The association had their own building.  He had a corner office on the top floor – wall-to-wall windows on two sides that were nearly floor-to-ceiling, with a great view.  Nice big conference table right in his office.  The kitchen was a couple floors down, but, hey, maybe they could move that.

Anyway, everything’s rosy, right?  Lots of challenges, but we always have those in IT:  The association management system (AMS) was on the cusp of a major upgrade (huge – the vendor was even completely re-titling the product), and there were some staff currency/training issues.  Ah, those are routine – always someone who needs this class or that, or a boot to get current.

But over the first weeks and months he discovered something very bad:  The “senior” programmer… um… didn’t do anything.  I mean, she didn’t do anything… IT related.  Oh, she had her routine.  She floated around the building, making her rounds and chatting.  She attended meetings.  She contributed in the sense that she always had an opinion – generally not worth anything, but she liked to sound officious.

What was happening was that she passed any work that came to her, to a junior programmer – always the same guy.  This man was very milquetoast, and didn’t speak up.  He was overloaded, but he suffered on, afraid to speak up.  How long had this been going on?  My colleague couldn’t know, but he knew that the senior programmer’s skills had completely atrophied to the point where she literally couldn’t contribute in the modern environment.

The IT Director did what any responsible supervisor would do:  He counseled the senior programmer.  He directed her to schedule herself for training.  When she didn’t, he selected an initial course, and directly told her to enroll in it.  She didn’t.  He then talked to his boss about things, and was told to “handle it.”  Next step?

The timing yielded an opportunity to document things in a formal review – it was due.  He drafted things very carefully, and overall, the review was quite accurate – but generally negative.  It had to be if it was going to be a true review.  He was directed by the Deputy Executive Director of the organization (the #2 person) to re-write it.  He did so under protest.  It still had a mild version of the need for training, and stepping up, and making a more robust contribution.  But it really wasn’t motivating.  She did not change.

Why change?  She had political cover, as it turns out, in the organization.  It also turned out that she had wanted the IT Director position.  She felt it was her due, and that she had been denied.

After enough time had passed to make his resume look good, my colleague left the organization – for a better org, a better position, and a better salary.

Meantime, the organization suffered a situation whereby their in-house programmers could not keep up with the AMS, its mods, and its progressions.  The org also lagged in its infrastructure upgrades.  The Network Manager, a great asset, left and was replaced with a lesser person.  Other quality personnel left, women and men of character and quality,who were difficult to replace…

Their IT shop is now pretty lousy.  It’s propped up with expensive outside counsel and support players.

One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.  To the senior executive class, directors, managers, supervisors:  Rate fairly, accurately, and ferret out those who do not serve.

Lead by example, and hold those you rate accountable.  Praise and promote those who are due.

Maintaining and balancing an IT department and its service to business is not always easy, but it is absolutely necessary.

From the expanding power and knowledge at the desktop, to mobile enablements, and to the self-train aspects of enterprise enablements, you can look for burdens that can be shifted out of the IT arena to the Business arena.  Are there information service endeavors going on in IT that can be shifted to your users?  Perhaps you can train administrators in each department to run regularized reports that are being handled by IT.  You can and should train users to craft and run ad hoc reports from your main business systems.

Particularly for small-to-medium business (SMB), you need to build a network of user support out amongst the users.  As we’ll see, a Users Support Group, led by a user, meeting on a regular schedule, can help users not only push through difficulties with common problems, it gives them the ability to maximize their use of office technologies.  At the same time, it can free your IT department for the more challenging problems and give them more space for researching a better future.

An Absence of Wasted Effort:  Revel in the glory of the absence of wasted effort.  Place effort where it belongs.  Do a regularized survey, for where new apps and systems are delivering more power to specific areas of business and people, and ensure that everyone maximizes their use of these tools, in support of your redistributions of burdens.  Watch for efficiencies to be had.  Your potent efforts now translate more directly into continuous improvement, increased quality, productivity, and delivered service.

We want our efforts to maximize the bottom line – to maximize success.  You’re not operating in “burn-out” mode – you have a store of energy for the challenges that spike.  Remove the tax on success invoked by wasted effort.  Remove the divide between effort and reward.  Make these contributions to business security, success, and the Weave.

This positions the original department to better tackle its emerging burdens, and clears work for which it was not optimally suited.  Many organizations shuffle burdens, resources and people during major reorganizations, and reorganizations are necessary from time-to-time.  But what we’re talking about here are things that can be achieved between departments, without a lot of research and analysis.  These are things that are large enough to be viewable through a common sense lens.

Often times organizations find that they’ve placed work, not according to where it is supposed to reside, but rather where the organization “found” someone willing or able to do it (perhaps forcing the issue).  Over time, these sorts of placements wobble out of balance as personnel change or move up in the organization – the original good-hearted person who took on the work, or perhaps had a natural talent for it, is no longer in the position.  That’s a problem.  These placements of work are not even prudent at the outset – placing work based on personalities, or a reason other than appropriate business discipline, is shortsighted and does not build a solid foundation.

Discovery of new possibilities is paramount. New collaborations involving departments and personnel is a possibility. Use creativity to examine new products, new thinking, new disciplines – and embrace prudent change in delivering the venerable “business solution.”

Examine the entire expanse of the organization and its concerns when considering how technology might solve business’ challenges. Examine the economy’s impact to the organization, and adjust as possible and where necessary long-range technology initiatives and plans. Include too hiring, staffing, training & development, and capital budgets as well as projects.

The savvy IT leader will seek, and motivate others to seek, cost efficiencies. Leverage all resources that can be leveraged.

Be willing to listen to fresh ideas and encourage all to contribute.

August 31^st: On this day in 1895, the first pro football game was held (Quarterback John Brallier was paid $10 and won, 12-0)

It’s important in these days of fiscal conservancy for IT leaders to participate in large decisions – that is, “business” decisions.  Particularly with the downturn in the economy, there is fresh opportunity for the IT leader to partner with senior business counterparts, to shine in examining business directions and goals, and in matching right-sized, cost-effective and successful ideas and solutions in support of robust and better business.

It helps if the IT department itself is firing on all cylinders, of course.  The IT leader must be fully successful in that realm, in partnering with the senior executive class elsewhere… in addition to boards and outside partners or authorities.

Aside from the obvious necessities of systemic requirements:  uptimes, performance, recoveries, solutions, etc., there is the necessary standardization (and therefore efficiency) of roles in IT (with appropriate overlap and backup), a ready handling of politics (oh yes), and the dealing with changing expectations for IT – often demands by business that are extreme and even unreasonable.  Perhaps handling the “unreasonable” with dispatch is key to ultimate success.

Once IT is successfully incorporated into the “business decision” realm, it is seen less as a pure cost center (and an ever growing one, at that), and more as part of the forward momentum, the drive, of solutions.  That is to say, solutions for better, and more profitable, business.

For the IT leader, and any person working in IT, consider your language when engaging your business counterparts:  Speak to them in their language, to their level of understanding.  When stretching their comprehension and knowledge, do it without breakage – and monitor that they’re “getting it.”

Build trust, show results, and bring ideas to the table for better business that exceeds the envelope of pure IT – be sure to illuminate the whole view – and be sure to understand it yourself! 

Stand, and deliver.

August 31^st:  On this day in 1887, Thomas A. Edison patents the Kinetoscope (which produces moving pictures)