As my father said:  From some, you learn what to do; from others, what not to do.

Oh oh – it seems someone is having trouble managing a project, and it’s a big one.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is presently getting by in a 30-year old outdated facility, known as the National Computer Center (NCC) in Woodlawn, MD.  Some of its support infrastructure, such as the UPS, is so old that there are no longer replacement parts available for maintenance.

Nearly $500 million in stimulus funding has been dedicated to building a new data center.  As often happens, the project is a year behind schedule and the lag appears that it will get worse.  Meanwhile, the old facility is filled with problems.  This is no mundane “data center” – it is a facility that delivers annual payments of $700 billion to 56+ million Americans.

Fortunately, the General Services Administration (GSA) has found a location for the new home of a new state-of-the-art data center.  It’s rather interesting to note that a significant part of the delay in prepping this new site is a concern over cost of electric power:  government auditors “expressed concern” that not enough consideration was given to this cost. 

I’m a little confused:  Power is power (a kilowatt hour is empirical, no?), a data center is a data center (a proper project knows the size, scope, and power demands… no?  Um, well, I guess, “no”), and the project is supposed to manage according to schedule and reality – right?  That’s what a project does – that its whole purpose.  Otherwise we wouldn’t waste our time shuffling all these schedules, resources and people.

I’m kinda guessing that the new site might be a bit removed from ready-access to efficient, affordable, power:  Maybe they need relay stations, or boosters, or who knows what – but this would seem to be a failure of proper survey for where they are – what they really need, and where they’re going and thus resultant trouble in the middle:  Getting there.

Kelly Croft, Deputy Commissioner for Systems at the SSA, provided some telling Congressional testimony this past February 11^th.  She cited the “dire need” for the new data center:  “Without a long-term replacement, the NCC will deteriorate to the point that a major failure to the building systems could jeopardize our ability to handle our increasing workloads without interruption.”  Further:  “Despite all of our best efforts to preserve the NCC for as long as necessary, there is always the potential that a critical facility infrastructure system could suddenly fail.”

Risks and incidents are further illuminated by Croft’s recent testimony:

-        There is No True Dedicated Power:  “Employee office spaces in other areas of the building share the same power lines and HVAC system as the data center. This design problem means that a potentially isolated issue in an area outside the data center, such as a minor receptacle overload at someone’s workstation, could temporarily shut down some power to the data center and HVAC system.”

-        There is an Aging Custom UPS System:  “The UPS is not an off-the-shelf product; it was designed specifically for the building. While we have extended our service contract with the UPS maintenance vendor over the years, the vendor recently advised us that it could not guarantee repairs in the near future. The necessary parts are simply no longer available. If the UPS failed, we would have to bypass the system and deliver unconditioned power to the data center equipment, which could quite potentially damage the equipment. Replacing the UPS would require significant downtime at the NCC.

-        Critical Cabling Problems: “Tangled cables can block the under-floor airflow that cools our servers, and we cannot work on the cables safely without shutting down the affected systems. Similarly, troubleshooting problems is difficult when we cannot isolate cable pairs easily to determine whether problems exist in the cables or in the IT equipment. There is also an elevated risk of data corruption, because electro-magnetic interference from the electrical wires that are located too close to the telecommunication wires can distort data transmission.”

-        Leaking Water in the Data Center:  “Last year, our facilities staff noticed water on the floor of one of the large battery rooms in the NCC. They quickly traced the source to a leaking water pipe in the room. Any water in close proximity to high-voltage batteries presents a serious hazard to the building and its personnel. In order to fix the leak, plumbers needed to expose the pipe and cut off the water supply. Unfortunately, without redundant systems, cutting off the water supply to the pipe also required cutting off the water supply to the large air handling equipment that is responsible for cooling our computing space. Since the air handling equipment had to be turned off, we had to actually shut down a portion of our national computing operations while making the repairs.”

Here in the Weave, I hope it’s obvious that there had to have been a failure in an ongoing survey of Where We Are (where they were) for the SSA.  Always understand where you are, thus knowing where you need to go, and thus knowing how to get there – sanctioned and known projects, with assigned budget, resources, responsibilities, and sized expectations – all done on time, in time.

Knowing where you are – the status of systems, their longevity, their safety and security, their update, their schedule for replacement – is a critical factor in any organization’s surety.  You must lead change, not mount it in a burst when critical infrastructure is failing:  finding that water is not only near critical power sources, but leaking to boot; upon discovery that cables are tangled and unlabeled – what happened to “wire management” here?  And so on…

On this day:  On February 27^th,1967 Pink Floyd released their 1st single “Arnold Layne”

The One-Year Plan

A properly maintained Five-Year Plan means that your One-Year Plan is being worked on and readied not only in a “near-term” advance; you’ve been working on it to one degree or another for five years!  That’s powerful.  Again, this plan drops into place from the front of your Five-Year Plan.  It outlines all of your major objectives for the year with just enough detail so as to present an efficient, informative overview of each objective.  Items on the One-Year Plan are broken out and assigned to individuals and, as necessary, groups, to manage as projects for the larger endeavors and as tasks for the smaller initiatives.  Hence each item on the One-Year Plan is on at least one person’s Individual Action Plan; some items on the One-Year Plan will be on several individuals’ action plans, since they will require a team, or project, effort.  Group initiatives will show on the Individual Action Plans as a specified role and set of responsibilities for that individual.   

The Individual Action Plan

Each IT staff member’s Individual Action Plan is a roll down from the department’s One-Year Plan.  Each item on the One-Year Plan is on various Individual Action Plans, with expanded detail and specific expectations.  Here are the actual projects, tasks, duties, and ownerships – indeed this plan is one of the most effective levers for getting things done.  Sure, you’ve got goals listed in each of your employee’s appraisals, and you may have a professional development document somewhere – these are generally filed away until a mandated annual review.  But the Individual Action Plan is drafted and maintained by the individual IT staff member, and approved by the manager.  It has projected dates for completion of items.  It is reviewed quarterly at a minimum, and on an ad hoc basis as necessary.  Items are marked as completed or pending as appropriate. 

If an item is not to be undertaken – for example if something cannot be funded as anticipated – it is removed.  Initiatives that were not originally planned, but which have been added to the year’s objectives, are assigned and added to an appropriate person’s action plan as necessary.  A well maintained Individual Action Plan is a ready reference come review time, and makes the preparation of each employee’s appraisal much easier – it also makes for great supporting documentation. 

A current year’s Individual Action Plan can also include items from any year of the Five-Year Plan.  For example, a somewhat distant future initiative may need researching now.  However, the Individual Action Plan is primarily a “get it done” document for achieving the near-term objectives of the coming year.

The “Who” of Getting Us There:  Further, as we consider the importance of ‘where we are,’ ‘where we’re going,’ and ‘how we’re getting there,’ consider the ‘who’ of getting there.  Who exactly is doing what?  Within the organization, the Individual Action Plan is the ultimate setting, documenting, and control as to who is doing what.

Leveraging your plans

Toward the middle and end of each year, a major focus shifts to year-one of the Five-Year Plan.  It is now the upcoming One-Year Plan, and it should be on the agenda in the BIT meetings.  It should be raised in budget meetings, all-staff meetings, and IT staff meetings:  anywhere futures discussion and planning is happening.  The IT leader must be sure to do a final survey of Business regarding all of their needs, real and imagined, and the various Business teams must vet and justify each.  It is also very important for Business to make their own effort:  to make needs known to IT on a timely basis, particularly as regards changing needs that evolve between formalized meetings or understandings.  The fourth quarter of the year is a good time for IT’s sponsor(s) to attend a BIT meeting or two.  Getting everything on the table and identified as a “need,” “want,” and “wish-list” type of item is very important. 

Once the year starts, remember that the current One-Year Plan is a living document.  As the BIT team meets, and issues are raised or fine-tuned, relevant items add to the plan and get tracked.  Some items may drop.  There should be very few “surprises” in a properly maintained plan environment.  IT works within its supervision to make sure the BIT-developed and other work is on track with the organization’s goals and expectations. 

The One-Year Plan’s Support to Projects

As a One-Year Plan approaches actualization, specific items take shape as separate, defined, and detailed plans in support of managed projects.  As the bulk of the work is viewed from a requirements standpoint and a budget perspective, and as work is discussed and balanced in terms of load to departments and individuals, it starts to become apparent what can be supported – and perhaps what cannot. 

In other words, the overarching One-Year Plan becomes fairly steadfast, and becomes a catalog of sanctioned projects and initiatives – pointing to detailed plans that are under development or ready for execution.  As importantly, any delayed or disapproved work will be known to all participants – expectations and requirements are now being satisfied according to the organization’s authority and sanction, with everyone’s full knowledge.

Remember ~

Any specific IT plan should have a match to a business plan or objective in the organization.  The Five-Year, One-Year, and Individual Action Plans must support sanctioned business initiatives.  IT’s plans help to establish where you are, where you’re going, and the route for how you’re getting there. 

As importantly, direct responsibility is assigned through the plans; the specific “who” of getting you there. 

Remember to leverage BIT and its agenda in support of managed change according to plan. 

October 31^st:  It’s Halloween.   :^ )

Three Plan Types

IT’s general support to the Business-Technology Weave can be effectively planned and managed through three major plan types.  These are the high-level, across-the-board support plans – which acknowledge and mark the upcoming projects. 

We’ll refer to these IT-Business support plans as the Five-Year Plan, the One-Year Plan, and the Individual Action Plan.  You may wish to label these plans differently in your organization; you may need to look further into the future with a ten-year plan – or more.  But here we’ll use these generic names for ease.  Let’s take a brief look at each plan type, how it relates to the other plan types, and how together they help maintain your directed change, and adjustment to outside, impacting, change. 

The Five-Year Plan

The Five-Year Plan begins with the upcoming (next) calendar year, and extends through each of the upcoming five years.  The upcoming first year becomes the organization’s detailed One-Year Plan, upon the turn of that new year.  Therefore, the first year of the Five-Year Plan should contain everything you intend to do in the upcoming year.  Since the One-Year Plan is the near-term focus for what needs doing, it should be as detailed as necessary – it is executable in that it has been vetted and sanctioned, is budgeted, has been announced, and all preparatory steps have been taken for each element of the plan.  It matches the organization’s business expectations, needs, and overall business plan for the year.  Also, the One-Year Plan spawns all of the detailed project plans and individual action plans as necessary for the organization’s various managed projects and changes.  The organization’s overall project management benefits from the coordinated tracking on the Five and One-Year plans; supports, dependencies and competition for resources can be adjusted in maintaining optimal results.

The Plan’s Progression:  Years Two, Three, Four and Five are progressively less detailed, respectively, as you consider periods of time that are further out from “now.”  Looking out to Year Five, we can see that in a year’s time, its detail and plan moves into the Year Four slot; the former Year Four is now Year Three, and so on.  At each turn-of-year, a new Year Five is added to the back of the plan.  As each year of the Five-Year Plan marches toward you, it is massaged into better focus; adjusted according to changing business priorities or objectives; availability of resources; advancing technology; changing environment; and new methods and practices.  There is an ongoing maintenance for the organization’s alignment of business and technology.  Eventually, our original Year Five clicks forward, having evolved and focused according to needs, until it moves into position as the One-Year Plan.  In this manner, we find that a properly maintained Five-Year Plan can efficiently generate a comprehensive, executable, sanctioned, and aligned One Year Plan.  This means that an organization’s staff is fully informed and qualified to tackle the forthcoming changes, and changes align with business needs in fulfilling expectations accurately, comprehensively, and efficiently.  

At any given time, we can expect that Year-Two doesn’t have quite the focus or detail as Year-One – however, most major initiatives are known and a fair amount of detail is present.  The more distant years will have large bullet items without a lot of detail, because technology and business factors change, sometimes radically, over a period of years.  Your Years-Four and Five may even contain rather whimsical “wish-list” type of items, just to keep them on the radar.  Your organization may have potential mergers or acquisitions under consideration, which will require different technology and business practices – these considerations can call for placeholders on the plan, ensuring some exploratory discussion and gathering of pertinent information.  These efforts establish and define a ‘where we are,’ also project a ‘where we’re going,’ and ensure the start of a bona-fide, progressive, route for future actualization. 

The Plan’s Direction and Flexibility:  Planned items can go one of two ways:  Some things become certified as bona-fide objectives, and additional detail is accumulated and added to the plan.  Just as importantly, other things may be dropped due to a change in business priorities.  Likewise, other things may pop on as completely new items.  The flexibility of the plan means that you may “bump back” certain items over the course of a couple months, or even years – maintaining them as placeholders – perhaps until a return-on-investment threshold is reached.  Other things may “heat up” and slide forward. 

At the same time, the Five-Year Plan cannot simply be a receptacle for every crazy brainstorm or trendy practice that comes along.  It must represent a managed plan that adheres to the true needs of the organization, as best as you can determine them at any given time. 

The Five-Year Plan (or any long range plan) also does something else that’s very important:  it should not only expose dependencies, but should also show vulnerabilities and strengths.  For example, if your plan is to implement a new content management system in the course of the next few years, you may need to consider an upgrade to your hardware platform and infrastructure.  Your plan may have to accommodate new fileservers and workstations, for example.  You’ll have a significant training and support burden.  Once that decision is made, it may be evident that another project that was waiting for these upgrades can now move forward.  The preparation and timing for implementation of many things will coordinate nicely through the plan. 

Remember:  As the first year of the Five-Year Plan becomes the current year, that part becomes the new year’s One-Year Plan.  The Five-Year Plan adds a year at the end of its range, is populated as necessary over the course of time, and all years are updated and tuned accordingly.  A properly maintained Five-Year Plan not only means that you know where you are, and where you’re going, but also means that you’ll always have your One-Year Plan ready at the beginning of each year.  In fact, you’ll have one-year plans under development for each of the next five years.  That is managing change as a continuum.  Also keep in mind that you can project further if you feel you need to.  Just remember to match your time and effort to the likelihood that a particular plan objective will actually be undertaken.

Coming:  The One Year Plan, and the Individual Action Plan.

October 31^st:On this day in 1956 Brooklyn, NY ended streetcar service.