone you can share a beer with at the end of the day. Positive attitudes spread, and ultimately come to define your company as a whole.

3- Keep People Excited About Work
Be a leader who is welcoming and positive, and sees the best in each of their employees. This attitude will trickle down and make for a more positive work experience overall. People want to wake up each morning excited about coming to work. It's important for a leader to create an environment and culture that people are proud and excited about.

4- Don’t Nickel-and-Dime Your Employees
Be mindful of the bottom line – but not at the expense of nickel-and-diming! These are tough times for a lot of people out there. But let's face it: no one wants to work for a cheap boss.

5- Coach Your Leaders
Coach your leaders, but don't manage them. If you find yourself managing your top people, you're doing something wrong. You're not inspiring, and you're therefore not bringing out the best in your lead employees. If you properly coach your leaders by bringing out their best qualities, they will in turn coach those reporting to them.

6-Avoid Stagnation
Make constant growth a priority, and encourage your team to contribute to this evolution. Your company is a living, breathing organism that needs to be fed and nurtured, and employees need to be able to contribute to this growth process. For example, six months ago, a team member suggested we create a support and maintenance program to offer to our clients. Today, this program is a thriving and growing part of our company, accounting for 20% of our overall business!

Want to succeed in IT? Five tips from the top

2012-05-03T08:47:00.002-04:00

Again, this is not mine. I got if off techrepublic.com and it seems that this is where IT is going. More and more IT Managers (CIO, CTO, and other IT management positions) are having the same problems. How to deal with the shift that the organizations are having. Where is this shift going to? Well.... to where it has always been.... THE BUSINESS.

This text belongs to Paul Coby IT director at UK retail giant John Lewis and former technology chief at British Airways.

1. Connect to your business customers

Coby’s experiences have led him to develop a simple maxim: “There are no IT projects, just business projects.”

Coby concedes he has become well known for this mantra: “That phrase resonates,” he says. “People just get it.”

The explanation for the strength of that response is simple: success in modern IT is all about using technology to support new business opportunities. IT professionals looking to support the organisation along that development path must be engaged. “You always need to connect to your business customers,” says Coby.

2. Don’t talk jargon

Coby’s advice to other CIOs is to avoid falling into the techno-babble trap and ensure the organisation is alert to the business benefits of technology.

“Don’t talk jargon,” he says. “We know that’s important but anything that makes IT sound obscure will make people switch off. And IT is too important to modern business for you to allow that to happen.”

3. Remember that IT is a team sport

Good CIOs have a strong personality and are not afraid to lead from the front. But those character traits in isolation will not be enough. A good CIO is only as great as their supporting cast, something that Coby is keen to recognise.

“Always remember that IT is a team sport,” says Coby, who says success does not necessarily start and end with the appointment of a CIO.

For example, Coby says a lot of the good things he has achieved since joining John Lewis began before he arrived. As ever, IT is in flux - and the speed of the digital transformation means great CIOs must lead their team through choppy waters.

“Everyone’s technology environment is going to continue to become more complicated,” says Coby. “The people supporting IT have to deal with very complex systems. And the ongoing digital transformation means the CIO sits at the very top of a very large iceberg. The role of the CIO is to enable the transformation.”

4. Never put innovation before day-to-day operations

Most IT leaders come from a technical background. But CIOs looking to get ahead are often warned not to just concentrate on the bits and bytes of technology.

While technology provides the backbone to modern business operations, it is no longer a dark art. The digital age is all about being able to plug and play different systems, and to draw on applications and information on-demand. CIOs looking to help the business make the most of digital technology must get strategic.

However, Coby issues a word of warning. “Operations really matter,” he says, stressing that good IT leaders do not prioritise innovation at the expense of day-to-day systems.

Coby is looking at how to transform IT at John Lewis and working out how to make the most of innovative technology, such as the use of tablet devices on the shopfloor. “We want to deliver great things,” he says. “But if tills go down, no one will listen to me about innovation.”

5. Enjoy your job

The final piece of advice from Coby is simple: “Try and enjoy it.”

Coby says any job has its challenges and IT leadership is no different. He is pulled in a number of directions, as John Lewis continues to pursue an ambitious growth strategy that over the past decade has led the retailer to bring regional shops under a single brand and open new stores.

Yet Coby relishes the fast pace of change in retail, which he says is different to other sectors. Across back-end operations and front-end innovations, he is concentrating on the things that staff and customers will expect as standard in the next few years

“I like this job because it’s a lot of fun,” says Coby. “The business continues to change and people in the organisation really need the IT team to deliver.”

The 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses

2012-03-15T09:52:00.000-03:00

First I want to say that this is not my work. I got it off the web and it’s from Jeff Haden, but I feel it is so true that I have to let others reed it.

1. Develop every employee. Sure, you can put your primary focus on reaching targets, achieving results, and accomplishing concrete goals—but do that and you put your leadership cart before your achievement horse.

Without great employees, no amount of focus on goals and targets will ever pay off. Employees can only achieve what they are capable of achieving, so it’s your job to help all your employees be more capable so they—and your business—can achieve more.

It's your job to provide the training, mentoring, and opportunities your employees need and deserve. When you do, you transform the relatively boring process of reviewing results and tracking performance into something a lot more meaningful for your employees: Progress, improvement, and personal achievement.

So don’t worry about reaching performance goals. Spend the bulk of your time developing the skills of your employees and achieving goals will be a natural outcome.

Plus it’s a lot more fun.

2. Deal with problems immediately. Nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don't get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, feuds between departments... all negatively impact employee motivation and enthusiasm.

And they're distracting, because small problems never go away. Small problems always fester and grow into bigger problems. Plus, when you ignore a problem your employees immediately lose respect for you, and without respect, you can't lead.

Never hope a problem will magically go away, or that someone else will deal with it. Deal with every issue head-on, no matter how small.

3. Rescue your worst employee. Almost every business has at least one employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed to complete a task, lost his cool in a meeting, or just can’t seem to keep up. Over time that employee comes to be seen by his peers—and by you—as a weak link.

While that employee may desperately want to “rehabilitate” himself, it's almost impossible. The weight of team disapproval is too heavy for one person to move.

But it’s not too heavy for you.

Before you remove your weak link from the chain, put your full effort into trying to rescue that person instead. Say, "John, I know you've been struggling but I also know you're trying. Let's find ways together that can get you where you need to be." Express confidence. Be reassuring. Most of all, tell him you'll be there every step of the way.

Don't relax your standards. Just step up the mentoring and coaching you provide.

If that seems like too much work for too little potential outcome, think of it this way. Your remarkable employees don’t need a lot of your time; they’re remarkable because they already have these qualities. If you’re lucky, you can get a few percentage points of extra performance from them. But a struggling employee has tons of upside; rescue him and you make a tremendous difference.

Granted, sometimes it won't work out. When it doesn't, don't worry about it. The effort is its own reward.

And occasionally an employee will succeed—and you will have made a tremendous difference in a person's professional and personal life.

Can’t beat that.

4. Serve others, not yourself. You can get away with being selfish or self-serving once or twice... but that's it.

Never say or do anything that in any way puts you in the spotlight, however briefly. Never congratulate employees and digress for a few moments to discuss what you did.

If it should go without saying, don't say it. Your glory should always be reflected, never direct.

When employees excel, you and your business excel. When your team succeeds, you and your business succeed. When you rescue a struggling employee and they become remarkable, remember they should be congratulated, not you.

You were just doing your job the way a remarkable boss should.

When you consistently act as if you are less important than your employees—and when you never ask employees to do something you don’t do—everyone knows how important you really are.

5. Always remember where you came from. See an autograph seeker blown off by a famous athlete and you might think, “If I was in a similar position I would never do that.”

Oops. Actually, you do. To some of your employees, especially new employees, you are at least slightly famous. You’re in charge. You’re the boss.

That's why an employee who wants to talk about something that seems inconsequential may just want to spend a few moments with you.

When that happens, you have a choice. You can blow the employee off... or you can see the moment for its true importance: A chance to inspire, reassure, motivate, and even give someone hope for greater things in their life. The higher you rise the greater the impact you can make—and the greater your responsibility to make that impact.

In the eyes of his or her employees, a remarkable boss is a star.

Remember where you came from, and be gracious with your stardom.

What? more than a year?

2012-03-06T20:09:00.001-03:00

I can not belive this! It has been more than a year since my last post..... Ok... promise that in the next 48h I will post something.....

Are you ready for your next job?

2011-01-26T01:53:00.000-03:00

Well, I wasn’t, and I should have been.

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see my last employment as what would get me my next job, but after being unemployed for 2 months I think different.

Don’t get me wrong, I like stability, but whatever you do at your work place must help you get your next job. Lets go over a few tips.

1- Stay up to date with what is out there: It doesn’t matter if your organization is small, budget constraints, you hate Microsoft/Linux, your boss is happy with the 486sx PCs you have or your are just overwhelmed with the day to day IT stuff, you still need to stay in touch with reality. You can go to vender events, online webinars, blogs, create a lab or whatever you can think of, you have to know what is out there, and not just technology, but also things like PMI, CMMI, or ITIL. Most likely you have been working at the same place for a few years and the next job will require some of the things I just mentioned. Just because you don’t use them at your current job doesn’t mean others don’t use it.

2- Have a good network of colleagues: A good way to get a job is by referral, and to do that you need contacts in other companies. Most likely you already have friends, schoolmates and colleagues in other companies that can help you. Another way is at the vender events, there you can make acquaintances with other people in the industry. You can also use social websites like LinkedIn, this site is the largest professional network on the Internet with more than 90 million members in over 200 countries. Its Facebook, but for professionals. Lots of recruiters look at candidates profiles, they can see what you have done, recommendations, what others think about you, etc. The more people you know, the better chance to get a job.

3- Try not to fall into a very specific niche: It may be that you are working in Development linking to a weird application that no one uses, or support a platform that is used by 1% of the industry. If this is the case, you may be in trouble. Yes there is some sort of job security, but you never know. Most likely, the very specific skill you have learned will not be used on your next job, for instance, I know how to integrate TAXWare with .NET, but can I use it down here in Chile? I don’t think so… so why even put it on the resume. You just might dig yourself into a hole if your niche is to specific, so keep up to date with other technologies and development trends. I heard an ex colleague mention this as the reason why is was changing jobs. What he was doing was so specific that the integration of this product he worked with that none of what he learned over the last year or so was used elsewhere.

4- Certification is a must: Ahhh…. Certification…… This should be seen as a long term investment in yourself. If you are working as a helpdesk tech, its more than clear that you most likely know by now most of the problems with Windows 7, or if you are a Network Admin, you know by now how to create a user account or email account in Exchange. So why get certified? Will my current employer pay me more? Not likely so why bother? Well, the next time you look for a job, that certification will make your resume stand out a bit more than the other 150 candidates! That’s why. Have you ever seen on a job posting ITIL certification desired? Well, the guy that just got certified yesterday will have a better shot for that job over you that have been leading projects for 5 years and have no certification. So, see what is being asked for, and get certified in it. And by the way, you might be able to sell the certification pitch to your boss and have the company pay for it!

5- Look for a job once ever year or two: I was told a long time ago to put your resume online every 18 months and apply for a few jobs just to see what your are worth. I did that in 2000 just before the .com bubble bust in the US and in a few weeks I got calls from DELL, Disney and Pandesic, all wanted to interview me… Keep in mind that you always think you have some sort of an advantage over all the rest, but why wait until you need a new job to find it out? Some good sites are http://www.careerbuilder.com and http://home.monster.com in the US; http://www.trabajando.cl/ and http://www.laborum.cl/ in Chile

6- Validate your references: I have heard a number of times (and this happed to me) that people seem not to understand why they cant get a job. Well don’t be surprised that you are getting bad references. Have a friend call your last boss and see what references you get. The best you can do is to get a Letter of Recommendation, that way you have it in writing and it will avoid or at least minimize calls to your last employer.

Don’t think just because you do your job well you will be at your post for ever, even Admiral Kirk got benched for a while. Be prepared! As a good friend once told me “prepare for the worst and hope for the best”, once you are on the street, there is not much you can do, so do it while you are in a position where it can be done.

Please feel free to comment on any of this, or add more job search web sites.

George,
The Captain.

I am back!

2011-01-25T14:33:00.000-03:00

It has been a while... and lots of things have happend in IT and in my life.... so in the next few days I will update the site with a lot of news!
Stay tuned!

The Captain.

IT = Mr. Fix and know everything that has a button or makes a BIP sound?

2010-07-07T22:44:00.000-04:00

Is it just me or does this happen to everyone in IT? I was once call a PDTA or Permanently Designated Technical Advisor by an ex girlfriend and from that day it seems to fit so perfectly. I think this is worse than being a mechanic or a Doctor. The get ask only things related with the car or the body, but me? I get hit with every thing in the book, from how to get that old VCR to work, or how to set a watch, to how to buy some thing on the internet. It just never ends. This is with family and friends, but at work!? Help me Lord!

Apart of knowing how all the computers, FAX, Xerox machines, work, I some how have to know how all cell phones work, how to program the Satellite Dish, how the A/C units works, or why the coffee machine is not working!

Don’t get me wrong, its nice to be the one that everybody comes to…. But come one……are IT the only ones what can figure things out?

I would love to hear some stories or what you think and deal with this “super hero” status.

George.
The Captian

Project Management 101 : The Need

2010-06-27T00:33:00.000-04:00

The Need: It doesn’t mater the size of your IT shop, users will always need your services, if it’s a simple macro for a spreadsheet or a full blown system.

In order to satisfy the “customer” you need to understand his needs and this obligates you and your team to know the business. If you are unable to have a good understanding of the business then you can’t understand the need and most importantly, you can’t understand the impact this new development will have.

As an example, I was once approached because an application was needed to help reduce the time it took to create a given report. The solution was simple, take the original spreadsheet, dump it in SQL and then run the report with the filters in the SQL. But knowing the business, the real problem was not the report, it was the data itself. So the real solution was to take the original data source, the one that was used by several people for reporting and load this data into SQL.

This solution not only helped the department that came to me, but also helped two other departments.

You need to take time, understand the problem, what it means, who and what it impacts, is it a real problem? Or is the problem the way things are done? Is this a simple isolated thing? Or is it part of a bigger problem and need to be taken care of as a department/company wide application.

The other detail regarding the “customers” needs is that there is a big difference between WANT and NEED. Users rarely know what they need, but they are convinced of what they want. The trick is to turn the wants into needs. To do this, you need to spend some time understanding the requirements of the project.

The next post will cover the requirements.

George,

The Captain.

Project Management 101

2010-06-14T23:47:00.001-04:00

I have read my good set of books regarding project management in college and at work to know most of the text books are just that. Oscar Soto a Microsoft Professional that owns his own company (ActiveTainer) that I work with on special projects gave me the idea to write a book. I am not sure if this book material but at least it might help resolve the Project Management dilemma.

So what I propose is to in several posts touch each important subject that covers Project Management and most important, using real life examples.

Step 1. - Form a Team: No mater how many people are in the development side of your IT department, you must have a team well defined. It is very important that you define your team, you need to know who to talk to on your side, and your internal customers need to know who to talk to and your own people need to what their role is in the project. This may seem obvious, but it is not. If your internal customer doesn't understand the structure of the team, the will start talking to everybody, and that will cause confusion, changes to the specs without proper documentation, and at the end this will put and jeopardy the project.

As an example of this, when my Development team was working on a project some time ago, it was clear for me that one of the developers was the team leader but the internal customer would every so often talk to the other developer. This would create problems in the team it self, things that where not in the original specs would get in the project and therefore the timeline got bumped without an official acceptance by the customer and at the end I would get the heat from upper management for the delays, delays that up to some point I was not total clear why they had happened.

So, if the team that will be working on the project has more than one member it must be very clear to everyone what their roles in the project are.

George.
The Captain.

IT’s role in internal projects

2010-06-10T16:10:00.000-04:00

This could be a tuff one to cover, but I am going to “impose” my vision.

When it comes to Internal projects, IT has a key role. Why? It’s because IT is omnipresent in the organization. IT should be aware of all (or most) of the business process and therefore is the “guardian” of the business.

So if your organization has decided to migrate to a new Sales Application, or a new financial package, IT must be the leader of this project, even if this migration is done by a third party.

The steps should be these:

Requirements: IT Should talk with the users and understand what they need (not what they want) and create a draft document that will serve as the basis for the project.

Find a partner: IT should “shop around” and find a third party for this project. The draft will be the foundation for this. The first meeting should be IT only, remember you are shopping around.

Involve the customer: Once you have narrowed down to 2 or 3 partners, get you internal customer involved. There should be ONE official project leader from the customer’s side. Try the find the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Supervise: Never leave the customer and the partner alone! If you do…. you will pay for it. Because the user has no clue what he needs and you can end up with a white elephant.

Feet on the ground: Your job is at all stages to keep the feet on the ground.

Make sure testing is done correctly: Once the project is “done” there must be a well-designed testing phase where “everything” must be tested and checked and signed off by the team leaders and until every business unit that is touched by the project has given the written OK you CANT NOT go live.

There are more details to this but this is the bulk of the steps. I am open for comments or debate.

George.
The Captain

Keep your Hardware updated

2010-06-07T22:50:00.000-04:00

It’s very important to keep you hardware updated. Why? Well, every now and then, the hardware integrator will upload updated to the firmware and to the drivers for the OS.

Some would say why fix it if it’s not broken, but in general the updates fix problems that can bring down your Data Center. Let’s check what happened to me this weekend.

Scenario: 4 DELL R610 (Intel 5520s) running “the latest” DELL build of VMware ESXi 4, all connected to a DELL MD3000i.

The problem: Every 30mins (give or take) one of the Virtual Machines (VM) would loose connectivity for a few seconds.

During all Friday night and the entire weekend, I got alerts every 30mins that this VM was off line. This was driving me nuts. Once I connected to the office, I could ping the VM, I could login via Remote Desktop, I could view logs.. all normal… so what was wrong?

A bug in the “latest” build of ESXi. If you delete a LUN from the MD3000i and you do not refresh the Storage Adapter in ESXi, you will get a strange error. Every 30min, ESXi checks the LUNs and if it cant find one, it will check the other path (if there is one) for the LUN, and because its not there, it brings down the server for a few seconds and this will make some VMs disconnect from the NIC.

The solution: Update ESXi to the real new build from DELL. This update avoids the NICs to disconnect.

So the real question is how to deal with this dilemma. How do you keep up to date with your updates? To be honest? No idea……

Today was a “fix the problem” day. Tomorrow will be “avoid this to happen again” day.

George.
The Captain.

Presentation 101 or how to make a good powerpoint!

2010-06-03T00:35:00.000-04:00

I am not an expert in makeing presentations, but I have seen to many bad ones to know by now what to do and what not, so here are some tips that might help you on your next presentation.

Format:
Use the company’s newest presentation format. Normally companies have a standard presentation format and you should always use it.

If at a special meeting, us this meetings format (if there is one). There is nothing worse than showing a presentation with a different format. The message you are sending is that you are not part of the team.

Audience:
Always know your audience. This makes a tremendous difference when it comes to your presentation. Not everybody understands your lingo, therefore you may not come across. You must talk the audience’s language.

Know what you are talking about:
This may seem a no brainer, but I have seen so many presentations where the slides are simply read. That is a big mistake. You must explain with your own words what is on the slide. The text on the slide is a guide for you. You are the presentation. If for some reason the projector lamp dies, you must be able to deliver the same presentation, so you must know it.

Slide content:
A spreadsheet with 40 columns and 20 rows is impossible to read so why show it. Just show the important parts and if all is important, divide into several slides, use animation to make “zooms” to different sections.

Images:
An image speaks for itself. If you use a good image to represent an idea or concept do it. It will save you time and effort to explain your point. Today the web is full of images or clip art you can use, but pick wisely.. it is so easy to make a cheesy presentation, remember this is business, not your sons 4th grade dissertation.

Spelling:
Wouldn’t it be obvious? It’s not. With today’s spell checkers, some things are spelt correctly but it’s the wrong word, and if you are making a presentation in a different language than your native one…. You need to double check.

Test run:
I am sure that very few people test their presentation on a projector. What looks nice on the computer screen not always looks the same on the big screen. Contrast can play a big surprise, colors can be off, so if you can, test your presentation.

Last minute = poor presentation:
If given sufficient time to make the presentation, use it. If you rush at the last moment to make your presentation people will notice. Common errors are all the above plus your number will not be right, most likely things will sum 102%, charts will have the wrong year.... Take your time!

If you keep all of this in mind for your next presentation you will be fine, and as you go it will get to be part of you.

Again, this is all based on to many bad presentations I have seen over the years. Keep it simple and fun and the most important thing know what you are talking about!

George
The Captain.

Know your CPUs

2010-06-01T11:00:00.001-04:00

I remember the days when all your needed to know if your 486 was SX or DX. Now? You have Dual Core, Core Duo, Pentium, Core 2, and bla bla bla.

Why is it important to know your CPUs? I will use another example that happened to me!

While on medical leave we bought 4 DELL R610 (Last week of March). During the first week of April I was invited to a breakfast hosted by Intel Chile. At this presentation Eduardo Godoy did a fantastic job in explaining what was new at Intel. One of the new things was the new 5600 family of CPUs.

The next day, I went to another breakfast but this time hosted by DELL Chile. It was in part the same sales line. The new CPUs that were available in Chile as of March 18th. I was then very happy because we had purchased the Servers after this date so I had the new 5600s! This was perfect because the Servers were for the new VMWare Farm and according to Intel the new 5600s had a 29% better performance with Virtualization!

But to my surprise we were sold the 5500s! Sniff!

What was the lesson? Find out what is in the pipeline so you can plan your purchases, and if you can wait a few weeks or months do it! According to Intel the policy is to launch the new CPU at the same price of the retiring CPU.

Also! Go to all your vendors events (even if they are not your vendors or the band you buy), you will be up to date with Technology and Software, you will know what the trend is and best of all, you will have all the tools you need to make better decisions.

Just to mention, this week I am attending a Microsoft event (where my friend Oscar Soto from ActiveTrainer), a Symantec event and Novared a local vendors event.

Have fun!

The Captain.

Dealing with Corporate HQ Guidelines.

2010-05-30T17:03:00.000-04:00

Ok, this is a tuff one, because the nature of the subject and because HQ is reading!

To illustrate this I will use as example my own reality.

As of 2004 I am working in Santiago Chile for the second largest container shipping company in the word and they have their HW in Geneva (GVA). In the begining of my days in the company we did this the best way we could. Our Data Center was a closet with PCs as servers. HQ was not much in the picture. We had our yearly IT meetings where the guidelines where talked about but that was about it.

In 2005 hell broke loose. We were in the middle out our AD migration when due to a communication problem between the GVA and Chile IT team GVA got the impression that we did things without consulting, disregarding guidelines and at the end….. the way we wanted. The result was a redeye flight to GVA. The two day trip was an intense crash course in the GVA way of doing things, and you know what? It made sense. So much sense, that just three years we made a turn back, from “terrorists” that could bring the network down, to an example for the region.

Why did the GVA way make sense? Here are the points that were the basic guidelines.

1- Standardized HW: We are only allowed to purchase 2 brands of PC/Servers and within the brands just a handful of models. This may sound very restrictive and it is. For some a local vendor with a local brand may be very cheap regarding the corporate standard. But the benefits are tremendous. We now have no more than 5 images for all 220 users PCs making deployment a 1 hour deal.

2- Standardized Security: We are only allowed one brand of Firewall. Again, restrictive, but at the end of the day, when there is a problem, HQ can intervene with little effort.

3- Standardized OS: More then the OS, it’s the settings. All OS (PC or Server) has to be in English. This makes HQ support easier.

4- SW Licenses: This is a big one. We get most licenses via HQ because HQ has global agreements for several vendors. Not sure if we same money or not, but it is easy just to deal with one supplier.

5- Update infrastructure data: We have to keep at HQ an up to date diagram of our infrastructure. Again, for us, no use, but for HQ? Tons of help when something happens. And things do happen.

6- Unified email system: We all should be running the same version of Exchange, this is very useful, it takes out a lot of the guessing when there are problems.

So why comply with all of this and with so much effort.. taking the heat locally from other Managers?

No I am not sucking up. It just makes sense.

And I can prove it. Our Bolivia Office depends from Chile commercially and in IT, and for me to have our office in Bolivia with the same standards as our Chile office has been a huge help. Since we did the project on getting Bolivia up to date the amount of time spent assisting has gone down! Way down!

We now even have time to assist other countries. At the end this helps HQ! We absorb a bit of the load.

At the end this is a tricky subject, I think there is no real rule here, you have to play it by hear, each organization is different, but I would say, if you can, follow the guidelines.

George.

To V or not to V, is it a question?

2010-05-28T11:22:00.000-04:00

Virtualization (V from now on) has been around now for a bit and is here to stay. So the question is way are you not “Ving”?

I am not going to talk about any given product (today) because the idea is the talk about the concept.

V is great, it lets you accomplish several things, such has lower your Hardware investment, lower your Heat output, and therefore less A/C and finally less Electricity! You can also have some type of Disaster Recovery with V, you can set up a test environment quickly and as many times as your development team messes it up. And the best part is that all of this in one way or another can be done for “FREE” I say it with “” because depending on if you go down the Bill’s route you pay for the OS the Hypervisor runs on. The rest of the providers are Free in a limited set of features. To archive what I mention for “Free” you need a considerable amount of manual tasks, but again, it’s Free.

So again: To V or not to V, is it a question? (you should hear it in Klingon) I say NO! The web is full of step by step PDFs, blogs and videos on how to archive what you need, so if you have some deasent HW sitting around… go for it…. Play with Virtualisation. Once you go V, you will never go physical again!

Next week I will go over a few things with VMware in detail, and I can almost assure that for some VMware posts there will be a kind Hyper-V Pro that will post an equivalent!

George.

IT's day to day nightmare!

2010-05-27T23:49:00.000-04:00

Ok... what is every IT Infrastructure team’s day to day nightmare?

No... not that.... nope.. not close.....think McFly....

YES! Users! (If any users read this... please don't feel bad, it's just the way it is).

Every day no matter if it’s just a one man show (Alex?) or a multi-tier, multi-office IT shop..... the problem is the same.

How do you deal with user's request.

Well I have the answer (ok not "The" answer but "an" answer). It's called Helpdesk. Yes... a helpdesk. There are several ones out there but there is one that caught my attention in Jun of 2007. SpiceWorks. It’s a few words it’s a Network management software, helpdesk, PC Inventory tool and IT Reporting solution.

I use it manly as a helpdesk and since Jun ’07 and some 7,700 tickets later I can’t be any happier.

This tool gives my team an easy way to manage users requests. All users have to do is just send an email to helpdesk@mycompany.com and all the IT team gets an email with the request. Then you can view a nice web dashboard with all new tickets, my assigned tickets and all open tickets. From there is all downhill.

As a Manager I can run reports to see how many tickets each tech has, how long it takes them to close the tickets, what are the most comment categories of tickets (Printer, Phones, Mouse, etc)

But Spiceworks is more than a helpdesk. It can scan your network and make a complete inventory of PC, Servers, switches, Printers, almost anything with an IP. It has a bunch of tools that for each PC (running Windows) it will show CPU, RAM, I/O usage. If it’s a DELL you get service tag and therefore warranty. This is neat when you want to know out of your 200 PCs witch are close to renewal.

This is just a small snapshot of Spiceworks. Check it out. Oh… did I say it’s FREE?

If you decide to install, let me know… I can help with its install (NNNF) and configuration.

Here are a few screenshots

Have fun!

George.

The IT Dilemma : Where to focus your resources

2010-05-27T10:37:00.000-04:00

Today numerous IT departments worldwide face the this problem….. Where to focus the resources.

After the world economic crisis, companies rapidly focused on cutting costs, and at the end it falls on IT.
For the infrastructure side of IT it’s “easy”:

Lower your energy bill, A/C costs, communication costs, maintenance costs….. All this is done via virtualization, VoIP and talking to your vendors.

But how do you optimize the company's processes? That is what is killing IT today.

If you look around your office you will find that “Mike” as a super worksheet that does “everything”. It takes Mike 2 days to gather all the information he needs and then takes him about 2 hours to crunch the numbers. The worst part is that you have no clue about this super worksheet (by the way, it’s not on your backup plan) and his manager also has no clue.

So how you help the business be more efficient with your limited IT resources?

Well, after going through the same process that cost me some very ugly consequences….. I think I have the solution (open for debate)

1- Communicate: Create an IT steering committee whose members are other managers or key players in the organization. The idea is that in the committee all IT projects are talked about. This will help you show to your organization what is IT doing all day long.

2- Strong Foundation: In order for IT to prevail, it must have a strong foundation, and that means your infrastructure must be stable. If you want to help the business processes as a manager you can’t be worrying about massive PC failing, out of date Antivirus, bad backup plan, etc. that has to been taken care of before you can help the business. Why? What good will it do if you create this nice intranet but your old servers can’t take the load, or the new application you created runs slow as a turtle because half of your network is still at 100Mbit.

3- Be realistic: It’s nice to say yes to everyone…. But sometimes you just cant. Not all things are doable with your resources. When you commit to a deadline, always consider Murphy and your actual work load, and remember the more applications or systems you deliver the more support you need to give, so now your developers are also doing helpdesk support.

4- Be a socialite: The more you mingle with the other managers the more you can explain your day to day problems and that way they will understand you better.

5- Lobby: If you need something make others help you get it. Let’s say you need a new developer but company policies say no more new hires. Get the help of the other managers. If they all talk to upper management on how they feel if IT had just one more developer things would be easier…. You may find it easier to get that new developer.

6- Communicate: Yes its rule #1 and it so important you have to do it all the time. In meetings, at lunch with other managers, at the company BBQ, etc. Never stop communicating.

This is my view of this dilemma…. I am open to debate…..

George.

My first post

2010-05-26T21:18:00.000-04:00

Ok.... Never done the blog thing before.... and yes... I am IT... I should have done this before.... But I didn't.

The idea behind this blog is to talk about IT stuff. I must confess there will be a bunch of MS, VMWare and DELL content.... but there will also be some Trekie stuff.... digital photograph... and what not.

So please stick around and bear with me until this is "fully operational" (as the death star was going to be before Obi-Wan touched it).
Thanks!

G.