Everything new is old again

It's been a while since I have blogged, but things have been pretty busy. Reviewing my past posts, I have noticed that most of my blogging seems to key in on communication issues. So this one should come as no surprise-

Our communication devices have advanced to the point that we are going back to the days of the telegraph.

I first observed this a few years back with a teen aged son of a friend of mine. He and a buddy were standing next to each other texting each other back and forth. And not talking or looking at each other. I have seen it with my own children and I am starting to recognize it in the work place.

With the technology advances in today's workplace, we don't have to do as much face to face communication as we used to. Desktop support organizations can exist virtually anywhere, telecommuting has made office time optional and the untapped potential of the 'cloud' has made bull pens and meeting rooms obsolete.

But where has that led us? What I see is a degradation of communication skills and a bunch of people living in their encapsulated world where they can control the conduits of communication.

We now have a bunch of folks essentially yelling at each other and no one interacting or conversing with one another. Inflection and tone have surrendered to the emoticon. Context has become a lost cause and along with it brevity. The text message is the equivalent of the telegraph - I can't respond to you until the message is sent and I have to put special instructions in the message for it to be interpreted correctly (STOP).

Reach out....shake a hand.....share a smile....laugh

Troubleshooting Satisfaction - Does expecting failure meet expectations?

It’s always worked that way- Where expecting failure meets expectations...

I have been touching a lot on the importance of good communication over the past couple of posts, and along those same lines, I started thinking about customer satisfaction. This touched home with me a while back. The following incident actually happened; the descriptions have been deliberately blurred to maintain anonymity.

I was part of a group that sent a software patch out to fix an issue with an automated report that was not transmitting daily. We tested it, ran it through some test users and finally released to production. Along with the notification to the users that the update had been made, we asked that any issues be called into the help desk. We had a few calls that we quickly addressed, and as the call numbers dropped, we thought we had permanently fixed the problem. A few weeks pass and I am called into an operations meeting where a supervisor is asking me why his people had to go back to manually faxing or emailing the reports.

When we dug into the issue, we found that the sites had been having issues with the program for so long, they did not trust the patch would fix the issue. Most sites the patch worked, some sites had to have it redeployed. And even at the fixed sites, when something did happen, they said “oh well, it's broken again” and just went back to doing it the old manual way.

Since then we have taken steps to proactively follow up with the end users and their management on each new deployment. Our support groups now have more visibility at operational meetings as a result and the communications are flowing much better than before. We have not had a repeat of this fiasco since implementing these changes.

What was the most humbling aspect of this entire situation was that the customers had experienced failure for so long that failure became “normal.” Sadly, this met their expectations, and that is why they did not call their problems into the help desk.

A hard lesson learned….

If I tell you no will it change your business decision?

The art of the skillful/qualified decline (Part 1)



It’s easy to SAY no, directly or indirectly. Our natural tendencies are to hide behind other work (too busy), hide behind leadership (ask my boss) or to play dumb (I did not get your email in time). But beware - there is also the trap of the “false positive” – by giving non verbal queues (head nodding, etc.), you could unwittingly be giving implied approval or agreement by saying nothing (silence is compliance).

So how should we say no, without appearing to be unhelpful? You have to turn a NO into a KNOW….(sorry for the pun!)


Invest ourselves early into the decision making process.

This can be achieved through casual contact (Hey Tom, did you know that we are going to have to order an upgraded switch for that new equipment deployment?), or through a more formal process (new user/application checklist, change control). Your communication has to be effective and meaningful to the customer throughout the decision process. All too often we hide behind the communication method we (ourselves) are most comfortable with or is the easiest. We have all seen the notorious mass email with the “do not reply to all” warning message in the header that gets quickly ignored by everyone (because we assume it's for someone else to worry about). We need to motivate our teams to engage the customer and communicate on their terms. For some customers sending out a quick text message or email is enough. Most middle upper managers just want the bullet points, others want a phone call. Some users prefer a site/office visit, others are fine with an instant message. Some folks insist on the weekly conference call, others live by the early morning meeting with breakfast pastries. Using a single form of communication (like email) appeals only to the lowest common denominator and as such has little impact when trying to shape decision making processes.

Make sure that your staff are communicating with stakeholders before, during and after the decision making process. By getting the customer’s buy in early in the process, we can join with the customers to eliminate potential IT roadblocks during the process. Invest in the process. If no one is documenting the meetings, offer to take minutes. Working toward a common goal will build cohesiveness within the company and will improve the effectiveness of IT’s impact in the decision making process. After the decision has been made, IT can provide ongoing value to the decision process by volunteering to lead the follow through effort. Following up also lets stakeholders and management see that IT is interested not only in helping make a decision, but has a stake in the outcome after the decision has been made. And to be a bit selfish, IT teams can use the follow up as an autopsy so we can make sure that we are addressing short comings in our own process. Some people might think that all this effort is wasted work, but would you rather have a seat at the table during the decision process or have no choice in the matter?


Provide more than just an answer (address the why), provide solutions (complete the how), and get your customers in the KNOW to avoid giving the NO.



More to come…

The best IT organization is the one you don’t notice.

I feel that there is a lot of truth behind this statement. I am fond of this saying and have often made it my mantra.

On the surface, this saying implies that the IT department is keeping things running smoothly and meeting expectations. Think about it for a second - Your email is available where ever you are and you can access your desktop from home (and have it LOOK LIKE your desktop). Your communications teams can easily FTP sensitive files to your client’s servers through a seamless secure portal. Your marketing teams have access to all their varied resources (web apps, CRM, etc.) when they are securely logged in first thing in the morning. Your team of accounting analysts and don't have to hop on one foot and enter 3 different passwords to run their SQL query for last quarter's results that they will have to copy over to Excel to make it readable/useful, it's all on a form. The company's flexible bandwidth solution meets the demand for the video conference for the semiannual financial director's online conference and scales back at night when everyone has gone home.

I think it runs much deeper than just meeting expectations and remaining in the background. I think that it is the reflection of an organization that has taken the time to do proper strategic thinking and planning. They have the right pieces in the right places and anticipate needs rather than wait for customers to come to them. You don’t hear about systems going down because they have backups in place. You hear through the grapevine that the company lost its internet connection but you did not notice it because they had an instant on wireless cellular bridge for back up. Plan for the worst....and make sure it works.

Organizations like this tend not to be on the “trendy” bandwagon with every new app/language/device that comes along. They may have some gadget freaks within the organization, but these folks are more apt to delve into the “how does this help me do my job better” software instead of the “hey I can watch TV on my phone” crowd.

The hardware and software that runs these types of organizations need not be cutting edge or expensive. With the growth of SaaS, Web applications, low cost virtualization software, domestic broadband penetration, and the wider acceptance of alternative Operating Systems (like Linux); companies are well positioned to do more with less.

Musings of an IT Professional

This is my first foray into the "published" world of blogging. My intent is to publish an observation on management and things IT related every 2 -3 weeks. I will keep my true identity a secret and will strive to not publish anything that could identify my employer or portray them in an embarassing light.

My goal is not to trash any employer (past or current) but just to share some of the unanswered questions in my head.