Black Book of CIO Secrets

Table of Contents

Chapter One: It’s All About the Business You Started a New CIO Job. Now What? 1

Finding Things to Fix as the New CIO of 4 a Well-Run IT Department

Giving Feedback 7

Evaluating Employee Attendance 12

Knowing How and When to Fire Someone 15

Getting Your Engineers to Have Open Minds 18

Switching to a 35-Hour Work Week to Get More Done 20

Want to Perform Your Best as a CIO? Get an Executive Coach! 23

Chapter Two: Managing the Projects and Technology

Ensuring You Have a Good Data Backup System 25

Getting a Good Escalation Process in Place 28

Getting the Right IT Metrics in Place 33

Reallocating IT Resources from Maintenance Work to Project Work 36

Preventing Run-Away Projects from Derailing You 39

Understanding Project Management’s Iron Triangle 43

Chapter One

It’s All About the

Business

P

The CIO position has a notoriously short tenure in most companies. So if you’re a CIO, throughout your career you’re likely to have many opportunities to start new jobs – either because you’ve been promoted from within or

because you’ve been recruited away to take a bigger better CIO role.

Like most CIOs I changed jobs a few times in my career. I learned that when you start a new

CIO position you will usually find yourself in one of two situations. How you should proceed will be determined by which situation you are in. Either…

Things are a mess – The IT Department needs significant improvement; or

Things are pretty good – The IT Department you’re “inheriting” is well-run and doing a great job.

Getting the Lay of the Land So the big question becomes: how do you determine which situation you’re actually in? Here is my advice:

rr

You Started a New CIO Job. Now What?

R Keep your hands in your pockets for the first 90 days– Unless you have a crisis or emergency that absolutely requires action, avoid making any decisions or radical changes for your first 90 days on the job. This is not the time to show everyone how smart you are. They’ll figure it out soon enough!

R Listen – It is through listening to everyone that you will get a 360 degree view of the IT department, how it’s performing and how it’s perceived. Notice that the key action here is “listen.” Not “talk to,” but “ listen.” Listen to senior or executive staff, your staff and your vendors. Be careful not to share your vision or direction for IT, because at this point you don’t have enough information about the environment to be able to intelligently make these decisions anyway.

R Be slow to form opinions – Normally I’m a big believer in listening to my gut feelings to get a read on people. What I’ve learned, though, is that in this situation first impressions are often wrong. You’re the new sheriff in town, and everyone is trying to put their best foot

Listen to senior or executive staff, your staff and your vendors. U

1 · 2 ·

At first glance you may think it’s preferable to take over a department that’s doing well. But the reality is, making a name for yourself as the “new person” is a whole lot easier if you can come in and turn things around in a department that’s beset with problems. Making an impact on the organization is quite a bit harder if things are already going well. So what can you do? Here’s my advice…

R Make sure IT’s priorities align with the business’ priorities – Part of your “get the lay of the land” exercise should be to become very familiar with the overall direction of the business and the business strategy. Once you under-stand this, assess IT’s

effectiveness from the standpoint of what the business is trying to accomplish. Are you working on the right things, in the right priority, to align with those business objectives?

forward to impress you. It’s easy enough for people to make a good first impression. But if they can’t actually deliver, it’s a lot harder to “fake it” over the long haul.

R Take a look at the personnel files – Beyond the obvious of trying to determine who is a good performer and who is in trouble, see how the plans or reviews themselves are written. Do the performance plans contain descriptions of observable behavior? Do the reviews contain actual comments on an individual’s performance, or are they full of summary platitudes and generalizations?

R Get to know your HR department – During the course of getting these files it’s also a good idea to talk to HR to find out if there are any problem employees or “super stars.” Through this interaction you are also trying to get a read on what you can expect from HR.

In this Survival Guide I’ll address what to do next, whether things are a mess or things are pretty good.

Finding Things to Fix as the New CIO of a Well-Run IT Department

3 · 4 ·

R Watch for opportunities not seized – As the new CIO you’re bringing a fresh perspective to an environment that’s been running successfully for a period of time. Chances are this success bred a certain amount of complacency or blindness to new opportunities. Be on the lookout for things that IT is not currently doing that perhaps it should be taking on.

R Look for festering personnel issues – Your predeces-sor may have left you with some unaddressed personnel issues, i.e. folks in your department who are a problem for one reason or another. The question is, is the problem temporary or chronic? Does the person need counseling, or do you need to start the termination process?

In addition to identifying any obvious “problem employees,” you should also look for those who are treading water, not helping to move the ball forward or “retired” on the job but still

performing acceptably. If these people are in key roles where their performance is going to heavily impact whether or not IT achieves business objectives, you need to take action.

R Realize that there’s always a demand for IT – Even if things are going well, the good news is that there’s usually a seemingly infinite demand for IT services, and never enough IT to go around. You’re going to find some pent-up demand. It’s just a question of getting the necessary budget to address it.

Regardless of what you find, don’t rush to start pointing out all of these areas for improvement right away. If you do, you risk making suggestions that aren’t relevant to what the business is trying to accomplish. Wait until you’ve been on the job long enough to develop relationships with executive staff and gain a thorough understanding of the company’s culture and direction. Float some of your ideas to a few key people before you announce them to everyone, to ensure you have a few allies who agree that your ideas are worth pursuing. Because even if things overall are going well, as the new CIO you’re bound to find some things that need “fixing” anyway.

Cco

ntinued from: Finding t

hings to fix...

5 · 6 ·

Use a Proven Formula for Giving BackThere is a three-part formula for providing feedback that I learned from a book called “People Skills” by Robert Bolton. The formula, which works equally well whether you are giv-ing feedback for positive or negative behavior, looks like this: When you _____ I feel _____ because _____. In this formula:

The first blank (“when you____”) is for the observed behavior itself.

The second blank (“I feel____”) is how this observed behavior makes you feel.

The third blank (“because____”) explains the impact of this behavior and gives the “why” of why this behavior makes you feel this way.

Learn to Express Your FeelingsTo see how the formula works, let’s start with a positive ex-ample: One of your IT team members is doing a good job of completing their tasks on time. So your formula would start like this: When you complete your tasks on time.

Okay, that was easy enough. But after that things can get tricky: I feel _____. What do I feel? For many techy people, the feelings part doesn’t come easy. So what do you do? You cheat! If you Google “list of feelings words” you’ll find lists, many of which are nicely divided up by emotion. So look at one of these lists and pick a “feelings word” that seems most appropriate.

rrr

Giving Feedback The ability to give constructive feedback is an essential tool in your CIO tool kit. Giving feedback is all about letting people know where they stand and how their performance is being viewed. And if you’ve recently taken over an IT organization that has not been doing well, you’re likely to find that many people in your group have no idea how their performance is being viewed. Chances are no one has been receiving feedback at all – whether their performance has been good or bad.

Start by Giving Feedback on Observed Behavior

The easiest place to start giving feedback is regarding observed behavior, performance or results. Examples include completed work, attendance, interactions with others, or participa-tion and behavior in

meetings – anything that YOU saw (as compared to hearsay or reports from others).

Of course, feedback is not just for problems. Get in the habit of “catching people doing well.” At a minimum comment on both positive and negative behavior in equal measure. Ideally things will be going so well that 75% of your feedback will be positive!

7 · 8 ·

either publicly or privately, negative feedback should always be provided in private, in a one-on-one situation. When dealing with negative behavior it can be especially important to refer to your feelings words list. Be sure to choose a word that’s the right level for the infraction – there’s no need to be “furious” instead of “irritated” when the problem is minor. For example: When you were late for this morning’s meeting I felt annoyed because your tardiness was disruptive for the entire team.

Be Prepared for Push BackIf the people in your department are accustomed to receiving feedback then they’ll take your feedback in stride. But if this is something new, your feedback will probably make them uncomfortable. The good performers aren’t used to being noticed, and the bad performers aren’t used to being called out on their bad performance.

People will probably make excuses or otherwise try to wriggle out of the feedback. For the feedback message to get through, it may need to be repeated a few times as you’re delivering it. You’ll give the feedback. They’ll provide their excuse. You’ll listen reflectively, tell them in your own words what you just heard them say, and then repeat the three-part feedback again, in the exact same words. Lather, rinse and repeat until the person says, “Oh, okay, I got it.”

Cco

ntinued from: Giving F

eedba

ck...

In this example, you probably feel happy, thankful, delighted, ecstatic, etc. I’m going to pick “ecstatic.” Why? Because if I’m in a turn-around situation where nothing is getting done and someone actually is turning in their work on time then I’m thrilled and I feel ecstatic. So our example now looks like this: When you complete your tasks on time I feel ecstatic.

Feeling uncomfortable with this? Don’t worry, it gets easier with practice!

Be Sure to Include the Third Part of the Formula The third part provides context. If you merely tell someone “thank you for doing that” then they have no context for understanding why their behavior was so important. On the other hand, if they understand why they’re being praised, they’re more likely to repeat the behavior in the future.

So in our example, you might say: When you complete your tasks on time I feel ecstatic because we’re under a tight deadline and your being on time helps everyone else get their work completed.

Use the Same Formula When Giving Feedback Regarding Negative Behavior If the observed behavior is negative the formula remains the same. But while positive feedback can be provided

For the feedback message to get through, it may need to be repeated... a

9 · 10 ·

While you may expect people who are receiving negative feedback to argue or make excuses, many people also don’t know how to accept a compliment. Once again you need to listen reflectively and repeat the feedback: Yes, I understand that it was no big deal to you, you were just doing your job, but the fact remains that when you complete your tasks on time I feel ecstatic because we’re under a tight deadline and your being on time helps everyone else get their work completed.

If you’re the new CIO, when you first start giving feedback people may be surprised or uncomfortable. But as you do it consistently everyone will start to figure out that you’re going to provide the feedback they need to know where they stand and how their performance is being viewed. While feedback works best for observed behavior, with a minor tweak the feedback formula works for non-ob-served behavior as well. For example: When I hear reports that you_____ or when others tell me that you ____ then I feel ____ because ____.

Evaluating Employee Attendance

As the CIO you need to have a handle on employee attendance. And if your department is currently a mess this issue will take on a much greater sense of urgency! Here’s what I recommend you do:

R Start in the parking lot – What time are your staff members arriving for work and going home in the evening? Are they coming in on weekends? During your first few months on the job you may have to work some long hours yourself in order to observe all of this, but once you know everyone’s car you can drive in at any hour and know who is there.

R Communicate clear expectations – Make sure your department knows what you expect in the way of attendance. Plus, make sure it is understood that you’re referring to hours at the desk doing actual work. Lunch, coffee and other breaks don’t count!

R Determine who’s on board – If you’re in an IT organization that’s in trouble, you can bet you’ve got morale problems. Low morale, of course, drives poor attendance. While it’s good to identify the dedicated employees who are working an inordinate amount of time and trying to make a go of things, what you really want to find is the exceptions – the people who aren’t showing up.

11 · 12 ·

R Determine who has checked out – You’ll typically find at least one or two people who are shirking their responsibilities. Look for:

People with chronic attendance problems – Is there anyone who is absent four or five days each month without calling in sick or being out on vacation? People who have “checked out” often stop showing up.

People who are working short hours – These are the folks who are regularly showing up late, taking a long lunch and then leaving early. Finding them requires getting out of your office and walking around.

R Monitor people who are working remotely – Conventional wisdom suggests that you can tell if staff members who are working from home are putting in the expected hours by their output. But for those who don’t have measurable deliverables, determining if they’re actually working can be more difficult.

Look to see when they’re online or using the chat system, what time they’re sending emails, whether or not they’re attending meetings, etc. Listen to your staff and constituents. If your remote workers aren’t actually working, you can bet that the people in your office will start dropping little hints and offhand remarks.

R Deal with problem employees When you find someone who is working less than the expected number of hours per week, you need to nip the problem in the bud. Either you or the employee’s

manager needs to follow your HR department’s progressive action policy to address the issue.

Attendance is key. Whether you’ve taken over a department that is in good shape or bad, nothing is going to get done if people aren’t showing up, whether physically or mentally. Find and fix the problem as soon as possible.

r

r

Cco

ntinued from: Evaluating E

mploye

es...

13 · 14 ·

Most of the Time You Try to Counsel the Person First Beyond the situations described above, when you have a “problem employee” on your team you want to start by following your HR department’s escalating disciplinary process. This usually starts with counseling and looks like this:

R Talk to the employee – Clearly explain the behavior or performance deficit – what they are doing wrong, and what “acceptable” behavior or performance looks like.

R Document this discussion – Be sure to send a copy to Human Resources.

R Monitor the employee’s behavior/performance – If necessary, give feedback again and document it again. Depending on the seriousness of the situation you can have as many of these chats as you want, but the minimum is generally two.

R Create a written Corrective Action Plan – If the discussions have failed, the next step is to create a written plan that documents the performance improvements that need to be made or the behavior that needs to be modified. A big key here is that these items must be observable, measurable and time-bound. The typical timeframe is 30 to 90 days.

Knowing How and When to Fire SomeoneTurn on the TV these days and you’re likely to see some variation of someone getting fired. Whether they’re being booted off the island or voted off the show, their involuntary termination is dramatized for your entertainment and viewing pleasure. In real life, though, having to fire someone is not the least bit entertaining and really nothing like the way it’s portrayed on TV.

Yes, one of the tools in a manager’s tool kit is to involuntarily terminate someone’s employment – i.e., fire someone. Unfortunately, few managers ever receive instructions regarding how to fire someone. How can you tell when you need to fire someone? How do you do it?

Sometimes it is Necessary to Fire Someone Quickly Workplace violence, criminal activity, substance abuse or serious violations of company policies all warrant an immediate involuntary termination of the employee’semployment. But if the person’s performance simply isn’t meeting your standards, or there is something inappropriate about their behavior, then firing the person should be the last resort – not option number one.

15 · 16 ·

R Monitor the employee’s behavior/performance – Throughout the action plan timeframe meet with the employee with some regularity and provide feedback regarding how they’re doing against the plan.

How to Fire SomeoneIf all of the counseling and monitoring fails, it’s time for an involuntary termination. But how exactly do you do it?

R Schedule a meeting – You, the employee and an observer from your company’s Human Resources department should all be present.

R Keep it short and to the point – Explain that the performance or behavior issue still does not meet expectations, and therefore the person’s employment is terminated as of a specified date.

R Wrap it up quickly – Then let the HR person take over from there and go through your company’s exit process.

Although an involuntary termination is sometimes necessary, it’s serious, often unpleasant and should rarely be done as a first resort.

Getting Your Engineers to Have Open Minds

The engineers and computer scientists that you’ll get to work with as a CIO tend to be very passionate about technology and how it works. They also tend to be very smart…and very stubborn. Unfortunately, this combination sometimes leads to people hav-ing such a strong conviction about how something

works that they cannot consider the possibility that they may be wrong.

Often the debate is about “does it work this way or does it work that way?” Furthermore, these debates usually happen in a public forum, such as a staff meeting or project meeting. As the CIO the question then becomes: What can you do to break the stalemate?

Make a $1 BetWhen an engineer is speaking with the conviction of God that they’re right and everyone and everything else is wrong, try offering a $1 bet. “If you’re so certain that this is the way it works,” you can say, “put your money where your mouth is and bet a dollar on the issue.”

Why Does this $1 Bet Work?There are a few reasons why betting a dollar can change the “stubborn know-it-all engineer” dynamic:

17 · 18 ·

R The bet should only be made when there’s an issue – After all, if the rest of the team agreed with this engineer, there would not be a debate. What usually happens is that because he or she is not willing to consider the possibility of other information, the engineer loses the bet.

R The notion of a bet creates a little pause – Although this is not usually the case the first time. The first time you do this, the engineer will probably lose the dollar pretty quickly. But it should only take a few of these wagers be-fore everyone recognizes that the $1 bet itself is a signal that maybe they should rethink their steadfast position and reconsider other possibilities. about the dollar being exchanged. The goal is to get a team of people who are passionate about what they believe in and fairly stubborn about their opinions to consider that sometimes they just might be wrong.

R Paying off the bet is humiliating – Stipulate that the loser must pay the winner in public, at the next staff or project meeting. As a result you, like me, might end up with a trophy case full of crumpled dollar bills that were grudgingly handed over by closed-minded staff members who lost their bets.

In fairness, this $1 bet works both ways. You’re likely to lose your share of dollars, too. Now when you’re convinced that your position is right and someone offers you the $1

bet, you’ll think twice and wonder if perhaps you’ve overlooked something in your thought process. Which, of course, is the ul-timate goal here. This is not about the dollar being exchanged. The goal is to get a team of people who are passionate about what they believe in and fairly stubborn about their opinions to consider that sometimes they just might be wrong.

Switching to a 35-Hour Work Week to Get More DoneIn the discussion on evaluating employee attendance I talked about ways to root out all of the slackers in your organization. But having an organization full of work-aholics can be just as big of a problem as trying to run a department filled with people who aren’t showing up.

Everyone Was Working Long Hours. Why Weren’t Things Getting Done?Years ago I was the new CIO at a company in the Silicon Valley. When I evaluated employeeattendance I found that everyone was working an average of 50 to 60 hours a week. Moreoverit was a tight-knit team where everyone liked each other and seemed to genuinely enjoyworking together.

19 · 20 ·

People were there all day long. Morale was great. Yet it was the strangest thing: The group was not getting a lot done. Everything was backlogged.

In trying to figure out what was going on I made a few observations:

R There was a huge work load – Mission-critical stuff, strategic projects, ongoing day-to-day mundane maintenance work, you name it.

R Work was never turned away – Whatever work arrived was put on the list, regardless of its importance level or relationship to business objectives.

R There was a lot of socializing – The overall thinking across the board was “I’m going to work12 hours today, so what’s the difference if I take a break now?”

Shortening the Work Week Solved the ProblemWhat the organization needed was focus, efficiency and a change in mentality. To solve this I instituted a 35-hour work week. Needless to say, everyone thought I was nuts. But it worked. Why?

21 · 22 ·

I needed to change the prevailing attitude from “we have plenty of time” to “we have very little time, so we must be ruthlessly efficient about how we

use it.” This was a radical concept at this organization. It was a new way to view time. And it worked…eventually.

It took a fair amount of convincing and mentoring to get 40 people to adopt a “time famine” mentality. I wanted to create a sense of urgency around attacking a list of work, because time is tight. Once this shift in thinking took place, focus, efficiency and prioritization – and with it the newfound ability to “just say no” to the unnecessary “wish list” items that surfaced – started to happen naturally.

Long Hours Can Lead to Low ProductivitySilicon Valley is famous for encouraging people to stay at work for long, long hours. It’s not unusual for companies to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner for their employees. Yes, from time to time some people do need to work an extra long day. But it’s been my observation that after about nine hours most people just aren’t that productive.

So did I really succeed in reducing the work week to 35 hours? No. In reality, we were able to shave it down from 50 to 60 hours per week to a more realistic and reasonable 40 to 45. And when that happened – lo and behold – things started getting done!

Cco

ntinued from: Switch

ing t

o a

35-hour...

23 · 24 ·

Want to Perform Your Best as a CIO? Get an Executive CoachWhether you’re new to the CIO role or have been navigating the CIO waters for years, if you want to enjoy peak performance, you should get an Executive Coach. Athletes – even elite athletes who are at the top of their game – have coaches. As a C-level executive, you qualify to benefit from coaching, too.

What is the Difference between Mentors and Coaches?Both are good to have, and both have their place:

R Mentors – Mentors are typically informal, non-paid relationships. Mentors provide advice, share their experience and wisdom with you, and talk you through difficult decisions.

R Executive Coaches – Coaching is a formal, paid business relationship. An Executive Coach is not just shar-ing wisdom. An Executive Coach is working on your game.

What Can an Executive Coach Help You With?Your Executive Coach can help you with many things. Some examples include:

R Recognizing your strengths – A good Executive Coach will point them out, and help you recognize situations where you should be making better use of them.

R Working on your weaknesses – Recognizing your strengths is the fun stuff. An Executive Coach is also paid to tell you things you don’t want to hear. Your Coach can look at situations that bring out the worst in your performance, and help you find ways to shift your behavior to handle the situation differently.

R Managing up – Especially after a promotion or a new CIO assignment, understanding how to participate on a peer level as a member of the executive staff can be crucial to your success.

R Handling challenging relationships – You may have one or more difficult peer relationships within your organization. There may even be a competing department that has some com-puter-related responsibilities, that is not currently cooperating with you. With their backgrounds in organizational psychology, Executive Coaches can be especially helpful inteaching you ways to successfully navigate relationships such as these.

R Leading your team – Let’s not forget the IT department for which you are responsible! An Executive Coach can bring their organizational development skills to help you build a strong and cohesive team.

23 · 24 ·

Where Do You Find an Executive Coach?The best way to find an Executive Coach is through a referral. Ask your company’s HR department, your peers, your former bosses, people from the places where you used to work and your LinkedIn network. If none of these routes turns up a good Executive Coach, you can also check to see if a university near you offers a CIO leadership program. If so, contact the people in charge of the program to see if they can recommend someone.

You don’t have to get a coach. In fact, you might do fine without one. But I guarantee you won’t do your best. If you choose to go it alone you’ll go as far as your skills can take you, and that’s it. However, to be the best you can be as a CIO, to really maximize your performance, there’s just no substitute for working with an Executive Coach.

Cco

ntinued from: Want t

o P

erfo

rm...

Chapter Two

Managing the Projects

and Techology

P

25 · 26 ·

Ensuring You Have a Good Data Backup System in PlaceHaving a data backup system is crucial, so early on in your tenure as the new CIO you need to find out the state of the backups of your organization’s critical systems.

Of course, there’s more to a good data backup system than just backing up the data. Just as important is making sure you have a way to get the data restored. How Do You Check on Your Data Backup System?

R Ask – Go to whoever is responsible and say “do you have a good backup?” If the response is “yes,” get more details about the backup process and how it runs:

What time of day and how frequently are backups done?

Are they doing full, incremental or differential backups?

Is someone being alerted if the backup fails? If not, who is checking the log file to ensure that each backup completed normally?

R Ask for proof – Regardless of what answers you get, you want to see documentation that all of this is actually taking place.

R Make sure the backups are being monitored – Backups frequently fail. What you want to see is that if the backup fails then this failure is detected and the backup is restarted during the normal backup time frame.

R Look at the backup media – You’re looking for a few things:

Storage location – The backed up data should be stored off-site, by a company that is in the business of storing magnetic media.

Storage length (retention) – Are you in compliance with the regulations or standards regarding how long data must be kept?

R Verify that your backups can be restored – The next thing you need to ask is “when was the last time you had a test restore?”

Restoring a system is much harder than backing it up, and your staff may not have the ability to do it! People must be able to get the backup and put that data on a computer some place, whether the restore is needed because of a hardware or soft-ware problem at your data center or because of a disaster. Having a test restore system in place is therefore vital.

rrr

r

r

27 · 28 ·

What If It Turns Out You Don’t Have a Data Backup System? If your questioning reveals that you don’t have any backups and/or a backup system in place at all, you must take immediate action. Do whatever it takes to get a backup. And if that backup is not suc-cessful, go to senior staff to get the budget needed to get a successful backup. This is something that absolutely cannot wait.

In my experience, though, I have found that getting a backup is the easy part. Getting the restore process in place can be like moving a mountain. People (especially your IT staff members) simply don’t want to do it. But as the new CIO, this is something you must get in place. If there’s a disaster or failure and you can’t restore the company’s data, you’re sunk.

Getting a Good Escalation Process in PlaceOnce you get a good backup system in place, the next thing I recommend you do is make sure that you have a good escalation process – a formal process for addressing IT issues and problems when they arise – in place. If your department already has an escalation process, then this may just be a matter of reviewing it and making sure it works. If you don’t have one, you’ll have to create it.

Creating the Escalation ProcessOne of the reasons it’s called an“escalation process” instead of a “problem solving pro- cess”is because the bigger the problem – the longer the outage or the larger the impact – the higher up the organizational command you need to go to communicate it. Your process should include:

R Who to notify – Within IT, who needs to know there’s a problem, be called in to help fix the problem or be communicated with about the problem? Outside of IT, what functional groups need to be informed that there is a problem in the system that affects them and impacts the business?

If there’s a disaster

or failure and you

can’t restore the

company’s data,

you’re sunk.l

29 · 30 ·

From the standpoint of people outside of IT, if it’s a small problem you’ll probably just need to ensure that the department manager is notified. Bigger problems will need to be communicated to the functional area manager, such as the VP of Finance or Sales. And for really big problems (for example, your sales system is down and you’ll miss your quarterly revenue numbers), the escalation process can go all the way up to the CEO.

R When to notify each person – The longer the problem lasts, the higher you escalate. For example, although when the problem first crops up you may only need to notify the

department manager, eight hours later if the problem has not yet been fixed the COO may need to brought in to the conversation, too.

R What to communicate? – This list typically includes:

What the problem is.

When the problem started.

Size and scope of the problem’s impact in terms of number of people affected and/or the overall impact on the business.

Estimated time to fix the problem, and estimated time until the next check point.

R Who is responsible? – Your escalation process also needs to state who is responsible for making the calls, and list the contact information for each person who may need to be reached.

R What type of problems warrant each type of response? – Your Escalation Plan should eliminate all guess work. The

decision regarding what type of problem warrants what type of response should be laid out in the process itself. Once a problem arises it should just be a simple matter of implementing the decisions that have been made in advance.

In sum, your escalation process should define exactly who needs to be notified when, and what they need to be told, based on both the type and duration of the problem. All of this, of course, needs to be documented.

Timelines are a Very Important Part of the Escalation Process Having a timeline-driven escalation process in place helps you avoid a situation where the technical person is working on the problem for hours and never calls out for help, because they either (a) think the problem will be resolved in another 15 minutes or (b) want to avoid management attention.

rrr

r

Cco

ntinued from: Getting a

Good...

31 · 32 ·

Testing Your Escalation Process Just like other processes and systems, your escalation process needs to be tested. You need to work out any bugs in the system before the system is actually needed. Which means you need to schedule and run drills.

Schedule times when you will tell someone in IT that you’re going to pretend there’s an outage and run the escalation process. During this drill whoever is the designated person in IT will test out the escalation process communication system.

Your goal is to make sure that people are following the escalation process as it is written and calling the appropriate people at the appropriate times. You also want to ensure that the contact information in your written procedures is all correct. And by the way – as the CIO you need to ensure that in case of emergency you always have the home and cell phone numbers of your CEO, CFO and other executives at your fingertips.

Once you’ve had a few successful drills during business hours, insist on having some drills during the off hours, too. You need to train people that it’s okay to wake you up to give you bad news.

In fact, defining the escalation timeline is especially important because time is likely to pass very quickly for the technical person who is working on resolving the problem. The system is down

and the next thing you know four hours went by and they didn’t realize it. This is one of the reasons why the escalation process is designed to alert another level of management in IT. Someone can check in with the technical person to see if they need more resources.

Ideally, someone in your operations group should be responsible for tracking the time and quarterbacking the communications. If you only have one person working on the problem, this person must be taught to set an alarm to keep track of the time.

Be aware that when a problem arises during off hours, the people involved with solving the problem will tend to be even more resistant to following the escalation procedures. No one wants to be the one to wake someone up in the middle of the night to give them bad news.

Cco

ntinued from: Getting a

Good...

33 · 34 ·

R Number of help desk tickets or application enhancements completed per month. Then, for each of these, keep track of which application (email, financial system, etc.) needed the help, which engineer did the work, who requested the work, which department the requestor is from, how long it took to complete the work and whatever other items specific to your organization you want to track and measure.

R Number of new project requests received each month.

R Number of work hours that it took to complete each project.

R Accuracy of the initial work-hour estimate versus the time that was actually devoted to each project.

R Number of on-time completions.

What Should You Look at for Ongoing Maintenance Work?In analyzing the data you should ask a few fundamental questions:

As the new CIO you want to make sure that you’ve got an escalation process and that it works. Of course, having an escalation process in place does not fix the problem any faster. But by proactively communicating the problem to the business you create space for IT to focus on the prob-lem, and you enable the business to take the necessary steps to deal with the outage from their standpoint.

Getting the Right IT Metrics in PlaceYou can’t manage what you can’t measure. Without metrics your decisions are based solely on observations (which can be faulty) and gut instinct. In contrast, having a system in place to track IT metrics enables you to en-sure that IT resources are being applied efficiently and effectively.

What IT Metrics Should You Be Tracking?While an easy place to start your IT metrics project is at the Help Desk (since the Help Desk typically already has at least some metrics tracking in place), you should keep track of things from the application maintenance and project development sides of things, too. Make sure you have systems in place to track:

35 · 36 ·

R Which department within the company is using the most IT resources? And which person is using the most IT resources? You may find that IT resources are being consumed by a department or person that overall should not be getting that amount of priority. IT resources?

R Which infrastructure group within IT is the busiest? Which group or department is getting the most requests? Why?

R Which individuals within IT are completing the most tickets? Are these people taking all of the low-hanging fruit while the ones who appear less productive tackle the really hard stuff? Or is one person a go-getter while the others are slackers?

What Should You Look at for Project Work?In analyzing the data, some fundamental questions here are:

R Are certain people in IT doing a poor job of estimating projects? If so, sit down with them to figure out what you can do to help them improve.

Be sure to also judiciously share your metrics with your IT Steering Committee. Metrics can be very useful for helping them gain an understanding of where resources are currently going, making it easier for you to gain buy-in when there’s a misalignment that needs to be addressed.

Reallocating IT Resources from Maintenance Work to Project WorkAfter tracking your IT metrics, you’ll probably find that somewhere between 50 and 90% of IT resources are being consumed by ongoing maintenance work (what I call “keeping the lights on”), with relatively little resources being devoted to project work. This is not good, because as the CIO you’re not going to get much credit for keeping the lights on. If this is the case, you need to take action to change this allocation.

37 · 38 ·

There’s Always a Shortage of IT Resources While you do need to keep the lights on, you’ll make a name for yourself and your department by completing new projects that help the organization reach its strategic objectives. Accept the fact that there’s always an infinite demand for IT resources. Part of the CIO job is to manage the priority lists, and to brutally manage the cut-off line that determines what gets acted upon and what does not.

The Line Between “New” and “Ongoing” Work is Arbitrary Your IT metrics probably show that most of your IT resources are currently going towards ongoing maintenance tasks. This bucket includes two things.

Operational work – Things that must be done on a daily or weekly basis to keep the system running.

Enhancement requests – Things that are not big enough to be a “project,” but will still consume IT resources. This includes things to make the system better, report requests, bug fixes and so forth.

r

r

If your IT Department has 10 people, you may find that two are doing the operational work, four are working on enhancements and only four are available for project work. Recognize that this allocation is arbitrary, and change it. Move two people from enhancement requests to project work.

What Happens When You Reallocate IT Resources?When you move that line, the queue for enhancement

requests will immediately grow. Things at the bottom of the priority list will start falling by the wayside, and you will have to pay close attention to monitoring your client satisfaction levels. Here’s where things can get interesting. The people

making enhancement requests are typically the rank and file employees. But the people making project requests – the ones who will benefit most from your reallocation of IT resources – tend to be the executives.

Part of the CIO job is to manage the priority lists, and to brutally manage the cut-off line that determines what gets acted upon and what does not. F

Cco

ntinued from: Realloca

ting I

T...

39 · 40 ·

rrrr

As the CIO, who do you most want to please? Do you think the other executives care whether all of the report enhancement requests get acted on? Or do they care about the project that will save the company $10 million next year?

To avoid a big backlash against the IT department, let your IT Steering Committee know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Have these people help you spread the word that from now on, only the “must haves” will be getting done.

Preventing Run-Away Projects from Derailing YouRun-away projects are the projects from hell. They’re the ones that miss multiple deadlines, blow budgets and make the members of the project team want to jump ship. As the CIO it’s your job to recognize and either fix or end run-away projects before they derail your entire department – and, possibly, your career.

How to Recognize a Run-Away ProjectRun-away projects are usually easy to spot. Look for:

Missed deadlines

Low ownership

Fuzzy requirements

“One more try-itis”

What to Do about a Run-Away ProjectOnce you’ve identified that you have a run-away project, you should:

R Determine what’s wrong with the project – Is it a lack of business ownership, poorly defined scope, a project team that doesn’t have the right skills or what?

R Look at the project’s scope, objectives and requirements – Is this clearly documented? Does anyone know what “success” will look like?

R Find the project’s business champion – You’ve got to have one person responsible, and that person needs to have some skin in the game. If no one is willing to go to bat for this project, the project needs to be killed.

41 · 42 ·

R Assess the project team – Are the developers compe-tent and delivering functionality on time? Do you have a good project manager? Is there a project schedule, and are they managing to the schedule?

R Make the decision to save it or kill it – In most cases the right thing to do is to kill the project. Stop the loss and move on. Sometimes, though, a run-away project can be fixed or saved.

How to Save a Run-Away ProjectIf a project is worth saving you’ll usually have to take further action, such as:

R Put different people on the project team – If you don’t have competent people in the project manager or key developer roles, you can try to swap them out. Sometimes that helps, but in my experience it’s a 50/50 gamble.

R Bring in outside help – Often a viable option is to engage one of the third party IT consulting companies that specialize in saving run-away projects.

How to Kill a Run-Away ProjectSince no one is championing it, killing a run-away project is actually much easier than it sounds. Discuss the issue with

your boss and/or IT Steering Committee. Be up front. Tell them that this thing has failed and it’s time to stop throwing good money after bad. Get everyone’s buy-in and then kill the project. Dismantle the team. Reallocate the budget.

One of the reasons why CIOs often hesitate to kill a run-away project is that it represents a failure. However, if you’re the CIO, I believe it’s better to call the project what it is – a run-away and a failure – then to let the malaise linger on and have your manager or Steering Committee raise the issue for you. Be proactive, cancel the project or at least raise the questions, and put the pain behind you.

Cco

ntinued from: Preventing R

un-Away...

43 · 44 ·

The Iron TriangleIn response, Earl introduced me to the Iron Triangle. He explained that as the Project Manager there are only three variables that you can use to affect the outcome of your project:

Scope

Schedule

Resources

Your job is to figure out which of these three things is the problem. To solve the problem you manipulate the other two.

The Iron Triangle in Action My initial reaction was that it can’t be that simple. But Earl was right.

In my case, the project was running late. I had schedule problems. But since the schedule (i.e. the due date) was fixed, my only real options were to either reduce the project’s scope or increase the resources assigned to the project.

rrr

Understanding Project Management’s Iron TriangleKnowing what to do about run-away projects is useful, but how do you manage your projects so that you avoid creating run-aways in the first place? The answer, of course, lies in good project management. In the IT world, good project management depends on what is known as the Iron Triangle.

My Early Experiences with Project ManagementEarlier in my career I got assigned to manage a project that was a data center move. In spite of my lack of formal training in project management I somehow managed to pull that project off rather well. As a result, people within the organization suddenly thought I could run a project.

Unfortunately, the next project I got put on did not go as smoothly. In fact, it was quickly turning into a run-away. I made a schedule and assigned people accordingly, but still I was struggling. In over my head, I went to my mentor at the time, a manager named Earl. “Earl,” I said, “I’m dying. My project is running late, and I don’t know what’s wrong. I’ve got a big budget and practically unlimited money to work with. Why is the project such a disaster anyway?”

45 · 46 ·

But what if I was short on resources because there were only so many people available who knew how to do “X”? If you have fewer resources, these people will take longer to deliver a certain scope. Either the scope or the schedule must change. In other situations you might find that the scope is fixed, but the schedule can be expanded and more resources can be brought in.

Keep an Eye on the 3 Variables Healthy project management involves keeping the three points of the triangle – scope, schedule and resources – balanced and in equilibrium. Any time your project runs into trouble you need to look at these three items, and remember that by manipulating or changing one or two of these things you will always affect the third.

Once I understood the Iron Triangle I was never again intimidated by project management, as I knew that no matter how big the project, it all boils down to just three things. The details are always different and can be challenging, but as long as you keep the Iron Triangle in balance the project will be okay.

Cco

ntinued from: Underst

anding P

roject

...

About the AuthorMike Faster is the founder and president of Coyote Creek. In addition to a degree in Management, he has more than 25 years of experience in building and leading IT organizations with technology companies including Apple Computer, Ariba, Cadence Design Systems, Chemdex, Komag and Palm Computing.

About Coyote CreekFounded in 1998 by a team of former corporate IT professionals, Coyote Creek understands the issues and complexities that are part of large-scale and high-growth IT environments. Pragmatic and vendor neutral, Coyote Creek brings deep expertise to help customers manage technology and project risk, inspiring confidence and creating peace of mind.

For more information, please visit www.coyotecrk.com or call 888-269-6838.