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Making IT Visible to Management?
frustrated Dilbert asks: "We are a very small IT dept where the manager participates in the day-to-day operation of IT services. The problem is that he almost never talks to upper management and doesn't get involved in the business side until someone gives him a specific project to handle. The result is that IT is considered to be firefighters when things fail, and generally plumbers that fix stuff when other PHBs create new projects. We run all the mission-critical stuff in a line of business that can not work without technology. The IT PHB fails to see which sides of the business we need to support and which are second in line. I end up doing my stuff and a lot of his duties of picking up the direction of the business and making strategic decisions. The company is actually great to work for, but I was not hired (or paid) for teaching my boss to run his shop in addition to tech stuff. He simply wasn't made for it and got promoted into something he can't cope with. I'm getting really tired of having to do management and not get any credit and would love to have him replaced, but I hate having to rat on him too. How can I get a more organized workplace when my boss isn't capable of thinking ahead?"
...doing his job, and let him get himself fired. Problem solved.
- Tech isn't important. For virtually all companies technology is not all that important. Conducting business is. If tech helps make business cheaper or faster... great. If it gets in the way then it is a money sucking annoyance at best. As a grade "A" technologist you focus on first getting your tech out of the way, then on getting tech to help make business cheaper, faster, easier to conduct.
- Your job is to get your boss promoted. You are employed to make your boss look good. If your boss is an idiot that you simply can't make look good no matter how hard you try... get another job. Your boss' job is to get his boss promoted and so on up the chain until you hit share-holders who are in it for the money.
- If you out shine your boss you will get fired. Don't. You can shine, just make sure you redirect the glory to the boss power structure. This kind of brown-nosing will get noticed. Sucking glory into yourself will cause conflict.
- If your boss is an idiot convince him that your great ideas are his. Sometimes you do this by chatting up one of your ideas and saying what a smart person your boss is for having thought of it. If you do this be prepared to be the scape-goat if your great plan fails. Remember what your job is and do it. Your job is to get your boss promoted. He will sacrifice you to get this goal accomplished.
- IT is a cost sink. It completes no sales, makes no revenue, and never turns a profit. To ensure the survival of department make certain to collect very negative metrics showing huge expendatures and then show how great you are doing at cutting these costs. You must how victory even when you are being utterly defeated.
- Never strike a man lest you mean to kill him. Unless you really belive you can get your boss fired so fast it will make his head spin don't stop doing your job. People are smart and can see through the double talk. Or they can't and you need to keep them in the dark until you can strike the killing blow.
- Know your boss. Do not assume loyalty in a person who has never demonstrated it. Do not assume sentimentality. Do not assume. Know what motivates your boss' bosses. It's probably not what motivates you.
- Technology is about equal parts of science, math, and politics. You can't pull off tech leadership without mastering all three.
My company is currently implementing these great ideas that my boss thought of. It is such a pleasure to be working with a genius of his caliber. I would never have considered these ideas without his guidance and insight. I am so glad to be learning these things from him. I'm so glad he thought of this... even if he can't remember when or how he did.[signature]