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What Would You Demand From Your IT Department?
ZombieLine asks: "The IT department at my company (approximately some 500 people) is showing signs of incompetence, and has been ignoring knowledgeable user input for about a year. Additionally, they haven't been able to sell needed changes to senior management. Unacceptable server down time, maxed network storage, and no backups systems have hit the bottom line, and those on top are starting to notice. We users are staging a revolt to make IT more responsive to users by creating a group from the company divisions and IT to discuss needs and solutions. What would you put in our charter?" What services and responsibilities would you demand out of your IT department?
ZombieMime asks: "The non-IT employees at my company (approximately some 5,000,000,000 people) are showing signs of incompetence, and have been ignoring knowledgeable technology input for about a year. Additionally, they haven't been able to accept needed changes to senior management. Unacceptable computer usage, maxed bandwidth usage, and no common sense have hit the bottom line, and those on top are starting to notice. We geeks are staging a revolt to make users more responsable to IT by creating a group from the company divisions to discuss needs and solutions. What would you put in our meeting room to kill as many people as possible?"
Your company may have IT problems if any of the following has happened recently:
There are many more -- these are just a few I've experienced that exclaimed "improved [insert your favorite trait/characteristic here]" and had mostly the opposite and unexpected (to decision makers) results.
(btw, your "500" count is listed after the mention of your company, it's not clear if you're talking about a company of 500 employees or a company for which it's IT segment comprises 500 employees...)
The UK-based ITIL initiative describes in gory detail a collection of best practices that IT can follow to provide better service to their customers. They can do as much or as little of the whole program as they want, and it can even be driven from the outside by the user community if absolutely necessary. Obviously, if there's cooperation it works better, but if they roll their eyes at "another total quality management initiative" (which it's not) you can still use the terminology and methods and eventually drag them into it.
g y_Infrastructure_Library
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technolo
http://www.itil.co.uk/
Outsourcing to someone else?
:-)
Seriously, if you're going to have a department of lazy, inefficient slugs, you might as well have them for cheaper
In addition, the very threat might make your IT department shape up real quick...nothing like the threat of losing your job to light a fire under your butt and get working.
By the way raymondsimms@hotmail.com I'd be careful using fullnames around stuff like that. An IT guy at your company is probably checking the company database right now for names that match that...prepare for the vengeance of an IT Guy.
...in bed
You need to map out your requirements and then formulate them into an SLA, a Service Level Agreement. Then get your management to agree to it and take it to the barganing table. Make it clear that this is what they (the IT department) will be measured and evaluated against. If they can't agree to it, then get them to counterproposal. But, what ever you do, get it in writing in the form of an SLA, with the bosses on board... The particulars about what services and what responses and what responsibilities you want from them are details that go into the SLA. Once you hash out the details, get them locked into that SLA, though...
Step 1: Find a Bofh
Step 2: Unleash the bofh into the IT department
Step 3: Rightly cower in fear and reverence of the new effective (and renamed!) Network & Systems department.
What do you consider knowledgeable user input?
In most user communities you see divisions that ignore the entire enterprise and base their knowledgeable input on what will most help them, but maybe dosen't work in the enterprise, or adversely affects other divisions.
This situation fits 90% of input from the users, and makes it hard for an IT department to isolate what is actually valuable input.
"Unacceptable server down time, maxed network storage, and no backups systems have hit the bottom line, and those on top are starting to notice."
I don't know your situation... but maybe more money is needed for people, equipment, etc etc. You can demand all you want, but if you don't pony up the resources... *shrugs* You get what you pay for.
set down what is reasonable in terms of expectations (not more than "x" minutes of downtime during business hours every "y" weeks, scheduled downtime compared to unscheduled downtime. I would have thought that data storage would be part of your record keeping requirements for your Quality management system, just as the system should spell out how you should be filing your correspondence, verifying your work, and all the other mundane bits of Quality in a business
I think that if your IT team have been beaten into submission by a tight-fisted upper management, they may well know that things are not as they should be, but know that no matter how hard they push, upper managemtn wont do anything until it becomes a crisis. More of a sense of resignation, and coping from day to day rather than implementing the best practise they know that they should have
my old office had a server die and take down all the files for a day or so during business hours due to a faulty power supply. no hot swappable power supply on that server. They were continually running out of server space for files (not due to massive mp3 libraries sitting on the server either), which seemed mad to an end user who just wanted to know that things would be able to be saved.
They also had two email gateway servers (i'm not in IT so i may be using jargon incorrectly) and periodically one would fall over, and every other email would fall into a black hole, with no bounceback or indication your email wasn't lost. It got so bad that i would phone people when critical emails were coming through so i could be sure that they were receieved.
the firm I am with right now has a really good internal help desk system which quickly answers user queries, and the system is set up so well that you become oblivious as to the system because you can just get down to doing your work rather than worrying about how stable things are.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World" 1 John 4:14
Incompetence? Check.
Ignoring front-line workers? Check.
Stretching resources until savings are overwhlemed by resulting inefficiencies? Check.
Don't complain -- your company sounds like it's ready to go public!
If you're writing a charter (cute!), just be sure to ask for some preferred stock options or a pre-IPO allocation from the underwriter. If you don't know what those are, just ask the IT department, they are clearly up to speed.
Not on tech, of course. More important stuff!
This is beyond a no-brainer. I actually doubt the authenticity of the story based on how the real world works. Or maybe the poster is really in a 25 person company or something.
Anyway, here is how it works. Your department has IT needs. These needs are written down. The IT department has guaranteed services it provides. These are written down. Your department takes a budget "hit" to pay for an internal IT department. These are the givens.
Now, if IT does not provide services you NEED/REQUIRE (like backup, duh), then you go to the whomever is above both departments (COO, VP of division, president...) and you show the mismatch. This is not a complaint, just a reason why you are increasing your budget next year to get the services you need to succeed.
Of course, you are keeping a log of all incidents that are occurring and a log of down time and a log of costs to you as a result, etc.
Look, business people are not idiots. The 3 previous paragraphs I write above are beyond no-brainers. Why is this stuff so non-obvious to today's geeks??
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
It sounds like your company has other issues beyond an unresponsive IT department. You indicated that IT has been unable to sell necessary changes to senior management. Are you positive that senior management agrees that changes are needed or that they actually understand the seriousness of the problem? You might find that IT feels that their hands have been tied and have nowhere else to go since senior management isn't helping them.
A group of users making "demands" of the IT department is somewhat inappropriate. Yes, the IT department exists to help users with their work, but their priorities are set by senior management. If you plan to create some kind of IT Steering Committee, I would recommend a few things: (1) Lose the attitude -- all you'll do is put the IT folks on the defensive (and remember, since you're not in their group, you may actually have NO idea what priorities have been laid out for them by senior management); (2) Get the blessing of senior management before you try this; (3) Make sure at least one or two high-level people attend your meetings and buy-in to what you talk about.
Treat the IT folks like human beings. They may have perfectly good reasons for dismissing what you consider reasonable ideas. Perhaps they're seriously understaffed so that great desktop Linux rollout one of your users is convinced is the right idea just doesn't pay off for them, for example.
--No Backup Systems
--No Storage Space
These sound like budget issues. Do you think that if the IT staff, just tries really hard or is competent that they can just create File Storage and Backup Systems out of thin air.
"but when you go carrying pictures opf Chariman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone, anyhow."
Do you think you workin some kind of democracy? End users, have no budgets and as such, little influence.
Also, all of the issue you describe are operations and not applications-related. Unfortunately, if the PHBs are getting what they want from the apps (reports, closing the books, sales info, etc...), then nobody will give two cents abouyt bad ops.
The people you need to convince about your issues are executive management in your departments. If you succeed in doing that and enough of them talk to the CEO, there's a good chance that the CIO will be asked to come up with a plan to turn things around. If not, then either you and your compatriots did a poor job of making yoru case, or executive management is happy with the status quo. If that's the case, and you're really fed up with it, your only recourse may be to look for a new job.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I AM the IT department, you insensitive clod!
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Completely centralized IT should die a paintful death. I'm not sure where this concept of having to centralize all IT functions... but it seems totally idiotic to me.
If I manage a group of 40 people, I should be able to hire an IT person to service my 40 people. Their salary should come out of my budget. My IT person should have to adhere to corporate architectural guidelines. But this IT person should report to me and be accountable to me.
Internal corporate IT SLAs are a joke. If an SLA is violated, it turns into nothing but a moronic yelling match complete with finger-pointing, et cetera. Meanwhile... the end-user still suffers.
Down with centralied IT, I say. Put IT staff inside of each business function. Make them accountable to that business group/function... where it belongs.
Our IT department has been downsized and now it is almost impossible to get assistance
O RLY?
Maybe this should have been a wake-up call to the bozos with pointy hair that they actually NEEDED all the headcount that used to be on payroll.
At one company I worked for, upper level managment (bypassing everybody behind the scenes) got into a very expensive long term IT outsourcing contract with EDS that required them to take over all IT opperations. (kickbacks anyone?)
Anyhow, what happened was that once EDS was locked in, they went off and hired a bunch of hamburger flippers and called them "Senor IT insert_speciality_here". While the existing IT staff tried their best to train them, the results were rather predictable. I've herd EDS has dome something similar in a bunch of big government contracts too.
I've had friends in Europe claim that EDS are very respectable and professional experts, so perhaps there is something different in the US. But here, I was really unimpressed.
As a non-technical person with enough engineering friends to get to this site and have an iota of what might be reasonable to expect from IT professionals, here's my list of expectations:
-Security of data: obviously no data is *absolutely* secure if the computer is connected to the net, but enough security that I could feasibly work with medical records and HIPPA-privledged information without constantly worrying about crackers. For those of you who don't know what HIPPA is, imagine a very protective law about patient confidentiality that can result in serious jail time if it is violated.
-Continual access (within reason): If there are natural disasters, power outages, or personal emergencies, then certainly one can't reasonably expect 24-hr access. At almost any other time, however, I'd like to be able to turn a computer on at the workplace and not worry about downtime or have to call someone to fix the system (as my colleagues and I do now).
-Work ethic: Nothing pisses me off more than lazy people, especially those who try to use technobabble to hide incompetence. If there is work to be done, then I'd like to dial up the local expert/employee and know that the problem will be fixed *quickly* and efficiently. Certainly there will be problems that require more time than others and nothing runs smoothly all the time, but no one should have to brook crap from employees who pad schedules. If there are problems, say so and at least *try* to explain them, don't go into geekspeak/technical language in hopes that I don't understand and give up and let them go back to (insert game here).
-Keeping me informed of new tech without trying to be a salesman: Not every new upgrade is worth getting and keeping up with the Joneses can be prohibitively expensive. Sure, new tech is very cool and I'd like a wireless device to use around my office to tie labs/patient data together, but that doesn't mean it's worth constantly annoying the boss for tech upgrades
-Honesty: Don't overcharge me or bend/stretch/break the truth with me. Medical professionals *seem* to be a prime target for fleecing among computer folks and I've heard horror stories about people paying several times market rate for upgrade and basic tech services. If you work for me, please be honest about all systems or equipment. If I've made a poor decision and there's new data, say so. If there's a better program/hardware setup out there and I'm not familiar with it or am being blindsided by the saleswoman, make mention of it. I don't have the time or patience to micromanage, if your job is technical material than I rely on your expertise and expect to be able to trust you and your decisions.
That shouldn't be too much to ask and is what I will expect of any technical employees I'd hire once I graduate and get a practice up and running a few years from now.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
Your company may be totally average if those things happened to you. Pensions? Bonuses? Health Insurance? I think you're living in the 1980's. What you're describing is completely normal these days. I don't think that it is indicative of anything at all, actually.
I don't respond to AC's.
There seems to be more people out there who know a lot about technology but don't know jack about running a business. There is less people out there - who can convince the management (and rightly so) that spending $$$ pays off in the long run. Can you put a $$$ on the missing files because you didn't have a the proper backup strategy in place ? down time of the servers and the amounts of people who are sitting around and looking at the ceiling because their email and phone system are not working ? $$$ it would cost to recreate the work of a team which spent 3 months on it ? ) People in a company like that - cannot just create a "Committee" to see that changes happen - it just doesn't work - policies like that need to come down from the top. It only shows that either the people who are the heads of such departments are not speaking the right language to the top or are just plain LAZY (Incompetent, inefficient ...etc)- or the top (lower top) is refusing to listen - because they want to look like they are doing a good job by keeping the costs down - I've seen both. In either case - you need to start from the bottom and work your way up. Approach the IT Manager, and present him with your findings, ask him to take it up - if no result - take it a step over him - As a last resort approach your CTO/CIO or (CEO if you have to) with realistic numbers on the amounts of time lost due to server outages - multiply it by the number of employees affected and then by their hourly wage - $$ starts to add up...especially if you have ridiculous downtime rates... But I bet you - somewhere along your trip UP someone will start to listen. But get the numbers first...and get some "weight" behind you - get managers and directors of other departments to back you up on this...Even have them present this UP to the VP's.. etc.
LART conservation has drastically reduced the effectiveness of my comany's IT staff. I demand more LARTs!
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
First, I think you have to read a little booklet by Dale Carnegie: "How to make friends and influence people".
Making demands and staging revolts is only going to get *you* fired. It won't resolve any of the technical problems.
Oh well, what the hell...
Answers:
- Put senior management on the same file server and the downtrodden masses
- Put senior management on the same switch as the masses
- Put senior management on the same proxy server as the masses
When senior management feels the pain, they're likely to release the thumbscrews if they can. If they still don't respond, then you've identified your bottleneck.-B
It's simple. Lazy people are in charge. The whole committee/suggestion bullshit will do nothing, because in the end lazy people will still be in charge. One thing I've found is that no amount of processes will make up for someone who doesn't want to work.
Gather your allies and information. Details about what is wrong, why it's bad for the company, and how to fix it. Demand an audience with whoever is the highest person in the company you can meet with, and lay it all out. To be brutally honest, someone needs to be fired over this. Make this suggestion. Don't necessarily pick who, but make it clear that the people running IT aren't getting the job done. People outside the IT department shouldn't have to draft the job requirements of the IT department. If they know what they're doing, they'll know what to do.
If you can't get upper management to take action, then either suck it up and deal with it, or leave.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
Some more information about our company. We are a company that has gone from 3 employees to 500 total in about 30 years. The current president founded the company, does not understand technology, same with most vice-presidents around him. The divisions in the company are run pretty much like separate companies, but IT comes out of every budget.
The CIO attempts to fix by bringing current problems by e.g. we're running at 95% of network storage, and we don't have backup email server if the power goes out (twice last month) to the board meeting. The vice-presidents who don't understand the technology or the implications say no to the cost without understanding the impact.
Me and other users would like to coordinate with IT so that before they go to the president and ask for money that they come through us so they can get the support from the us as well. But the other issue that we have is that they will roll out "upgrades" without coordinating first.
CIO - We're going to Office 2003, here is the upgrade schedule, it's been blessed by the President
US - We have customers that require Access 2000, and converting them back and forth is a good way to crash them
CIO - We're locking down the computers effective today so you can't install anything.
US - We create executables for distribution, we can't test on our machines.
Granted these problems can be worked out, but its better to do it in advance. How would you create the hooks so the IT staff is responsible to user requests, but still remains the clearinghouse for technology?
BTW - None of yagu's potential problems are here, no layoffs, bene's are great, and most people are generally happy. Senior IT management isn't that technical, but that's for another day.
...is to determine WHY the IT Team is having issues. It may not be the rank-and-file techies that support you, or even the Sys Amdins that handle the network, but something else higher up in the food chain, or even external to IT (i.e. - budget) that is causing the issue.
It is far more useful to have an ally in any person or group, than to make an enemy of them.
We had an issue at a past job where we got a new manager who happened to work from a remote site. He laid down mandates that were ludicrous in nature, including to stop stocking extra hardware. Mouse broke? Put in a P.O. for a new one, get it approved, order it, and wait for it to come in. User can't work? Too bad, not enough money in the new budget to have all that extra stuff we don't actively use, and wasted storage space. The kicker is that he also blocked complaints about this pratice, from both within IT and from the users, from getting above his level. It took an end-run around him from frustrated users and IT staff to get a VP to notice. (Why did he do this? Our guess was to save an assload of cash, look good, then pass the problems on to his sucessor when he got promoted.)
Before you say "The IT Team is not serving our needs," make an effort to find out why there is an issue. Ask one of the techs what's up. I'm sure you would not want someone saying your entire department (including you) was performing unsatisfactorily due to reasons you have no control over.
I agree SLA's are worthless, for a variety of reasons.
However, I disagree that centralized IT should die. I have spent much time in my professional career undoing the nightmare of islands of systems where information is stored in multiple places (and only one is current), the same data value is stored differently (different customer numbers, item numbers, etc.). Attempting to reconcile differences in procedures, bring info together after the fact, etc. etc. is time consuming and error prone.
I can see having dedicated resources as long as the enterprise architecture is coordinated and reasonably centralized.
"The AK-47. When you absolutely, positively have to kill every single mutha-fucka in the room, accept NO substitutes."
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Unfortunately, 100:2.5 isn't seen as a terrible ratio of users:support by most executives. If you are truly overburdened (and I'm sure you are), then you need to make your case in terms the CEO can understand. Dollars. First, show that your team is 100% utilized (or very close thereto). Then lay out what the investment of another staffer would return. Remember, that you need to look at burdened cost for the new person, which is at least 1.5x annual salary. If you can show a plan that would return significantly over that (think 4-5x in 12 mos), then the CEO would be a fool not to make the investment. Who wouldn't spend $150 to make $400-500? Try to make your case with hard costs, i.e., things that flow to the bottom line, not hard to measure soft costs, like "improved efficiency".
Good luck!
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I am the IT Director for a smaller organization, about 300 total employees. Every little complaint you have there is something that I have seen a hundred times over regardless of the firm. Let me explain where you have started to go wrong here. First mistake, assuming incompetence, instead of researching the root cause of any service problems. It is easy to just say, "Well Bob over there is an idiot". When maybe Bob is following protocol that he didn't establish. Or that the IT resources are stretched to the breaking point.
Ignoring knowledgeable user input, ok that I have a huge problem with. Everyone in the IT community, programmers come to mind the most often, seem to think because they work in front of a pc all day that they know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to managing a network or a server farm. Sorry but that it the absolute truth. I have interviewed countless people for jobs in IT, well over 50% of them programmers trying to get Sysadmin positions. When asked specific questions about administrative tasks the answer is almost always the same. I know something about it but I have never implimented anything like that. Everyone wants to be an expert, trust me you aren't.
Unable to sell needed changes. Have you considered that management and accounting do not see the corporate finances in the same way that you do? Some changes are simply impossible to sell. Unless your corporate focus is in technology some of the upgrades needed to improve infrastructure will always be lacking. The exceptions tend to be when the powers that be are directly inconvenienced. But the IT Dept probably caters to them quicker than any other department so they do not see the need. They pick up the phone and Bob is right there, where as you submit a trouble ticket and you are lucky to see someone in 48 hours.
Starting a revolt? Wow you guys are arrogant. Plain and simple. What makes people think that they know another departments job better than they do? Much less "demanding" services. Just astounding. You efforts would be much better spent working with the IT department to figure out ways to get management to invest in more staff, more training and equipment upgrades. That benefits everyone, and doesn't just stroke your self-important little ego.
Your company sounds to be going in the same direction as my own employeer went ~5 years ago. 'Corporate oversite' is not a very good solution.
Basically what happened with us... we had an under funded IT department of 6 people for several thousand in the company. Backups and the like were uncommon. A quartely meeting was conviened where all the regional (basically different areas of engineering) managers would meet with IT and decide what IT's priorities would be and decide what resources would be allocated.
Immediate results:
IT got better funding. More staff for watching servers.
Bloat. After the original problems where fixed, the quartely meeting became a wish list. The IT department gained more and more control of individual users.
Now, this may not be a big issue in your company. In mine, 80%+ of the employees are engineers who travel a lot. We need control of their own computers. From IT's perspective, it was cheaper to lock down everyones computer rather than the few bad actors.
From a company performance standpoint, this caused issues with clients. When you end up in some random office at a client's building and need to print a new document you can't install drivers. We couldn't install test equipment software without 'dialing home' so IT can VPN in. We couldn't cleanup our own registry when an install/uninstall goes bad without dialing in again. Overall, if cost us time and lost us clients.
Currently the control is now swinging back from IT to the users. If you work for a technology company I STRONGLY suggest that you spell out IT's responsibilities AND IT's limits. My vague suggestions follow.
Responsibilities:
1) e-mail
2) webroot servers
3) local network servers
4) inter-office network (if you have one)
5) Helpdesk functions.
'Limits': (you probably want to call this requirements)
1) employees in group 'X' must have admin access over their machines, subject to periodic software audits
2) office managers remain responsible for telephones and other items not directly computer related (IT should not control PA/lights/etc)
3) office managers (or equivalent) dictate (and pay for) equipment to be purchased
4) Managers dicate/pay for software to be installed. IT is still responsible for company licenses.
5) An individual in each office must have admin rights for people not in group 'X'. This employee need not be (and need not be) IT related.
95% of user IT issues can be handled easily (and often more quickly) within a group of technically competent people. The IT department should provide support for the other 5% (which includes maintaining servers and the like).
"The IT department at my company (approximately some 500 people) is showing signs of incompetence"
The IT department at my company is incompetent. But I work for the goverment, so I guess that's to be expected.
lets pull this little ditty to bits...
/. because of server downtime, they're running around like headless chooks trying to patch up an obviously ailing (underfunded?) system.
"The IT department at my company (approximately some 500 people) is showing signs of incompetence, and has been ignoring knowledgeable user input for about a year.
Hmmm...well lets get to that 'incompetence' thing a little later.
But as for "ignoring knowledgeable user input for about a year"...lemme see, you've been harping on about something for a year to the IT department?
Well, what is "knowledgeable user input" anyway? "At my old company we used to..." or "my friend who is an IT genius says..."
Seriously, if you have a suggestion, detail it and submit it to the IT manager and cc it to your manager.
Berating some poor schmuck when he comes to help you format a word doc is not an effective change management strategy!
Additionally, they haven't been able to sell needed changes to senior management.
LMAO...but somehow you and your band of IT-vigilantes is going to change the world? Good luck!
So IT ARE going to management with suggestions, but are getting knocked back?
So somehow you equate managements lack of willingness to resource your IT department to be a failure of the IT guys lack of bargaining skills...not a boneheaded lack of foresight on behalf of your management team?
Wow...tough crowd...
Unacceptable server down time, maxed network storage, and no backups systems have hit the bottom line, and those on top are starting to notice.
GOOD! Now "those on top" need to find the money they should spent on protecting their investment in the first place.
You do realise that IT guys dont just down servers for no reason, dont you? You probably do...or you think they do it on purpose just to piss you off.
And while you're sitting around moaning about how long it's taking for you to be able to get back onto
From your comments so far, I'm assuming you are not one of the "knowledgeable user's" you mentioned before.
We users are staging a revolt to make IT more responsive to users by creating a group from the company divisions and IT to discuss needs and solutions.
Yeah, you go girl!
Nice of you to harass IT some more. After all they have nothing better to do than sit in on your moanapolooza.
Why not form your little revolt and march on the guys that will have to OK and pay for your demands...oh wait, lemme guess...'cause if you did you'd get your ass fired!
Face it, you dont want a solution or you would go to the people who can effect change. You want to vent. Well, you have...does that feel better?
What would you put in our charter? What services and responsibilities would you demand out of your IT department?
Well, first up...I'd want suitably qualified and trained professionals in charge of the decision making process.
And as your "knowledgeable user's" are neither...I'd demand that they get trained or STFU.
Then I'd demand that the reasons for management knocking back IT requests be made public.
Im hoping the moment management have to front staff and explain why there will be "no increase in storage" or "no funds for disaster recovery" will be one of those life changing events for you...when you realise IT budgets have to be approved or people (like you) wont get what they want, so that you then take the fight to those with the money and leave your nerds to get on with keeping your sad little network up and running.
If you really want to help your IT department effect a postive change, quit harrasing them and take your fight to the people at the top who are ultimately responsible.
Find the guys that sign's off on the IT budget and ask them why server space hasn't increased to meet demand.
Because the answer is either your IT department is siphoning off $$$ to day-trade with, or there was nothing budgeted to allow for it.
A wise man once said: Whatever you don't understand, must be easy.
What I would suggest is to look at your IT Strategy. SLAs are useful for IT Management as a measure of how things are operating, just as is downtime, percentage usage, and costs of operations. Don't listen to anyone who suggest decentralization. We had some of that at my job. It is a nightmare. Incompatable "Best of Breed" systems and finger-pointing results. Costs rise quickly with decentralization too.
Sit down with your IT management. List out facts. Don't fingerpoint. Just say: we are lossing x amount of cash due to issues with our systems. Have use studies on how you do business. Have predicted growth forecasting on systems load. Have your internal controls (audit) department monitor the disaster recovery plans and get an outside consultant to look at those plans. Get your IT Management to see your issues. Get a data retention policy and remove that data once it is too old.
That said, realise that you might be the cause of the issues. How many years of journal entries do you really need? How much customization do you insist upon to make the systems work with your archaic business processes when you should be changing your business processes to work with the systems? How many times does your senior management hamstring IT's budget and capital improvements? Listen to what your IT Management says and if they have a compelling reason for something; then by God, give it to them.
In God we trust, all others require data.
While it's definitely nice to have a dedicated IT person for a small group of people is that person going to be responsible for ALL of your IT needs or just the desktops and group-specific programs?
Remember that IT means running the file and printer servers, the email, the HR and accounting systems, your web site, your internet connection, your firewall, etc. etc. etc. Don't forget purchasing and provisioning all new desktops and servers. Throw in backups and 24/7/365 coverage and that person will burn out pretty quickly. (Also what do you do when they're on vacation?)
I suppose there has to be some happy medium between everything being handed down from on high and every small group going their own way. What's really needed is a good support group that is responsible for set groups of desktops, an IT consultancy hit-squad that can come in and launch projects, application owners, and the infrastructure maintenance people. Beats me how many people that works out to be.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Was their BUDGET cut years ago, and never brought back up.
A lot of people I know tend to blame IT staff for lack of space, lack of bandwidth etc. when problem was that IT dept could not afford to purchase equipment to upgrade a service, and they just tend to use all the budget to maintain status quo. Trust me all IT folks out there LOVE to push out new technology, increase storage, better networks, and reduce helpdesk calls. But a lack of staffing and money can put a damper in the best of IT staff in the world.
This criteria for password is fairly secure except for the slight problem - that they're really difficult to remember. The only way I learnt passwords like this was when I had to type it in every 30 minutes - cos that's how often the system I was working on crashed, and at least the IT dept wasn't mean enough to make us learn a new one every six months.
The rate of passwords either written down or programmed into the function keys (anyone else remember Wyse terminals?) was really high. Especially among the bosses.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
And if they can't work as a team, they should be fired and security should escort them from the building. And if security can't work as a team, then they should be fired as well.
I even love saying the word team. You probably think I have a picture of my family on my desk - it's not. It's the A-Team. Bodie, Doyle, Tiger, Jewellery Man. The whole lot of them.
Task Mangler
I am an IT consultant, and I make my living cleaning up the mess left behind by incompetent IT staff and management.
Many times, an organization starts out small, and the most 'IT savvy' person in the office cobbles together a 'server' and 'network' from some old PCs and some network gear they bought from the office supply store on the corner. I arrive to find a Windows Workgroup (ugh) or poorly implemented Active Directory with a host of replication issues, orphaned objects and broken name resolution. Today I worked on a production network that was running their directory services, print queues and files shares off of a 120 day evaluation copy of Windows server!
There are usually local user accounts, local printers shared off of a workstation, no redundancy, broken or no backups, physical layer problems (bad wiring) and a host of other problems. Quick fixes that were implemented over the course of years are now recurring problems that suck up the majority of the IT staff's time.
These same kinds of problems can plague a large organization, albeit they may present as slightly different symptoms. The cause is always the same: inability of management to see the big picture. This lack of attention to detail starts with management and trickles down.
The way to fix this is to get upper management to recognize that there is a problem. Unfortunately, this often would require somebody to admit that they aren't doing their job. Good luck with that. 90% of the time I find that this type of wholesale cleanup and reengineering only happens during a regime change.
- Email access to the local system through something like IMAP or POP, but I'll settle for Lotus Notes in a pinch.
- Network filesystem access for my workstation, either direct or VPN. No remote terminals! My software is needed to do my calculations, and if I can't store the files on "your network", then I'll store them on my hard drive and too bad for you.
- Filesystem access from remote locations (home, other offices). I travel a lot and can't get much done if I'm limited to working in "their" office.
In return, I promise the customer:- To provide a PC with all relevant security patches installed, and virus protection enabled.
- To use Client sanctioned applications where, in my professional opinion, they are capable of performing the tasks. This usually means Microsoft Office and usually means I get in a scrap with the IT guys when Excel is mandated for doing material balance or matrix calculations - both duties it is not suitable for. (Anybody able to explain to an IT dude what a Singular Matrix is and why it is not Invertible, in spite of what Excel does?)
-ADI come from a long helpdesk background and am now a senior developer at a mid-sized company. Unlike most of you nerds there's one thing I enjoy more than "being right" and that's "being lazy." That's why I love stupid users. I loved having a job where the biggest problem I faced in a day was telling a user to turn their monitor on. Or turn their capslock off. The worst job I EVER had was working with some very bright and very motivated individuals who were not geeks but were extremely competent in everything they did. The one thing they didn't know well was computers, and in that business you didn't need to know computers to make a crapload of money. But because they were all so brilliant, every little thing was nitpicked. Everything had to be done now now now. There were no easy problems and every day I was challenged to learn and perfectly perform something that I'd never done before with technology. There was always some shit on the line: huge fines from regulatory institutions, huge investments of money, hundreds of employees counting on your work. If the worst you have to deal with is someone dumber than you, you have it made. Make friends with your users, treat them like people, and soon you'll be in middle management, making bad decisions for a big salary.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
As for charging back "lost time" to the IT department... that would mean that every single employee got to dictate to the IT group what their individual needs for the day were rather than having IT work with management and users to get company needs addressed. How would you handle the user that as pissed off because IT wouldn't help them with their home network and they considered that "lost time".
I do agre that computing should be convenient for the end user (I'm an IT Director), but could not imagine a day when I could have 2,000 separate requests - 1 from each user - all over the board and I was held accountable for each and every one, no matter how irrational.
There is a balance!
Generally speaking, the solution to incompetence is to fire people. Generally starting at the top, and replacing them with competent people. They will generally proceed with the firing. Meeting to discuss their lack of competence isn't going to help. It's generally a situation of the blind leading the blind (if you were really good at large scale IT, why don't you actually work there, short of previous experience, running a corporate network generally has little to do with personal experince on a home network. If it really is such a problem, you should apply for the job with seriously good incentive based pay). As someone who was one half of the IT departement (SA, programming, help desk, DBA duties) at a fast growing company that went from 10 to 150 people in about 4 years, I can assure that most users outside of IT have no idea what is easy, and what is hard. The number of stupid requests put in by "knowledgable users" was insane.
Lack of backups is a serious problem. However, you haven't described why. In my experience, it's a lack of budget or priority. Generally speaking, good backup units are one of the single most expensive pieces of equipment an IT place will purchase (backups generally scale with the type of IT equipment you buy, if you buy $10K servers, your buying $25K backup libraries. If you purchase $1K servers, you buy $2-4K tape drives. I've never been purchasing $100K+ computers, I'm not sure what type of tape solution they need). The next most common reason for no backups, is literally not enough hours in the day, or backups are such a tremendous strain on the production systems that they can't be run during business hours. Which means that they can't finish. I've seen a fully justified case of not making backups as it literally wasn't cost effective. We could have made backups, but just regenerating the data was far more cost effective. The hardware and software we needed just wasn't justifiable for the volume of data. Critical data we made backups of. The scads of other data we had that turned over regularly wasn't worth it. In the end, we ended up building a hot spare and kept short term online backups on it. Getting a tape unit capable of the storage requirements was too expensive. We generated about 1-2TB/hr, 99% of which would never ever be needed again and after two weeks it was so outdated it had no value. We processed the 1% upon being identified. So backing it up was just stupid. Unless a bug was found in the identification algorithm, then it was useful to have the other 99%. Generally, you just started with the oldest data still of use and processed it all again.
Lack of storage space, is generally attributable to users if users don't have a quota. Given a group of 2 people, at least one of them is a digital pack rat. I'd say given a group of 1, but I've seen a handful of non-pack rats. For the record, I'm a pack rat, but when I am good about cleaning up when disk space gets tight. In my experience, the solution to storage is to parcel it out by type of usage. 80% of the usages will have no problems. The others will use petabytes of storage if they are given access to it. At which point, it's strictly a budget issue and resolving the issue with the users. Generally speaking, near-line storage on CD or DVD that the user could burn themselves, or spooled for an IT professional to do was the solution. We did all CD's of data in triplicate. The original user got one, their supervisor got one, and the IT department held onto one. CD's go bad, and people tend to lose them, hence the three copies held by independent people. What is needed is an archival plan for moving data from online to offline, or deleting it.
Kirby
No it's easier as an end user to just sit back, and play both ends (Management and IT) against the middle. Perhaps just for once you and other end users could try working with us instead of against us. Just once try and understand that the easier we make your life the easier it makes ours and vice versa, meaning I'm not suggesting the change to bother you, I'm doing it to protect you.
My fear is that in your company, end users and management deserve each other. One group to bent on the right now bottom line. The other group bent on using IT as an excuse for not being able to meet unreasonable demands made by the same management that can't see past todays ink.
The first step in any situation like this is to ask yourself the question. What am I doing wrong. Stop trying to fix others problems before you bother to fix your own.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I think that you're missing the point of the question.
"Your department has IT needs. These needs are written down."
The poster's question was (essentially) "What are some needs that we might write down?" The poster is looking for suggestions as to
1. Phrasing of needs, e.g. instead of saying "keep servers up most of the time" write down: servers have less than 1% unscheduled downtime and scheduled downtime is limited to Sunday nights from 1 AM to 6 AM.
2. Identifying needs, e.g. 90% of user requests should receive a response within two business days and 100% within seven business days. A response is defined as one of a solution, a request for more information, or a denial of the request (w/ explanation). What other needs have slashdot readers noticed? Sure, some of these will be inapplicable to the poster's situation. However, some things we could suggest might be applicable but not obvious.
3. Realism of needs, e.g. are 99% uptime and 90% response rate within two days realistic? Is it required?
4. Requirements of needs, e.g. is seven business days too lax? Does a requirement that lax cause operational issues? Should it be tighter?
You're right, writing down needs is a no brainer. Note that the original post said that that was what they were trying to do. To define the requirements on which they wanted upper management to sign off. The request is for help *generating* that list.
It's important to get the right list of needs the first time, because it will be hard to get management to change them upwards (which requires more budget). Once the list is settled, it will be much easier to get budget for that list than it will be to change the list. Getting the list right the first time will be hard, as obviously they don't have an existing list from which to work. In fact, they may not be measuring things like uptime and response rates.
It's also important to be realistic. For example, if the list says 100% uptime, it's going to quickly be obvious that that is impossible. The net result is that management will get to pick an uptime. Otoh, if you pick an uptime of 99%, that at least seems reasonable. If the actual uptime is 98%, then you can demand more resources to push up the uptime.
May the machine gods be merciful.
As a lower-middle-level IT guy, I have heard this type of BS before. I have been accused of incompetence by half the managers in my freaking company. The other half think I'm a saint. Lots of luck on your commitee. That really is the best way to come up with new ideas. Or at least blow a week without working.
All IT department are ultimately bottle-necked by the willingness of management to commit to ever-increasing levels of service.
That's fancy talk for "They're a bunch of tightwads."
I can't imagine a bonafide "incompentent" IT department. It's pretty hard to fake technical knowledge for long (between technicians), and we constantly test each other for dominance in our work groups, whether we see it as such or not.
More like, the described IT department is understaffed and/or underfunded. That, or the mangement refuses to upgrade from ancient, widely varying production systems on the grounds of costs or other "difficulty". I once supported 5 completely different production systems, and a host of secondary systems, running on different hardware and software, spread across 13 locations all over SoCal. I did it alone for 1.5 years. There were entire weeks when I couldn't have described what I did to keep things working after the fact, because I was totally and completely fried. Not conducive to producing orginal or innovative ideas, especially when they had no audience.
Thank goodness we finally converted to a nice centralized system, added staff, and got things relatively stable. Now when people complain, I tell them the story above. Our system is FAR from perfect, but it's better than it was, and apparently that's the best I can expect from my crap company. Without a truly serious commitment to improved software, the system we've built will ultimately rot. Development is key, and if your oganization doesn't have developers working on your system EVERY DAY, whether they are in-house or out, then your system is rotting as we speak.
Which of course is all very compelling to management, until to lay out the costs involved in constant development.
For the management: You get what you pay for.
For the IT guys: A good boss could be worth your sanity. Know any?
Shaw's Principle: Build a system even a fool could use, and only a fool would want to use it.
"As for checkwriting ability, good point, not something I'd considered off the top of my head."
.)
Get used to unexpected consequences to your decisions, if you're going to run your own business. You MUST learn to think things through - i.e. "look before you leap". You have to do it as a doctor; so just remember to do it as a boss, too.
Today we rearranged our office. Impromptu - no planning - just "do it now" and "we'll figure it out as we go". Moving one row of cubicle dividers next to the wall meant that the power, phone, and data outlets along that wall were no longer accessible and the previously used outlets became too far away. Management said "no down time" and then had to accept down time for four production workstations while someone made a Home Depot run for extension cables - which, of course, are yet another kind of mistake. (Then there was a second run, as management had forgotten that power cables are not the only kind of cables . .
We needed to move our servers over by seven feet. "What do you have to take them down for? The cables will reach. We need our productivity!" So after sending everybody home when two of our 1-TB RAID volumes stopped communicating with the server, I got an earful from management about how we employees had bungled a "simple" rearrangement of the entire office. We employees also got blamed for "our" failure to plan!
I also got an extraordinarily polite ass-chewing from a Dell server tech about trying to physically move a running server with external RAIDs - and believe me, I did make it VERY clear to management that that move was NOT a good idea! We came very close to losing about 1.5-TB of data today; despite our backups the loss would still be hurting us months from now.
Hopefully you will do better.
Adherence to the truth is a form of disloyalty.
You're getting your head handed to you here and it may seem unfair, but by asking the question the way you did you demonstrate that you have no clue about actual IT responsibilities. Thus, it's impossible to take your idea of "knowledgable user input" serioulsly, much less your diagnosis of IT incompetence. Your IT department may be incompetent, but you have demonstrated that you are in no position to judge at present.
The answer to your question? SLA or Service Level Agreement.
It is reasonable to ask management what you should expect from IT. Find out what the SLA is or help create one. This will be a lot of work. You will encounter resistance, for no more sinister reason than that is hard. Just make sure this SLA takes into account senior management's requirements of IT as well. Perhaps IT incompetence isn't the reason management isn't providing the needed upgrades. An SLA provides some metric for performance. If the SLA is unsatisfactory, that is a matter to be taken up after performance against it is measured, but what amounts to a formal job description is a reasonable starting point.
There's good literature on all of this, and it's easy to find if you are interested in improving IT in your organization, and not just playing Napoleon. If you'd rather just whine and make everything worse, ignore everyone here and stage your little petty revolt. It will be easier, but if management has a clue at all, this will be a career limiting move for you. Cynically, either way, the SLA is the starting point.
I don't deny that IT can be incompetent, but it is rare in my experience. It occured to me that you were a troll, posting here. Regardless, there are others who really think IT is incompent because of their own ignorance, who would benefit from gaining a little insight into what IT is about.
If I worked with you, I probably would tell you this in person, and tell you who might have more insight into the actual priorites set for IT. I've had plenty of similar conversations with people over the years. It's just another part of the usual perception problem for IT.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Have you tried being in your IT Department? - You might say they have neglected to sell projects to senior management, but are you sure it is not a money issue? - How big is your IT department? - How skilled is the IT department, again how much money is set aside for education? - How is work in the IT department organized. Myself we are a staff of 3 and 2 part time students for support (for 200 users + guest groups of various sizes), and even our "clients" are complaining that they need to file a helpdesk report rather than we just take notes over the phone. etc. etc.
At all three companies where I've been an IT worker, there has been a common problem: managers who are generally good managers - good people skills, organizational skills, ability to look at the big picture - but who advertise their "technical ignorance" to anyone who will listen. They let the IT department and all other departments know that they will defer to the IT department on technical matters.
So, you end up with technical decisions that serve the people who deal with technology, as opposed to serving the users who are doing the main work of the company, or serving the company's goals as a whole.
I'm not sure what causes effective managers to decide to take a different approach to technical issues than they do with others, but I'm convinced that's the root cause of the sort of problem described by the poster.
I believe top management - and department managers, following their lead - should be pressing IT managers to break down technical issues to the point where they can make effective decisions. When the IT manager says "it will take 3 months to set up a new mail server" and the sales manager throws her hands in the air, their boss should sit down with the IT manager and make them explain what the factors are that will make it take that long. And if it's too technical and they don't understand, they should SAY so, and make the IT manager explain it again. Until they understand. Then, they should say things like "what would it take to do it in 1 month?" and by that time, they should be informed enough to reject bullshit answers like "we need another $75k employee."
"technical ignorance" is not an excuse, when you have people on staff who are capable of educating you. And IT workers who perpetuate the myth that it's "beyond a non-technical user's understanding" merely for their own convenience should be...fired.
If your management doesn't see things this way, there's probably not much you can do about the problem.
Pete Forsyth
Anywhere that lets passwords run for 3 months does not really consider security a high priority.
28 days, 8 character minimum and 2 non alpha keys is a minimum. Any weaker than that and the sales dept must be in control of security. If not them some other technical illiterates.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
- Air Travel should be banned until we win the War on Terror
- Hospitals should be closed until antibiotic-resistent diseases are cured
- Credit cards should be blocked until fraud is prevented
Insightful? Pah! (BOFH Archives)Reduce, reuse, cycle
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You give 'em hell!! Speaking as a user, I can say that I could put together an entire server room in a week using off the shelf parts from CompUSA and Best Buy. And it wouldn't cost the millions that most IT departments spend on those elitist devices like SCSI drives, ECC RAM, DLT tapes, Cisco Managed Switches and SANs. The first thing I'd do is build a big system based on the latest gaming system specs (since gamers push the technology envelope) and cram it with ten 300 gig SATA drives. That's 3 terabytes of storage (more than those piddly SANs!) and at a fraction of the cost. Then I'd make sure had a dual layer DVD burner in it for backups. That way WE could have full backups on really inexpensive mediums. When I saw the price of a DLT II tape on an IT invoice, I nearly flipped. They're TOO expensive!!!!1111!!! Then I'd throw Windows 2003 Server on the box to manage all this stuff in one place. A few Linksys or Netgear switches can start connecting the resst of the networks together and they'd be WAYYY cheaper than the highway robbery that Cisco foists on us through our IT elitists.
The workstations would be even easier. I'd buy everyone the $300 AMD specials with Windows XP Home. That way they'd be more familiar with the OS since they probably have XP Home at home too. Just plug them into the network and away they go. They can all get their IP address from the Linksys router like I do at home and then they're online easy as pie. Don't need to get out any stupid manuals to manage Cisco switches or anything like that. All the gobbledygook is just for elitist snobs. For restoring a PC if it gets hosed, I'd just use a copy of Ghost. Sometimes you can even get Ghost for free if you buy the right hard drive. Just hook up a laptop with Ghost to a PC using a USB cable and make an image to burn onto a DVD. The next time the PC needs to be revived, just grab the DVD from the pouch on the side of that box, pop it in the laptop and Ghost the other way around! Easy as pie and FAST too!!
In this day and age, what company with a competent IT staff does it's own e-mail? I've been trying to tell the folks in my IT department to ditch our mail server (some antiquated Unix based thing that nobody really likes) and just let everyone get Hotmail accounts. Now that GMail is around, that's an option too since they give you a pretty comfortably sized mail box as opposed to the meager offerings of the clueless IT staff. E-mail should be able to hold whatever I put into it no matter how much or how big. Period.
The voice over IP thing is easy too. Just buy a VOIP box from Linksys and get a Vonage account for every group of ten users you've got. You'll need multiple DSL lines to do it, but that would still be far cheaper than having one of those snobby PRI or T1 lines to carry your voice traffic. Speaking of which... why on earth is anyone using T1s and T3s these days? They're so costly and they don't perform anywhere near what I get on my cable modem at home. Just get cable modem and be done with it. Your users will thank you forever.
Barron, I'm glad you gave me a chance to get that out there. The users need to know the truth.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
My number one IT complaint is that they make rules like:
... but they will not. It isn't really enough anyway.
no unsupported access/mysql/etc databases, but provide no alternative.
As a manufacturing engineer, I must collect megabytes of data on each unit built to do my job.
I can't realistically have technicians manually enter data in some slow Oracle forms java interface without doubling the cost of my parts, thereby guaranteeing that all of our jobs will go to China.
Some things I could do with a scanner and Oracle's mobile applications... if they would enable that
I really need to use Oracle's Open Interfaces. I understand them. I read the manual. I just need access.
But the answer is no. They don't want the headache, and think that forms is good enough for all users.
So what can I do? My leaders are too clueless to understand the problem. They just demand that I collect all the data so they can later magically get 'six-sigma' data from me.
So I enrage IT by creating whatever databases I need to get the job done. Some of them have gotten nervy enough to delete these production databases, knowing full well they are critical, just to prove their point. I back eveything up to multiple network locations hourly, so I only lost a few minutes of production, but that only makes them madder, as data backup is their job, and I'm using up an obscene amount of disc space.
Too damn bad. I know that my customers are 1. Manufacturing Floor 2. Management that needs good data to make decisions 3. Design engineers, who need feedback on their designs to create next generation products. 4. Customers. IT is not in that list. I am their customer, and a damn demanding one, and rightfully so.
Yes, I'm one of those people who uses 80% of their time. I manage hundreds of production PCs running various pieces of test software written in dead languages with obsolete and esoteric hardware and they need to last long enough for me to replace them with something modern. You can't just walk by and take something with a Metrobyte ISA IO card in it and stick a new box with XP there instead, no matter what your upgrade policy is.
I would ask them to vertically organise domain expert groups in their department, with users (domain experts), analysts and IT project leaders at level one, technical analists at level two and programmers at level three. The groups form a single unit of competence. And I always talk about roles, not persons, to be clear.
Then I would horizontally organize formal and informal communication channels at each level, where each level is in touch with its counterpart in other domain units. At each level there is a support team to provide the means to standardize and keep an eye on productivity and focus.
Your IT department organisation can be graphically represented as a field of stacks of three checker discs, with a large sheet of paper thru the stacks at each level starting at the bottom, representing the support and communication channels.
The most important thing is that users are full time member of the groups, are directly involved an take their part of responsability in the IT processes.
There should be no us and them. No choosing sides.
And if ever you need a consultant, treat him as one of yours.
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* Sigh *