The most significant hurdle at this stage is knowing how to put the product or services in the hands of cusomers, and grap their money in yours. The person with the ideas of how to achieve this is the CEO, with several others to handle the day to day development, marketing, legal, admin. Counting money is important, but not as important as getting the money to count.
The CEO must be a leader. CEO's must have own ideas about how to build this company, and convince the rest of the team to follow him.
Therefore, you must review the current situation in your company. Are you in product design/development stage ? Do you have a solid marketing plan ? Do you have a solid business plan to bring your company from knowing the market, finding capital, design and develop products for that market, produce the product, market the product, manage your customers, and staff up and develop your staff, deliver the goods/services to the cusomers, and generate revenue. Are you in the marketing push stage ? Are you in the production planning stage ?
The one who has the best ideas about what you will be doing in the next few years should be CEO. And, when your company reaches the next stage, you may have to find a different CEO. By that time, you may consider people other than the two of you.
Let the suppliers decide what they want to supply that will make them most money, and the consumers decide what service level is right for them, individually, and for their specific application. A farrari and a dodge is just as good if I have a thousand 50lb bags of sand to move 500 miles. Pressing on eye balls is better than going to the movies if you are blind. If AT&T is not planning to pump movies down their network, they don't make more money by increasing the increasing speed of the last mile. If a cable company is planning to pump movies on demand down their cable, they would increase that line speed. So, let the game begin and may the best supplier win.
Since you took the job, I am not going to comment on that decision. And I am not going to go over what you should have done before you started the project either.
You said it was a mid-level manager that give you grief. Can you convince people higher up that you need more resources and time ? If you can, you can try that trick.
If not, it is too late to convince these mid-level people you need more resources and time. You have to win their trust first. Your best bet now is to see whether there is any quick fixes you can deliver and can make measurable changes to the business. If you can, focus on delivering these little system changes that make big business change. Don't try to do a complete and perfect job. You don't have the time and resources, remember ? With these new changes, implement them, and measure. Show them how much business change you have achieved, you may be able to win their trust, and convince them that you need more resources. If these fails, open the third envelope.
It all depends on what kind of company policy there is. If there is a company policy that states all e-mail are to be deleted by the end of day, you do that, and whatever e-mail lost would be considered OK, unless someone overheard you said "I better delete this quick". The e-mail deletion is particularly convenient if it is done automatically. You can actually blame the computer for the crime. However, most companies don't have rules to destroy all e-mail at the end of the day.
It all depends on timing and rules. He is in trouble if he deleted the file after he realise there is an investigation, or if there is a rule against deleting that type of file, or there is a regulation against using a "secured delete" software.
All these talks about career paths are nice, but won't help in the short run. If the IT department is growing, there must be vacancies to be filled. These are great opportunities to show that you mean business in terms of keeping your existing staff. You start advertizing these vacancies internally first, with clear indication of what knowledge, skill, experience you are looking for, the kind of work these positions will get into, the responsibility and authorities these people will have. Explain the hiring process, clearly. Tell them the salary range and benefits. Encourage people to apply. After you get the applications, talk to the ones you decide not to interview, and tell them why they were not selected. Also tell them what kind of jobs they are qualify for, or, what do they have to do to get a better job. After the interviews, talk to people failed the interviews, and tell them why. Be honest. If they stink, say they stink, and where.
If you don't find any one suitable internally, have an open meeting with all staff, and tell them what you were looking for and not get.
The easiest way to tell your current staff that they are not valued is by paratrooping someone from outside, and not let them know why they have been by-passed.
After a few round of this, you can start thinking about career paths.
Slashdot Mirror
The most significant hurdle at this stage is knowing how to put the product or services in the hands of cusomers, and grap their money in yours. The person with the ideas of how to achieve this is the CEO, with several others to handle the day to day development, marketing, legal, admin. Counting money is important, but not as important as getting the money to count.
The CEO must be a leader. CEO's must have own ideas about how to build this company, and convince the rest of the team to follow him. Therefore, you must review the current situation in your company. Are you in product design/development stage ? Do you have a solid marketing plan ? Do you have a solid business plan to bring your company from knowing the market, finding capital, design and develop products for that market, produce the product, market the product, manage your customers, and staff up and develop your staff, deliver the goods/services to the cusomers, and generate revenue. Are you in the marketing push stage ? Are you in the production planning stage ? The one who has the best ideas about what you will be doing in the next few years should be CEO. And, when your company reaches the next stage, you may have to find a different CEO. By that time, you may consider people other than the two of you.
Let the suppliers decide what they want to supply that will make them most money, and the consumers decide what service level is right for them, individually, and for their specific application. A farrari and a dodge is just as good if I have a thousand 50lb bags of sand to move 500 miles. Pressing on eye balls is better than going to the movies if you are blind. If AT&T is not planning to pump movies down their network, they don't make more money by increasing the increasing speed of the last mile. If a cable company is planning to pump movies on demand down their cable, they would increase that line speed. So, let the game begin and may the best supplier win.
Since you took the job, I am not going to comment on that decision. And I am not going to go over what you should have done before you started the project either. You said it was a mid-level manager that give you grief. Can you convince people higher up that you need more resources and time ? If you can, you can try that trick. If not, it is too late to convince these mid-level people you need more resources and time. You have to win their trust first. Your best bet now is to see whether there is any quick fixes you can deliver and can make measurable changes to the business. If you can, focus on delivering these little system changes that make big business change. Don't try to do a complete and perfect job. You don't have the time and resources, remember ? With these new changes, implement them, and measure. Show them how much business change you have achieved, you may be able to win their trust, and convince them that you need more resources. If these fails, open the third envelope.
It all depends on what kind of company policy there is. If there is a company policy that states all e-mail are to be deleted by the end of day, you do that, and whatever e-mail lost would be considered OK, unless someone overheard you said "I better delete this quick". The e-mail deletion is particularly convenient if it is done automatically. You can actually blame the computer for the crime. However, most companies don't have rules to destroy all e-mail at the end of the day.
It all depends on timing and rules. He is in trouble if he deleted the file after he realise there is an investigation, or if there is a rule against deleting that type of file, or there is a regulation against using a "secured delete" software.
Guest Room ? I thought that's what tents are for.
Since I don't have a cell phone, I find pulling the phone off the wall is a very effective, if not electronic, way not to have calls.
All these talks about career paths are nice, but won't help in the short run. If the IT department is growing, there must be vacancies to be filled. These are great opportunities to show that you mean business in terms of keeping your existing staff. You start advertizing these vacancies internally first, with clear indication of what knowledge, skill, experience you are looking for, the kind of work these positions will get into, the responsibility and authorities these people will have. Explain the hiring process, clearly. Tell them the salary range and benefits. Encourage people to apply. After you get the applications, talk to the ones you decide not to interview, and tell them why they were not selected. Also tell them what kind of jobs they are qualify for, or, what do they have to do to get a better job. After the interviews, talk to people failed the interviews, and tell them why. Be honest. If they stink, say they stink, and where. If you don't find any one suitable internally, have an open meeting with all staff, and tell them what you were looking for and not get. The easiest way to tell your current staff that they are not valued is by paratrooping someone from outside, and not let them know why they have been by-passed. After a few round of this, you can start thinking about career paths.