tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86859313892482969502024-03-12T19:15:19.045-05:00Scaling InOne person's perspectives on technology and the people who manage it.Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-56558322781313779362020-07-20T10:05:00.000-05:002020-07-20T10:05:12.369-05:00What does it mean to "never waste a crisis"?As the world (and particularly the US) began responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, I often heard or read this phrase from leaders of all sectors and stripes: <div><blockquote><b>"Never waste a crisis." </b></blockquote></div><div>On the face of it, this sounds callous and unempathetic, especially in the face of extreme unemployment and personal disruption. An alternative version might be:</div><div><b><blockquote>"Make sure the outcomes of a crisis include meaningful betterment for [individuals | organizations | society]."</blockquote></b></div><div>But whichever phrasing you prefer, <b>what does it really mean?</b> And for people in leadership positions, <b>what action does it require?</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Let's start with what it really means. In crisis situations, people, for at least some time, put aside day-to-day behaviors and come together to respond to the crisis. UK and US citizens' actions during World War II are often held up as exemplars, from enlisting for the armed services to shoring up manufacturing and embracing rationing at home. Most recently, federal spending packages, community efforts, and businesses enacting temporary pay cuts, to say nothing of all the efforts by healthcare professionals, all serve as examples. Staying at home, maintaining physical distance from others, and wearing masks also count here.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then there's the outcomes side of the phrase. It's not enough to weather the crisis and return to what was. We should also seek to come out the other side in a better situation than when we entered it. The protests occurring throughout the US and elsewhere speak directly to this by confronting structural inequalities, some of which are exacerbated by COVID-19. News and social media are full of the stories of people taking risks for a chance at meaningful betterment for their society, regardless of how directly those people may benefit.</div><div><br /></div><div>In general, we pull through crises because of this impulse to help the organizations and communities of which we're a part. But that impulse is not sustainable on its own. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the limits of counting on individuals' self-sacrifice to see us through a prolonged crisis (and possibly making it even worse). In some cases, people show great capacity for helping society -- again, healthcare professionals are doing their work understanding the risks they take. We're also seeing frustration with restrictions like mask-wearing and restaurant availability result in people discarding those temporary norms in the name of "individual freedoms," which take us away from working together.</div><div><br /></div><div>That's where the second question comes in. People in leadership positions are expected to guide their charges through a crisis at whatever scope or size they have responsibility. This may include:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Identifying what changes are necessary to make it to the other side of the crisis (in hopefully an improved place)</li><li>Communicating what the situation demands, why changing behaviors is crucial, and how we'll get through it together</li><li>Reinforcing those with tangible changes, personally modeling behaviors so everyone understands the new norms</li><li>Steering culture change by articulating what is (and isn't) acceptable and holding everyone (including themselves) accountable for change</li></ul><div>The change in question depends on the situation. It may be as large-scale as combating a pandemic or as specific as breaking down silos in a business. As long as the change is being demanded, it needs to be considered and acted upon.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's vital that leaders step up because they're the catalysts for the larger organization or community to follow suit. People want to be part of the organizations and communities they choose and look to leadership for inspiration and guidance so they know they're doing what's best for their organization. Through that leadership, we can pull together and make it through this, or any, crisis.</div></div>Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-66813835608964529522020-07-02T10:13:00.004-05:002020-07-02T10:23:25.935-05:00Confronting our fears on empowermentI've been writing cover letters lately and the word "empower" keeps coming to mind (I'm doing my best to not use the word more than once per letter). Leadership articles have been talking about the need to empower employees seemingly forever, and yet we still struggle to make that a reality. Why?<div><br /></div><div>To be sure, any number of leaders, when asked, will say they empower their employees. At the same time, employees seem to often lack two key aspects of empowerment:</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Clarity of decision-making rights -- "do I get to decide what to do or do I have to escalate?"</li><li>Flow of information -- "do I have access to the information I need to make a decision?"</li></ol><div>Not so coincidentally, these are also the <a href="https://hbr.org/2008/06/the-secrets-to-successful-strategy-execution" target="_blank">top two characteristics found in companies that excel in strategy execution</a>. After all, empowered employees should be implementing the corporate strategy and realizing its goals, right?</div></div><div><br /></div><div>So why are we as leaders getting in the way of truly empowering our employees? It seems to come down to fear in multiple forms:</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Fear of failure -- </b>As leaders, our performance is linked to our employees' performance. If they fail, we fail. So we try to avoid failure by stepping in at what we may think are crucial, but infrequent, intervals to "steer the ship" in the right direction.</li><li><b>Fear of losing control -- </b>Related to the previous point, our employees are doing most of the work on which we'll be appraised. What if they do that work differently than we might have when we held their jobs?</li><li><b>Fear of not being perfect -- </b>When our employees define and do the work, they may not do it as well as we did when we had that job, and the results might make us look bad to our bosses because it's not as buttoned-up as we might have done.</li></ol><div>These fears can be palpable and employees pick up on them from our behavior. Even something as innocuous as "I'd like to review your work before you deliver it to [client|boss]" can convey the message that you don't trust the employee to do the job well. More heavy-handed examples include, "Run that decision by me next time before you act," and, "Loop me in whenever something new comes up." All of these can indicate that we as leaders are afraid, or at least unwilling, to empower employees.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>And the impact? At first, a team paralyzed by fear we caused and employees who never learn to take initiative or make a decision. More importantly, an organization dependent on its leadership to make all decision, with everything being escalated. When that happens, the organization can move only at the speed and strength of a handful of people rather than at the speed and strength of everyone.</div><div><br /></div><div>Moving past this doesn't mean letting go of those fears. Rather, we must recognize that they exist, that we have them, and that they need conscious action to work through them. Those actions might include:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Being open with your team and colleagues about it.</b> Acknowledge you need their help to call you out when your behavior reflects your fears.</li><li><b>Defining and sticking to new behaviors that change the dynamic.</b> For example, I've struggled with overly wordsmithing documents and communications to the point where my "track changes" are an inside joke. So I started to hold back on "track changes" and focused on using comments to ask questions instead.</li><li><b>Push your employees to make decisions.</b> Sure, they can come to you; when they do, don't give them the answers! Ask questions that make them work out the best answer for them. By doing it in front of you, you can also assuage your own fears about whether their decision aligns with your thinking. </li><li><b>Share information, even if you think it's over-sharing.</b> Yes, information is power, and shouldn't your team be powerful? It also builds trust and confidence, minimizing the risk of sensitive information being inappropriately disclosed.</li></ul><div>Over time (usually less than you think), your employees will consistently and confidently make the right call because they learned how to do it and were given the information and space they need for learning. As that solidifies, your team will take care of running things so you can focus on the work only you can do.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>---</div><div>More information: <a href="https://blog.smarp.com/empowerment-in-the-workplace-enable-your-employees" target="_blank">Empowerment in the Workplace: Definition and Best Practices</a> (Smarp)</div>Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-34182165257519889712020-06-24T13:38:00.003-05:002020-06-24T13:38:37.088-05:00Resetting, reaffirmingHistorically, I've used this blog to work out some of my own understanding and learning about my professional life. For a while, that was all about working toward a cloud-first approach while at an institution that was very much on-premise. Later, it became more about the role of the CIO and leadership issues overall.<br />
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I'm now unemployed for the first time in twenty-five years without knowing what my next opportunity will be. In the meantime, I'm doing a lot of reading, from <a href="https://landing.google.com/sre/sre-book/toc/">Google's Site Reliability Engineering book</a> to back issues of <a href="https://hbr.org/">Harvard Business Review</a>, all to keep my brain engaged in the kinds of work to which I'll eventually return. This space can then be a scratchpad of sorts -- a place for me to synthesize what I'm reading and form an informed perspective for future reference.<br />
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If you happen to read this blog, thanks for indulging this approach. Hopefully some conversations emerge from the topics -- I look forward to it.Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-35669432582230324812020-05-24T09:25:00.002-05:002020-05-24T09:25:52.662-05:00What’s your orientation?<div data-en-clipboard="true" data-pm-slice="1 1 []">
I’m inordinately proud of my new ability to do pull-ups from a dead hang. It’s taken me over three years of strength training to go from zero to one to two, and currently to three without a break in-between reps. It reminded me of how, maybe eight years ago, I went from zero push-ups to five push-ups after over a year of daily calisthenics.</div>
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Why am I spending time thinking about this, much less telling anyone else? It’s because it made me think about intrinsic motivation, especially self-motivation. Many people I know are motivated by fulfilling a <b>landmark achievement</b> — running the Chicago Marathon, hiking up to Machu Picchu, or completing a full Ironman Triathlon. They train for months to get ready for the moment, and then they achieve! But then what? Hopefully they celebrate the accomplishment, but is it then gone? Do they have to find a new mountain to climb? For some, this is incredibly motivating and they thrive on the cycle of <b>train</b> and <b>achieve</b>.</div>
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That cycle is also pervasive in the workplace. Think about any large project that you’ve worked on or knew about. Lots of work and stress over a long period of time, building up to a big launch, release, or opening. High fives all around, and then… find a new large project? It strikes me that this approach has a few challenges in a professional context:</div>
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<li>Our professional worth is tied up in these “Big Bang” achievements, so we might start inventing them just for the rush of doing them. But the organization might not need all those projects.</li>
<li>It crowds out tightening up operations, documenting previous work for future reference, and other “dot the ‘i’s, cross the ‘t’s” activities, because nothing, NOTHING is as exciting as the start of a big project.</li>
<li>It prioritizes <b>“new”</b> over <b>“better”</b>, even if <b>“better”</b> would have more impact.</li>
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The last one has been on my mind the most of late. A friend and former supervisor loaned me Atul Gawande’s book <i><a href="http://atulgawande.com/book/better/">Better</a></i> several years ago and it really resonated with me professionally and personally. In the book, Gawande describes situations where attempting to solve problems can obscure the opportunity to incrementally improve, making the situation better in a shorter timeframe than the problem can be solved. More recently, I became a fan of Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the co-founders of Basecamp, and their mindset and values on running a business and leading an organization. In particular, Fried wrote about <a href="https://m.signalvnoise.com/ive-never-had-a-goal/" rev="en_rl_none" textcontent="goals (or not having them)">goals (or not having them)</a>:</div>
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“When you shift from 1st to 2nd, 1st is behind you. Then from 2nd to 3rd, 2nd is behind you. I approach things continuously, not in stops. I just want to keep going — whatever happens along the way is just what happens.”</blockquote>
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That’s not to say they don’t identify and pursue improvement — <a href="https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-structure-our-work-and-teams-at-basecamp/" rev="en_rl_none" textcontent="that’s what they’re doing most of the time">that’s what they’re doing most of the time</a>. They’re simply not looking for the “Big Bang” that will transform the world or their company. Rather, they’re constantly improving their product and their workplace to make many people’s work lives a little better, a little more effective. As DHH puts it, <a href="https://m.signalvnoise.com/reconsider/" rev="en_rl_none" textcontent="they’re putting a dent in the universe">they’re putting a dent in the universe</a>, not trying to own it.</div>
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That approach inspires me. I've spent much of the past couple of years in the “messy middle” of a long-term organizational improvement, but it won’t have a launch or even a moment where we say we’re done. Its entire underpinning is a mindset that focuses at least some of our attention on <b>“better” </b>through clarity, transparency, and reflection. And we’ll be able to see the results — not all in one moment, but every few weeks and months as we get better at what we do and how we do it. Those kinds of results, and our recognition of them, gets me up every Monday morning ready to keep moving.</div>
Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-36347308029321720452018-07-06T14:44:00.001-05:002018-07-06T14:44:26.864-05:00Why not be the "IT person"?<div style="-en-clipboard: true;">
I was recently asked why I shy away from being labeled as the “IT person” when talking about my role or career path. I had an answer at the time but it wasn’t fully thought out. So here goes...
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<i>(I fully recognize this has been covered by many people. I appreciate your bearing with me as I attempt to make sense of it as well.)</i></div>
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I’ve been in IT for twenty years, and my path has taking me from support through systems infrastructure to management and leadership roles. Throughout this time, the industry’s notion of what IT is to an organization has evolved, but the emphasis has always been on the idea of technology as a strategic asset or partner to the business. Magazines and websites publish plenty of case studies on success stories along these lines.
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However, I’ve mostly found that an organization's notion of what IT is has more to do with keeping the lights on than on helping the organization propel itself forward. Computers need to be fixed, servers need to be running, and applications need to be available. And these are important, indeed critical, to a business functioning. They also tend to be static and can even inhibit necessary transformation as the business (or industry) evolves. The impact of IT stasis is twofold:</div>
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IT loses its ability to explore and innovate, instead staying in the comfortable rut of maintenance.
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Non-IT folks stop thinking of IT as a team that can help solve their bigger problems, instead deciding to go it alone and “make it work."
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These are both exacerbated by the reality that IT is no longer needed to stand up the basic technologies needed to run a business. It’s even easier now for IT to retreat into its cocoon and non-IT to find what they need and bring it into the workplace, increasing the divide. So being the “IT person” becomes being forgotten or uninvolved at times when their expertise is most needed, and then resentful when new services or systems are dropped on them (even though the situation is partly of IT’s making). It’s a truly vicious circle, resulting in a culture that doesn’t even think about IT when a need arises. </div>
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Okay, so that’s all depressing if you work in or are responsible for IT. What can be done about it?
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The IT leadership literature has long asked questions like, “how does IT reach across to the business?” and, “how do CIOs show their CEO and peers that they’re business-focused?” These are aimed at proving IT is ready to be at the table, which is important. A CIO/CTO needs to demonstrate and be seen as at least “IT leader, plus business”, if not “business leader, plus IT” by their CEO, peers, and colleagues to be effective.
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But it’s not enough. For example, ideas are generated and decisions are made in day-to-day conversations in hallways and doorways (or the virtual versions of those), not in the big meetings. The IT leader needs to be in those as well, which is a combination of being invited and asking to join. The level of agency varies by situation, so each IT leader needs to determine the right balance for their organization. Otherwise, the leader and IT department will be relegated to the sidelines, called on only when needed for a specific task.</div>
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IT leaders also need to make a compelling case to define clear lines of priority and accountability for projects they champion, and avoid having a project classified as an "IT thing." "IT things" often drop to the bottom of everyone else’s priority list, which can make them difficult to complete due to lack of business partner availability. Security, policy compliance, and process improvements often arise from IT, and easily slide into the “IT thing” category. It’s on us to contextualize those projects and build the necessary partnerships to make them both relevant and successful. </div>
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The opportunity is usually there for the CIO/CTO. But it’s never easy and it always, ALWAYS requires more time and energy than you’d think. </div>
Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-7839254127722124192017-08-26T10:49:00.000-05:002017-08-26T10:54:52.729-05:00It's 2017 - why are we still spreading FUD about data security in the cloud?I was looking into document management options to build upon Google Drive earlier this week. A quick search of <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=document+management+with+google+drive&oq=document+management+with+google">document management with google drive</a> yielded, among other results, a post called <a href="https://www.efilecabinet.com/google-drive-is-no-substitute-for-document-management-software/">Google Drive is No Substitute for Document Management</a>. Reading this took me back to conversations years ago about how you can't trust the cloud for your sensitive information and how having your own servers is more secure for your data.<br />
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<i>(The post was written in February 2016, so I understand if the post doesn't account for service advancements since then. However, leaving this as is, especially given its high page rank, isn't doing readers a service.)</i><br />
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There are certainly reasons to not rely on Google Drive (or Dropbox, Box, or other cloud file sharing options) for workflow-driven, automation-aided document management, which is discussed in the post. But the first two reasons are just plain inaccurate, and taken at face value, can inhibit organizations who have complex needs and limited resources from taking advantage of commonly used cloud offerings.<br />
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<b>Let's start with reason #1 ("Google Drive is Difficult to Administrate").</b> The basic premise here is that IT administrators don't have the control over folder and file access that they do in more centrally controlled systems, and that control is exceedingly important to maintaining data security. While that sounds bad, let's consider that once someone has access to download a file or folder, they can then share it with whomever they want via email, some other file sharing mechanism, or by printing it out. Further, people are more likely than ever to find the best tools for their work, especially if IT is clinging to admin-centric rather than user-centric services. Data protection and security, absent an environment that is so restrictive that it allows only the most basic functionality at all, is often a combination of technical capabilities, corporate policies, and user training to provide a secure and productive environment.<br />
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The roles of policy and training in protecting an organization's data cannot be emphasized highly enough (but here's a few links for your reading pleasure):<br />
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<li><a href="http://www.enterprise-cio.com/news/2016/jan/22/importance-security-awareness-training-enterprise-it-governance/">http://www.enterprise-cio.com/news/2016/jan/22/importance-security-awareness-training-enterprise-it-governance/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.information-age.com/importance-creating-cyber-security-culture-123465778/">http://www.information-age.com/importance-creating-cyber-security-culture-123465778/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/ptac/pdf/issue-brief-security-training.pdf">https://nces.ed.gov/programs/ptac/pdf/issue-brief-security-training.pdf</a></li>
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Seeing a viewpoint represented by a statement like the one below not only frustrates me, but also indicates policy and training aren't being considered:<br />
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For example, your HR employees need to store sensitive information like
social security numbers, names, birthdates, and direct deposit banking
information. If they store this information in Google Drive, there is a
good chance that other employees can see it, too. Obviously, that’s not a
good idea.</blockquote>
Storing this data in a spreadsheet in any location is ill-advised and no technology is going to fully protect against it happening. In a security-aware culture, though, the data steward would more likely consult with IT on the best way to store that data and prevent inappropriate disclosures.<br />
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<b>On to reason #2 ("Google Drive Only Uses SSL Encryption"). </b>When considering your data security, it's certainly crucial to consider data at rest as well as data in motion. This post asserts that data stored in Google Drive are encrypted in motion, but not at rest, linking to <a href="http://fitsmallbusiness.com/best-document-management-software/">an article that says the same thing</a>. That would be disconcerting and likely put people off using G-Suite. However, Google is fairly upfront about their encryption, making a <a href="http://services.google.com/fh/files/helpcenter/google_encryptionwp2016.pdf">topic-specific whitepaper</a> available for public view. It articulates how data are encrypted at rest and in motion, as well as how encryption keys are managed. The short version is that with the possible exception of video files, data uploaded to or created in Google Drive/Docs/Slides/Sheets are encrypted. It's also one part of <a href="https://storage.googleapis.com/gfw-touched-accounts-pdfs/google-cloud-security-and-compliance-whitepaper.pdf">Google's overall security approach</a>. <a href="https://cfl.dropboxstatic.com/static/business/resources/dfb_security_whitepaper-vfllunodj.pdf">Dropbox</a> and <a href="https://cloud.app.box.com/v/SecurityDataSheet2pg">Box</a> have similar information available about their security and encryption approaches.<br />
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When considering cloud storage for your organization, security and risk management should be right alongside usability and collaboration in your priority list, and doing your research is important to making a sound decision. The major cloud service providers get it, and have embraced data security and protection as cornerstones of their storage services. Saying otherwise is outdated and unhelpful.Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-77663172131700844752016-06-20T21:55:00.003-05:002016-06-20T21:57:08.015-05:00The CEO-CIO ConnectMy social media feed recently included an article from <a href="http://www.mavenwave.com/">Maven Wave Partners</a>' Fusion Blog titled, "<a href="http://www.mavenwave.com/fusion-blog/cio-vs-ceo-finding-middle-ground/">CIO vs. CEO: Finding Middle Ground</a>." (note: I used to work at Maven Wave several years ago.) As it was my former employer and I'm a new CIO, I had to read it. And it was thought-provoking indeed -- I didn't necessarily agree with many of the premises, the primary conclusion was spot-on:<br />
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"When the CEO and CIO can find middle ground and work together as true partners, the enterprise will achieve true competitive advantage..."</div>
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Within the article, the points that stood out to me were (1) the disconnect between the CEO and CIO, and (2) the CIO as a business commodity. Each deserves further consideration, especially at at time where <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/03/10/why-no-one-wants-to-be-a-chief-information-officer-any-more/">fewer people want to be a CIO</a>.</div>
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<b>The disconnect between the CEO and CIO</b></div>
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The article states, "Clearly, the CIO and CEO have roles with notably contrasting job responsibilities... The CEO often understands the core business and customer demands better than the CIO." I'm not going to disagree with these on principle, and it's easy to see this as the world as is. At the same time, we in IT leadership have been told again and again that we must, MUST understand the business in which we operate in order to be a strategic partner and not a business commodity. Virtually every CIO success story I've read can be summarized as follows:</div>
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<li>CIO meets CxO</li>
<li>CIO and CxO form partnership around common cause</li>
<li>CIO and CxO make big initiative happen, increasing visibility for both</li>
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One of the reasons I was attracted to my current position is the shared idea that the CIO and CEO in fact have roles with notably <b>comparable </b>job responsibilities. Yes, we do different things for the organization (and I'm still figuring out mine). But we share the broad responsibility of both taking the "across the organization" strategic view and enabling ongoing operations. This dual responsibility distinguishes the CIO from a director of IT, who focuses more on operational excellence and continuous improvement within the technology function.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g_iJAQn2NuY/V2iW9heaOTI/AAAAAAAAA8E/N2s9Bik1IzcOi7gJVOlF848Z5OJuMlw0QCLcB/s1600/CEO-CIO.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g_iJAQn2NuY/V2iW9heaOTI/AAAAAAAAA8E/N2s9Bik1IzcOi7gJVOlF848Z5OJuMlw0QCLcB/s400/CEO-CIO.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>CEOs and CIOs both have the responsibility and opportunity to span the organization.</i></td></tr>
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<b>CIO as a business commodity</b></div>
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So what about the CIO being a business commodity? This is certainly one way to be perceived, especially if the CIO presents as tactical rather than strategic. It's tempting to create an IT strategy, but that helps separate technology from the business. IT strategy also tends to focus on things IT thinks is important, which rarely match what the CEO is trying to do and gives the impression IT isn't part of the team. </div>
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Instead, the CIO's goal should be to ensure technology is part of each facet of the corporate strategy. Ideally, meeting this goal involves the CIO having candid, business-focused conversations with the CEO and being at the strategic table, and doesn't involve the intricacies of platform as a service or network segmentation. However, the world is far from ideal, and the CIO may have to work hard and long to get to that point, possibly exerting influence less directly to get to the table.</div>
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<b>This all sounds great in theory.</b></div>
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Doesn't it? That doesn't mean it's an impossibility in practice. Where a CIO begins has everything to do with context -- not every CEO is ready to integrate technology into their everyday thinking. But they don't have to, at least not in detail. If the CEO is willing to consider technology in terms of the same goals as everything else -- help the top line, help the bottom line, and mitigate risks -- then perhaps the conversation can get underway.</div>
Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-73533960237929475082016-05-29T10:57:00.000-05:002016-05-29T10:57:00.186-05:00Being new againI just started a new job as a nonprofit institution's CIO, leaving my last employer after almost six years. I'm excited for many of the usual reasons, but one of the biggest short-term drivers of my enthusiasm is that I get to be "the new person" for a while. It's one of my favorite roles to play in an organization, for several reasons:<br />
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1. New people are more likely to get time to learn.</h4>
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Being at work usually means, well, getting things done. There are tasks to complete, deadlines to meet, meetings to attend, emails to answer, and so on. The day-to-day grind can keep a person so focused on the immediate matter or locked into the Pavlovian call-and-response of the email client that taking time to learn (or even think) simply falls off. It's not inherently bad, but needs to be acknowledged.</div>
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New people don't yet have all those things to fill your calendar. Instead, they have a lot of information to take in and parse. The organization is new, and perhaps the industry is as well. Colleagues need to be identified and met; history needs to be articulated and contextualized. This all takes time, and the first days/weeks/months are the most likely time to get considerable time to devote to this.</div>
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2. New people can ask all kinds of questions.</h4>
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Organizational culture usually includes a certain amount of jargon and shared information specific to that entity. With that comes an expectation that each person understands why things are done the way they are. After all, each person is part of the organization, right?</div>
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New people fall outside this model, to their (and the organization's) benefit. New people can ask, "why is [thing] done this way?" and challenge conventions through honest inquiry. In the best-case scenario, this yields affirmation of well-working practices and thoughtful conversation and follow-up on practices in need of change. The new person can even help make an immediate impact by being part of those changes, during which they can demonstrate the capabilities and experience for which they were hired in the first place.</div>
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3. New people can determine their story.</h4>
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Joining a new organization is significantly different than taking a new position in the same one. In the latter case, the social network and institutional knowledge are already in place, and colleagues are more likely to already know you and your story. After a while, this can sometimes be a hindrance: a person ascending to a leadership role may have to deal with perceptions formed far earlier in their career.</div>
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New people have virtually no story on arrival. At most, there are impressions from the interview process and any announcements made organization-wide. There certainly isn't the unabridged history from the previous organization(s). As a result, new people get to decide their story and how to reveal it over time. Maybe great achievements need to be adopted or lessons from past experiments need to be learned. Maybe a particular mindset needs to be set or affirmed, reinforced by past examples. A person has great influence over their professional identity, and this is most true in that early period with an organization.</div>
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4. Newness is fleeting, but it's great while it lasts.</h4>
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Of course, one can't be new forever. Work has to get done, after all. How long newness lasts depends on the culture -- sometimes it's measured in weeks, while other times years can go by to still be new. No matter the duration, it's a thrilling time to learn everything, ask good questions that foster conversation, and get established in the best possible way.</div>
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Much of my thinking on this topic comes from <a href="http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/cbs-directory/detail/dp2588">Damon Phillips</a>' class on network structures when I was at <a href="http://www.chicagobooth.edu/">Chicago Booth</a>. I took this class in my first quarter, and have gone back to it in each of the four organizational moves I've made in the past ten years.</div>
Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-7684147851186186532014-10-03T08:45:00.003-05:002014-10-03T08:45:32.766-05:00What could be the point?I recently gave a presentation at the EDUCAUSE annual conference with colleagues from Brown, Johns Hopkins, and UNC-Charlotte on <a href="http://www.educause.edu/annual-conference/2014/planning-digital-scholarship-support-services-case-studies-four-universities">supporting digital scholarship services</a>. The presentation itself was a rewarding experience, and I really appreciate the opportunity to have worked with such knowledgeable and driven colleagues. As someone who mostly advocates for such services rather than provide them directly, I needed to learn a lot to catch up in this area.<br />
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Some hours after the event, A colleague from another Big Ten university who had attended our session wrote to me, and he said possibly the most intriguing thing I heard during the conference. Like me, he heads technology services for a college within the larger university, and has been working every effectively to shift scalable commodity services to the central IT organization. He said (I'm paraphrasing), "What if digital scholarship was the primary idea of what we do at the college level, rather than a component of our services?" We talked about it briefly the next day, though we were both mostly trying to wake up, it being 6:30am according to our Central time zone-adjusted selves.<br />
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The idea has certainly set my mind going on this. We've shed a lot of our hardware-based infrastructure, and are already considering ways to reduce even our virtual servers to a minimum number as we adopt cloud services for file sync/sharing, virtual desktops, and applications of all kinds. So what if we mostly abandoned the traditional IT philosophy of a standard service catalog and adopted digital scholarship as the focus? Our organizing principle then becomes about supporting as many edge cases as possible, knowing each faculty member or lab represents an edge case. Underneath, we need a set of sustainable platforms to ensure deep technical expertise on our part and increased longevity for the projects built on those platforms. We need to continue to foster partnerships with other groups in this space, like central IT and the University Library, and build ever stronger relationships with our faculty and students. We need to learn quite a lot about digital scholarship and the disciplines we enable. Perhaps most importantly, we need to embrace the primacy of the end-user experience as our focal point rather than consider it the lowest rung of our services and capabilities.<br />
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I'm not yet sure how this could work. In fact, this seems like a pretty scary proposition - we've never done anything like this and don't have the skills and experiences already built into the team fabric. But the potential for transformation seems so high that we have to at least try it on and see how it fits. More to come.Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-31786176667086165442013-04-27T14:38:00.001-05:002013-04-27T14:38:56.208-05:00Why try to collaborate?As mentioned in <a href="http://about.me/chriscomerford" target="_blank">About</a>, I work in higher education, which can be (at least somewhat) justifiably described as highly decentralized when it comes to both business processes and technology service delivery. Efforts to coordinate or centralize either meet with challenges as well-intentioned working groups attempt to reconcile the many disparities among distributed units' processes and practices that have organically grown over several (or many) years. The results can include efforts that start but don't go anywhere, endless meetings about the same conversation, and relatively little change from the end-user's viewpoint.<br />
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Sounds pretty grim, right?<br />
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Despite the dour description, positive outcomes do arise from all these attempts at collaboration.<br />
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<li><b>People get to know one another.</b> Sounds obvious, but in a large (or even) small organization that has multiple silos of information and process, this is not necessarily the case. I have been in any number of meetings where people who should know each other don't. If we can't get this done, it's that much more difficult to get anything else done.</li>
<li><b>People start getting comfortable with the value and costs of collaboration.</b> Again, obvious. But it's much easier to be effective in one's own sphere than to be part of reaching across barriers and making something happen in a larger context.</li>
<li><b>The first two enable repeat attempts to share and collaborate.</b> Even if a particular attempt fails to bear fruit, the relationships and increased comfort level allows the parties to say, "Maybe next time we'll have the right problem to solve/opportunity to succeed."</li>
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In technology, the need to collaborate and share is especially important, verging on critical to success. Pressures to compete with great user experiences in the consumer world, keep up with exploding demand, and enable people to seamlessly cross information silos require IT not as a set of discrete systems and services, but as an ecosystem of loosely coupled (and often interacting) applications and data. Getting in the same room isn't the solution, but it's a start.</div>
Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-46686832307701958282012-02-26T18:59:00.000-06:002012-02-26T19:14:20.706-06:00Taking the leapIt's been too long.<br />
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The primary reason for the long gap in posting is the focus of this post. Back in May 2011, I posted on the <a href="http://scaling-in.blogspot.com/2011/05/cloud-operations-model.html">cloud operations model</a>, building on excellent discussions among the <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/clouderati/all">Clouderati</a>. At the time, I provided a few possible outcomes of moving to this model, including:</div>
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<ul style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 2.5em; padding-right: 2.5em; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">
<li style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #444444; margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.25em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0.25em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Data center management moves to a centralized team, who can focus on building the expertise and committing the time and energy to being great at it.</span></li>
<li style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #444444; margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.25em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0.25em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">IT people tasked with delivering applications and services can now do so without spending undue time on underlying infrastructure.</span></li>
<li style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #444444; margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.25em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0.25em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Time reclaimed from reducing data center redundancies and time to deploy services can be redeployed to high-value IT activities that more directly enable business growth, such as researching emerging technologies and business process analysis.</span></li>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">At the time, I was just starting to think about how these might work in my workplace. As a large, distributed enterprise, the cloud operations model seems to make a lot of sense. At the same time, it's not a familiar framework and would require a lot of work and some success to get going. So for the past several months, off we went:</span></span></div>
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<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><b>Build an initial community:</b> More or less by definition, a cloud-based model requires multiple parties to participate. That meant someone to actually run the cloud and tenants to use it. Thankfully, others had similar thoughts and from there, an internal group started discussing what we wanted to achieve and how we go about showing others this whole cloud thing was for real.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><b>Get a cloud, any cloud:</b> For reasons <a href="http://scaling-in.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-do-you-get-to-cloud-first-get-on.html">previously discussed here</a>, going directly to the public cloud is not an option. However, we already had the components of a small private cloud, using a minimum of available hardware and software. This allowed our small team to both try out the technology aspects and start identifying the "ground rules" for a more scalable version. During this proof of concept, we also found our community strengthened through shared goals and effort. More to come on this in a future post.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><b>Reorient the IT team: </b>Having the cloud is an enabler, not the end-goal. Achieving the second and third bullet points requires change to the organization and reorientation of mission, values, and roles. The last four months have seen a lot of time spent on the question: How can IT deliver high-impact outcomes to the mission of our organization? Historically, we'd spent most of our energy on ensuring basic productivity, which was (and continues to be) core to our mission. But now we can use our move to cloud to start refocusing our time on identifying, articulating, and analyzing organizational needs, and then connecting those needs with existing or new services in our environment or in the marketplace.</span></span></li>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">So what's next? We just started on items 2 and 3, and though there's a lot of enthusiasm, we need to convert that to staying power. The IT team needs to train on new skills, from systems/applications administration in a cloud setting to business analysis and consulting. We need to spend time with our customers to show them the benefits of the new model and create some successes. Our systems management needs to be simplified to match our needs. These are all reasonable to achieve, and well worth the effort on our way to establishing IT as an enabler for our organization.</span></span></div>
</div>Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-16477848241746861032011-09-25T11:28:00.000-05:002011-09-25T11:28:18.882-05:00Interfacing with the cloudI was having a breakfast meeting with a technology start-up CEO last week, and the discussion turned to user experience and interfaces. He asked me, "What is the best interface you've worked with?" I started thinking through this, focused on my computer, and provided a <a href="http://gmail.com/">couple of</a> <a href="http://www.atlassian.com/confluence">examples</a>. He nodded, then said, "I'm surprised you didn't mention this", gesturing at our iPhones. After a second or two, I realized the reason I hadn't thought of the iPhone is that <b>I never think of my iPhone - I just use it</b>.<br />
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More than Palm's old tenet of "if it takes too many taps, we need to rethink it", the gold standard for interface design should be that the end-user does not need to consider it at all. Rather, the end-user should be so comfortable with using the interface that the focus can then turn to the actual function or process the interface is supporting.<br />
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What does this have to do with cloud? Leaving aside the computer-to-computer interfaces so important today, we still have an immense number of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications available for end-users to purchase and consume. Often, these are contrasted with more traditional enterprise applications on the dimensions of cost and feature set, but I think SaaS providers have (and take) an opportunity to also differentiate on interface design, for the following reasons:<br />
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<li><b>The interface is the thing for customers</b> - The ongoing consumerization of IT means purchasing decision-makers are not necessarily IT people, but line-of-business managers who assess based on functional needs rather than infrastructure integration. They don't see the software install, database, or infrastructure - they see only the interface shown to them. By removing the infrastructure from the discussion (other than to demonstrate its ability to provide a reliable service), SaaS providers can focus attention on the user interface and how well it will meet those functional needs.</li>
<li><b>User feedback is embraced and quickly acted on</b> - Because the application is not distributed to many independent customer infrastructures, it can be updated as often as needed to meet customer requests. For instance, <a href="http://www.rallydev.com/">Rally Software</a>, offering a SaaS Scrum project management application, uses Scrum and releases updates every 6-7 weeks; the updates come directly from customer requests.</li>
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I realize this is nothing new, and interface design has always been important. But we still have so many interfaces still incredibly non-intuitive and difficult, getting in the way of actually getting things done, even as the iPad, Android tablets, and even Windows 8 offer a new way to think about how to interact with any application. Hopefully as cloud computing becomes increasingly mainstream in the large enterprise, decision makers will demand the gold standard of interface design ("I just use it") and the market will respond accordingly.</div>
Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-48880564592096989852011-08-07T09:57:00.000-05:002011-08-07T09:57:00.256-05:00Taking time to lift the curtainA relative of mine called me earlier this week because she couldn't access any web pages. She had already called her ISP multiple times, but got no assistance. After a few minutes of testing and checking her configuration, I had figured out it was a DNS server issue. Changing to Google's free DNS servers fixed the issue.<br />
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As is usually the case, she said, "you're a wizard!" to which I have no real answer. My initial thought was, "no big deal" - pretty standard for someone who works in IT. Then I started to consider how difficult it is to truly adopt the perspective of someone who hasn't spent the past X years in technology - it's too easy to assume that people understand what to do when confronted with a seemingly basic problem.<br />
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Why bring this up? Because at the same time, a hot topic is <a href="http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/jobs/2011/07/31/is-your-it-job-set-to-survive-40093562/">how IT people are increasingly not needed for basic support</a> and need to adopt new higher-value roles. Another is the <a href="http://gigaom.com/2011/07/16/it-consumerization-nightmare-or-golden-opportunity/">consumerization of IT</a>, driven by continuing developments in cloud computing. But does the chatter around these topics obscure a widening gap between people who can support themselves and get connected to all these services, and those who cannot? And if so, how to close that gap?<br />
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The usual response, which I tend to agree with, is education. Technology is scary to many people, and the first response to the unfamiliar is to freeze up or retreat. Making the unfamiliar and scary less so for customers allows them to re-process what they are dealing with and come up with ways to fit that technology into their business practices. <br />
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A blinding flash of the obvious, right? Well, yes, but only in concept. Execution is a whole different matter. To its credit, IT does often include some sort of communication and training plan in any large-scale project or rollout. But what is in the plan? Sending emails, creating web pages, maybe some opt-in training. And while these make offer a wealth of information, they are no substitute for open forums, one-on-one meetings, and required (or at least well-incentivized) hands-on training.<br />
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Yes, these are expensive. They take up a lot of time, and need strong leadership to pull off. As the head of an IT organization, I spend a significant amount of time doing just that - conversing with my customers, listening to their concerns, and helping them adjust to new tools. In <a href="http://ht.ly/5W6Xl">environments influenced by fear of change</a>, the result (productivity and comfort with changing technologies) is well worth the investment.Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-85761459253898921542011-05-14T08:43:00.000-05:002011-05-14T08:43:56.335-05:00The cloud operations model<a href="http://twitter.com/jamesurquhart">James Urquhart</a> posted an insightful article on the <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-19413_3-20062265-240.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheWisdomofClouds">false debate around whether private cloud is really cloud</a>. By positing the idea of cloud as both a business model and an operations model, Mr. Urquhart opens the door to a continuum of paths to the cloud, regardless of how risk-taking or risk-averse any particular company is.<br />
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I <a href="http://scaling-in.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-do-you-get-to-cloud-first-get-on.html">discussed this topic</a> last month based on a spirited discussion on Twitter about the validity of private cloud. I used a lot more space to describe what Mr. Urquhart puts into one paragraph (my emphasis):<br />
<blockquote>[I]f you look at cloud as an operations model, the value of running <b>an efficient resource pool with reduced bureaucracy</b> is highly compelling, even if you can't reach the efficiencies of a larger public-cloud provider. Given the complexities of moving data, applications, processes and everything else IT to the public cloud, an internal cloud service becomes a highly compelling option.</blockquote><div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">Many medium-to-large enterprises have not only computing power that can be more effectively and efficiently deployed, but also a lot of people performing similar, and perhaps identical, tasks in different departments or business units. This may have arisen from various events in corporate history, be it dissatisfaction with company-wide services, political maneuvers, or grass-roots efforts grown wild. The result is the same - lots of people doing the same job, and that job tends to be lower value (maintenance, support) than what is needed (business alignment, service creation/improvement).</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">In a cloud operations model, sub-units still build and deliver services to their customers as they do today. The key difference is <b>how</b> and <b>where</b> they build those services. The use of a centralized, on-premise, multi-tenant resource pool, even though it's not as elastic as AWS, changes the game significantly in terms of how people think about IT roles and responsibilities. I submit that going to the cloud operations model can have more impact than the move to the public cloud:</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><ul><li>Data center-related purchasing shifts to a single group, who can better negotiate company-wide prices and discounts due to the necessary scale/volume for the resource pool.</li>
<li>Data center management moves to a centralized team, who can focus on building the expertise and committing the time and energy to being great at it.</li>
<li>IT people tasked with delivering applications and services can now do so without spending undue time on underlying infrastructure.</li>
<li>Time reclaimed from reducing data center redundancies and time to deploy services can be redeployed to high-value IT activities that more directly enable business growth, such as researching emerging technologies and business process analysis.</li>
</ul>Once this model really takes hold, having meaningful discussions about what, why, how, and when to move to the public cloud can become a lot easier. The business folks have gotten used to a certain decoupling of hardware and services, while the IT organization is better prepared to engage on business-related issues. Most importantly, everyone will have gained necessary experience in rethinking how technology is delivered and managed in preparation for future transformation.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"> </div>Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-69572770222314666202011-04-09T10:52:00.001-05:002011-04-09T14:33:49.070-05:00How do you get to the cloud? First, get on the road.I follow the <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/clouderati/all">clouderati\all</a> list on Twitter to attempt to keep up with what's going on in cloud, especially now that I don't have specific responsibilities or projects in that area. It's generally stimulating, and given the rate of change in technology emergence and adoption, it's only a matter of time before such projects arise.<br />
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One running thread has been something along the lines of "Is private cloud really <i>cloud</i>?" Large enterprise infrastructure vendors want you to say, "Of course - it has cloud right there in the name!" while public cloud providers tell you, "Of course not - it fails the <a href="http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/cloud-def-v15.doc">definition</a> on any number of levels!" I tend to lean toward the viewpoint of people working in the public cloud - after all, elasticity is a key tenet and it's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to be elastic in one's own data center.<br />
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That said, I'm coming around more and more to the idea of using private cloud-like infrastructure as a "gateway drug" for people to eventually move to the public cloud, especially if it fulfills the goal of better aligning IT with what the business actually does. My organization is both large and decentralized, with IT departments at various levels from historical decisions and funding. As a result, we have what you would expect to find in such a place - many data centers and server rooms, lots of fragmentation in data storage and protection, and an abundance of service duplication.<br />
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For a number of reasons, the institution is not fully comfortable with moving its data to the public cloud; it would rather store its proprietary (and often heavily regulated) information on premises. At the same time, we (and presumably we're not alone) continually seek ways to both improve our economies of scale and reduce the risk of data and productivity loss for our internal customers. Establishing a multi-tenancy infrastructure in the institution's primary data center (i.e. private cloud) helps in both cases.<br />
<ul><li>The burden of infrastructure management shifts from many IT departments to one dedicated group, where they can concentrate expertise and gain higher server/staff ratios.</li>
<li>The various IT departments, mostly free from hardware, storage, and backup maintenance, can use the gained time to engage with their customers and build/deploy services specific to their needs rather than simply "keep the lights on."</li>
<li>Business leaders gain more bang for their IT buck, which is made visible through more rapid service deployment and productivity increases.</li>
</ul>Once an organization reaches its steady state in a private multi-tenant infrastructure, it's natural to ask, "What's next?" And the answer increasingly will become, "Don't upgrade this system, migrate to the public cloud." IT will be able to show a story (with supporting data) of the benefits of moving from traditional infrastructure to private cloud, and then how those benefits can increase again with the move to public cloud. Though it may not be the most efficient way to get there, it may yield enough initial benefits to make a potentially scary migration more like a logical progression.Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-13045387265797603482011-03-27T10:17:00.000-05:002011-03-27T10:17:23.505-05:00Being a manager - easy to describe, less easy to doThe NY Times ran an article a few weeks ago on <a href="http://nyti.ms/fUJTCF">Google's self-evaluation of its managers</a> and what their employees prize in a manager. A common reaction was, "How could subject matter expertise be at the bottom?", which I can relate to. Another, and possibly more interesting, response, was a <a href="http://thewordenreport.blogspot.com/2011/03/eight-good-behaviors-of-managers.html?spref=tw">blog post</a> essentially dismissing the eight points Google published as "just management, right?" This sentiment is unfortunately pervasive in our culture, going back at least a few decades. After all, everyone knows that the key tenets of modern-day management - results-orientation, communication, coaching, empowering, having vision - are both "not rocket science" and ambiguous enough to avoid any real consequences.<br />
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My first reaction was to want to refute such an argument, point by point. Having sat on this for a couple of weeks, I'm less interested in a back-and-forth of the minutiae of the language or even Google's intent in their self-study. I thought instead about what resonates with me as someone in a leader/manager role.<br />
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I was drawn instantly to point 7, though it's further down the list. Having a clear vision is not some pie-in-the-sky idea, nor is it the same as having a goal. A vision is a description of an improved future, with characteristics that are achieved through discrete goals attainment. Most people want to be part of something larger than themselves; in addition, people want to know their tasks, whether they enjoy them or not, are contributing to that larger context. Managers are responsible for providing vision and meaning to their team and aligning the team's work to that vision. As initial successes occur, reinforcing the vision helps motivate everyone on the team toward fulfillment.<br />
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Though vision is point 7, the six points above it all help support achieving the vision. Managers need to:<br />
<ul><li>Communicate the vision and reinforce its relevance to the daily work </li>
<li>Guide the team's roadmap to align projects and operations with the vision</li>
<li>Act as a mentor to team members and define/guide individual goals that support the vision</li>
<li>Align individual goals and growth with both the vision and career development needs</li>
<li>Set expectations, empower team members to act, and expect results that align with the vision</li>
<li>Provide regular and targeted feedback to help people learn and grow </li>
<li>Know your team members well enough to help them better understand the team vision and support their needs as they arise</li>
</ul>Easy enough, right? And yet stories abound with examples of bad management, and with good reason. Management is a classic "easier said than done" case. It requires constant thought, consideration, and action, and a deep understanding of both oneself and every person on the team. And it may not work out in all cases; after all, understanding people's behavior and motives is imperfect at best, and gaffes are bound to happen. That said, watching a person or team attain a goal they previously thought out of reach, and knowing you helped them understand they could get there, is pretty darn great.<br />
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For reference, here are Google's eight points (via NY Times):<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hAIsLs--5n8/TY9Ju8qkOOI/AAAAAAAAAOE/CwedbTOAiwc/s1600/NYT-20110313_GOOGLE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hAIsLs--5n8/TY9Ju8qkOOI/AAAAAAAAAOE/CwedbTOAiwc/s640/NYT-20110313_GOOGLE.jpg" width="422" /></a></div>Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-73925427995780615442011-03-06T10:48:00.002-06:002011-03-06T10:50:45.756-06:00IT as a customer-satisfying serviceI recently spent a few days in meetings with some of my colleagues and one of our enterprise vendors. The discussions themselves were very productive, and we spent a lot of time talking about "IT as a service." In most IT conversations, this concept tends to focus on delivering IT applications and resources to end-users in a manner that enables self-management, access from anywhere, and a consumption-based financial model. The public cloud, for instance, is emblematic of IT as a service - it addresses all three factors in a way that benefits customers and providers alike. In a decentralized enterprise, IT as a service tends more toward providing IT resources centrally and enabling downstream admins or end-users to build services on top of those resources (e.g. a private cloud).<br />
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This approach helps balance many organization's needs for economies of scale and support for specific business requirements, and makes a lot of sense to me. However, delivering technical functions is only part of providing a service. Too often time isn't spent on the things that ensure customer satisfaction:<br />
<ul><li><b>Responding quickly and personally</b> to incoming requests</li>
<li><b>Following up on initial response</b> with the appropriate communication and action</li>
<li><b>Setting expectations</b> for resolution and <b>following through</b> on those expectations </li>
<li>Ultimately <b>addressing the request quickly</b> and enabling the customer</li>
</ul>It's not that people don't think these are important. Certainly, when any person is the customer in such an interaction, these become vital. Ever deal with an issue with your cable, Internet, or phone company? Then you probably can pinpoint when you've been disappointed and on which item(s). And stories abound in general about how terrible customer service is across industries, or at best, inconsistent.<br />
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So what makes these so hard to do from the provider side? Or more importantly, what makes these so hard to do <b>consistently</b>? Again, it's not that people don't think it's important. I've rarely met anyone who didn't want to provide at least good service, and most want to offer great service.<br />
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More often than not, what gets in the way of providing great service is attempting to provide great service. Stay with me here. For (a somewhat extreme) example, the team may work very hard to resolve an unplanned outage by hunkering down in the server room and getting things up and running again. But at the same time, customers are waiting anxiously for any word on when they can get back to work. If no information is making it to the customer, than is the team providing great service? If you're on that team, you tend to think you are - after all, you were tirelessly laboring on behalf of your customers. But the customer perceives the following:<br />
<ol><li>Service is down! I'm going to get behind on my work and have to make that up!</li>
<li>What's going on? When can I get back to work?</li>
<li>Is anything actually being done?</li>
<li>Finally! We're back up! What took so long?</li>
</ol>The result? Customers may not appreciate the effort the team went through to restore service, and the team may resent the under-appreciation. Generally speaking, this tends to happen when the team focuses on the first and last bullet points - respond quickly, then address and enable. In between are the equally critical and achievable tasks of communication and expectation-setting. Each person addresses these tasks a little differently, but I've noticed some common themes among people that excel in this area:<br />
<ul><li> <b>Daily routines that enable communication</b> - "Daily" is key here. At least once per day, emails need to be answered, calls need to be made, and task management systems need to be updated. This can be at any point in the day (beginning, middle, end), but it needs to be every day. A routine done 2-3 times a week is too easy to let slide in an area that requires a lot of discipline. Check out <a href="http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/">http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/</a> for some interesting examples of scheduling one's day and setting routines.</li>
<li><b>A running to-do list that gets updated every day</b> - You have to know what you're responsible for at any time, and keeping it in your head (and not in writing) usually leads to some amount of slippage. Having a master list, perhaps fed from your task management systems and emails, is very helpful for keeping track of open items. It also allows you to cross those items off the list when they're completed, so you know what you've done as well.</li>
<li><b>Communication whenever possible</b> - Typically, any day contains pockets of a few minutes where a quick check-in or update can be completed. You may be waiting for something to happen or be ready to transition from one big task to the next. Use some of these times to update yourself on inbound requests or information, and update your customers and colleagues so they can better manage their own expectations.</li>
<li><b>Continual evaluation of one's own service to customers and colleagues</b> - Despite the measures above, it's still possible that something is slipping through the cracks. After all, things do happen throughout the day that are seemingly aimed at undermining schedules and planned tasks. Regular 5-10 minute recaps of your day or week can help you remember anything that wasn't accounted for. </li>
</ul>These items don't make up a perfect solution, but it can help reduce the incidence rate of saying, "I'm not sure where that's at. Let me get back to you." The people around you notice and appreciate the effort of your knowing what's going on and making sure they are also up to date on any given situation. Over time, these tasks become faster to complete and require less effort, allowing you to both manage the technology and enable the customer. In the end, customers are more satisfied with their service and those providing the service are more satisfied with their work and the value they add to their organization.<br />
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Companies like <a href="http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/company-history">Nordstrom</a>, <a href="http://aboutus.enterprise.com/who_we_are/customer_service.html">Enterprise</a>, and <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/whyrackspace/support/index.php">Rackspace</a> build their business strategies around differentiating on customer service; the question is, shouldn't everyone?Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-58068736687481268872011-02-06T09:50:00.001-06:002011-02-06T09:51:45.388-06:00Leading change, starting with yourselfAbout two hours after <a href="http://scaling-in.blogspot.com/2011/01/it-means-change-and-change-means-people.html">my last post</a> on changing the IT organization, I realized I had started from articles on strategic change to go toward tactical moves in team change, but I hadn't talked about the real place to start: with oneself. Possibly the most important lesson for any manager is that you cannot change another person; you can only change the situation for that person in the context in which you have influence. He/she must then determine that change is necessary and that effort will be taken to achieve the change.<br />
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And yet we talk about change as something that can be imposed on an organization from above. Task forces are convened to create pithy messages and educate everyone on why change is great and life will be better. Perhaps goals and rewards will be realigned to provide incentives for "getting on the bus." And these are necessary, but cannot be the end of the story. At the end of the day, each person will look to his/her immediate supervisor and teammates for leadership by example, and that's where change really needs to happen.<br />
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Too often we get either overly satisfied or complancent with our own behaviors, routines, and ultimately performance. Then, when something comes along to shake that up, we double down on "how it's always been done", making any effort to improve that much more challenging. This isn't because people are bad or lazy; it's just who we are. We are creatures of habit, and breaking habits is very difficult. But hard doesn't equal "shouldn't be done." If people are looking to you to set an example (regardless of position in the hierarchy), you need to ensure you are doing your part to help yourself and your team.<br />
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The key is <b>understanding</b> what change is necessary and <b>committing</b> to changing yourself appropriately to support the overall effort. This doesn't mean suppressing your nature or "not being yourself" - instead, find ways to integrate new behaviors with old so that you can still be comfortable with how you present yourself and interact with others. This also likely means asking questions of others to gain clarity, requesting (and receiving) candid constructive criticism, and being very conscious of your actions on an ongoing basis. You may not like the answers you get and may resent those who give them. You will almost certainly find yourself a little drained from the effort of always watching and checking yourself. <br />
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Again, none of this is easy to do, and very few of us are born leaders with the requisite talents and skills to guide others toward an improved situation. But people can tell when you're working to change, and will both appreciate your effort and start thinking about their own changes to make. We all lead others in some way, and we all have people who take their cues from us, so are you going to let them (and yourself) down?Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-52542624714313935142011-01-29T11:00:00.000-06:002011-01-29T11:00:17.226-06:00IT means change, and change means peopleAn ongoing discussion with colleagues (and in most IT organizations, I suspect) is how best to use the people and resources at hand to deliver services and support to customers. While many on the outside look at IT as being all about technology, the reality is IT leaders and professionals need to continually examine themselves and their teams when figuring out what's next. As Brett Anderson at CIOUpdate.com puts it, "<a href="http://bit.ly/fQCQEp">it always comes down to people</a>" when IT change is in the wind.<br />
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In the not-too-distant past, IT professionals could find a niche specialization, lock themselves in an office or back room, and happily work in a virtual vacuum for years or decades. Now, the trend toward unified infrastructure, managed IT services, and cloud computing have all forced the question of "what are our IT people actually doing?" to bubble up, and appropriately so. Many services that once required specific and local controls to add value, such as messaging and collaboration, have both become commoditized and increase in value when allowed to take full advantage of network effects. The results are predictable: more institutions are shifting commodity (and sometimes competitive) services to the cloud or other third parties, and IT organizations are getting a little lost in their focus as their world has started to transform.<br />
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The general response from experts has been, "Retrain your people and focus them on business-facing issues." Great in theory, but not exactly easy in practice. Though not quite as drastic as turning manufacturing workers into knowledge workers, telling someone who has spent 10+ years in say, systems administration, that now it's time to be a business analyst is not going to help you or your customers. Offering training or guidance isn't enough either; what if being a sysadmin was the end goal for that person? It takes relatively little time or effort to develop routines and habits, and faced with (possibly extreme) change, those routines and habits become both havens and crutches. My hunch is that any IT organization facing change (i.e. almost every IT organization) contains people with varying levels of ability, knowledge, and willingness to redefine themselves in a new context.<br />
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And to be clear, we're ultimately talking about <b>people changing themselves</b>. Communicating visions, mission statements, or value lists are necessary, but likely will not on their own accomplish the kind of shift from "support the technology" to "enable the business" that is increasingly required. Even hands-on management has its limitations, as a key tenet of management is that a person cannot change another person. The only lasting change for a person is one that is self-realizing and self-actualizing. A leader's role, then, is to create a situation for each person that helps him/her to understand both what change is necessary and how to start moving in that direction.<br />
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If a vision of the post-change organization has not been communicated, that needs to be done. That post-change vision also must include some detail about the roles that are most valuable to the business and what those roles entail. At least as important is communicating the incremental improvements on the road to the end-state, so people can both see how the organization will get to the end and start to understand their role in doing so. Feedback should be encouraged and the incremental steps may need to change over time to accommodate shifting external conditions, though the end-state should remain consistent.<br />
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Leaders and managers then need to commit to one-on-one interactions with each person to engage in a personalized feedback loop and aid in understanding new roles and responsibilities as they arise. This will also help managers to assess the person's ability and willingness for change, and create the optimal situation accordingly. Like most management techniques, fairness will not mean equality here; be prepared to adopt different approaches and time commitments for each person. Issues may range from developing analytical skills to improving verbal communication to overcoming fear of failure, and managers must be ready to help address them all.<br />
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At the same time, leaders need to find opportunities to extend some of the same techniques into a group setting and have people start helping each other to change together. There is a lot of value in peers finding shared meaning and finding ways to solve common problems, as this ultimately helps people to truly internalize the organization's vision/mission/values. You know you're on the right track when your team comes to you with shared ideas for improvement that they have already started to execute on. Encouraging those results lead to the desired virtuous cycle of continuous improvement.<br />
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Re-reading the paragraphs above, it still sounds too easy. It's not - and it's hard because real personal and behavioral change is the hardest thing anyone can do, and your ability as a leader to effect such change is minimal. But it's also the most important thing that can be done to enable the organization to move forward, and often yields more than enough reward to justify the effort.Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-64428961499632328522011-01-16T11:55:00.001-06:002011-01-16T13:34:46.263-06:00Who needs to be convinced about cloud availability?In the wake of <a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/01/destination-dial-tone-getting-google.html">Google's announcement that their SLA for Google Apps is now 99.99%</a>, with all downtime (planned or unplanned) counting toward the SLA, the question has arisen:<a href="http://www.cloudave.com/9428/can-we-take-availability-off-cloud-concerns-list/"> is service availability still a valid reason to avoid cloud services</a>? At this point, the question may be less a matter of numbers and more one of perception and education. For whatever reason, people tend to believe two things about the availability of the technology they own/use, especially in the workplace:<br />
<ol><li>It should just work, all the time, without any issues.</li>
<li>If I can see/touch it and know the people who run it, it's more reliable and I know issues will get fixed more quickly.</li>
</ol><div>These sentiments remain prevalent across both technology consumers and IT professionals. Google's announcement speaks to the first point - IT is seen as a utility that is always available to be consumed, like electricity or water. This point is the more rational of the two, and cloud providers tend to aim at educating potential customers about the results of building an infrastructure that understands and accounts for component failure while continuing to provide services. SLAs and uptime figures are published and cited to support providers' arguments, and they generally meet or exceed people's expectations. Indeed, millions of people use a cloud service all the time - Gmail, Facebook, Twitter - and already use these services as utilities: always on and available when needed.<br />
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But what about the second point? Why is such value and importance placed on knowing exactly where the technology is and who runs it? In many organizations, end-users tend to know and (hopefully) trust their local IT staff, which makes them more confident that when something breaks, the IT team can be counted on to fix it. People also like to know that they have one or more specific IT people they can contact if something goes wrong, and that they can influence or control the IT people to get the problem fixed.<br />
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IT organizations are also complicit in reinforcing the stereotype of the IT organization that can fix anything and jumps at every issue. The idea of the IT "hero" or "wizard" is long part of our culture, to great apparent emotional benefit. After all, who doesn't want to feel like a hero sometimes, especially when being perceived that way can help ensure IT headcount and investment? This tendency absolutely benefits both parties in terms of customer satisfaction, but also presents challenges in moving toward a model that includes the cloud (or any third-party managed solution).<br />
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So cloud providers' challenge is two-fold: persuade IT organizations that infrastructure maintenance is not where they can add the most value to their organization; and then help IT to convince their consumers that local doesn't always mean better when talking about service delivery. Helping IT reconsider its position in the organization may require providers to seek partners that focus more on technology strategy, as Google and Microsoft have begun to do, and craft messages in their opening pitches and materials that help IT management visualize their new role and value. If providers can clear the first challenge, IT will likely champion addressing the second.</div>Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-71752043954501153862010-10-25T11:24:00.003-05:002010-10-25T11:25:20.165-05:00IT organizations in the cloud<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">With all the talk about the technological and financial aspects to the cloud, there seems to be surprisingly little about the organizational implications of shifting services into the cloud. If you don't have as many servers, do you need so many systems administrators? What about software developers or quality assurance people?</span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br clear="none" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The easy, but not necessarily best, answer is eliminating those positions (and therefore the employment of those people). While that is perhaps tempting, a better approach is to consider what roles you'll need to best manage and support your business needs as the IT environment evolves, and then match the smart people on your team to those roles.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br clear="none" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b>Reconsidering the IT mindset</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br clear="none" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Moving services (or establishing new services) into the cloud is like writing software for the iPad or Android - it requires a very different mindset to manage properly. In particular, a cloud-based service or product is thought to be very easy to support and very fast to turn on. In addition, cloud service providers are constantly releasing new features, driving demand for those features to be enabled in your environment. As a result, end-users' expectations of IT responsiveness for support, changes, and new features will only increase as services are moved to the cloud. Moreover, if IT manages cloud as it has other technologies, end-users are more capable than ever at going around IT to get what they need - indeed, now they can just sign up for a service over the Internet and get people using the service without IT even knowing about it.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br clear="none" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">To avoid this, IT needs to become more proactive than ever at driving service management to the end-users. IT needs to effectively sell itself as the best channel for acquiring cloud services because it understands both the business and the technology better than anyone else. This isn't a new concept - IT has had to become increasingly business-focused and customer-facing over the past decade. What is new is the ease of acquiring IT services without the IT department's involvement.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br clear="none" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b>Roles and redeployment</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><br clear="none" /></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The odds are high that your IT environment will move incrementally (and likely not fully) into the cloud. As such, your existing applications and infrastructure people will still need to continue supporting the data center and in-house applications. At the same time, you should start to shift some of your people toward the following roles that will enable IT to become more of an asset to the company for both cloud and in-house services:</span></div><div><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><u>Service Desk</u>- On a day-in-day-out basis, end-users will continue to work most with the Service Desk team. In addition, the ease of configuration often provided in cloud services means that more tasks can be moved to the Service to improve first-call resolution and overall customer (and job) satisfaction. Consider augmenting the traditional service desk analysts with application specialists who can serve as subject matter experts and points of escalation for support.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><u>Business Analyst</u>- It is increasingly crucial that IT understands business needs, which are rapidly changing as customer demand shifts and technologies improve. Rather than wait for the business to declare their needs, engage directly with each department through frequent meetings and hallway discussions to make sure that (1) their needs are heard and understood by IT, and (2) they understand that they can rely on IT to "get it" and deliver the desired solutions.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><u>Quality Assurance</u>- Just because you didn't develop it doesn't mean you don't have to make sure everything works before going live. Your QA people understand how to write and execute test cases to ensure a minimum of issues when releasing a new service or feature, which will help in building confidence in moving to the cloud.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><u>Network Administrator/Engineer</u>- Cloud services require network/Internet connectivity, which is now a mission-critical infrastructure component. IT may spend more time focusing on network performance, monitoring, and maintenance to ensure access to corporate applications.</span></li>
</ul><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">As you evaluate these and other roles, consider the strengths of your existing team members and identify those that can start evolving into these roles. Next, determine all of the change factors (compensation, reporting structure, etc.) as a result of any reorganization. Then start engaging one-on-one with team members about the possible opportunity to expand and evolve his/her role into the cloud space. Positioned correctly, the response may well be enthusiastic beyond your expectations.</span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div>Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-47866070237726808232010-10-10T08:22:00.000-05:002010-10-10T08:22:10.209-05:00Building momentumIt's been over a month now since I started my new role as an IT leader. In that time, I've focused on meeting people, learning about the institution and its expectations of IT, and understanding what we do and how we've gone about doing it. It's provided me with key insights when considering both immediate next steps and the overall path forward.<br />
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Organizations of all sizes and shapes tend to figure out a way of getting things done and stick with that path, largely out of famiilarity. While this can help to improve the precision of task completion (i.e. the same task is done the same way each time), it also can close the door to different practices and methods. I've long thought that once a group of smart and curious people start really considering their options, they tend to arrive at a new and interesting way to get things done. Getting started with those first rounds of consideration, then, are key.<br />
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Like anything else, the leader's role is to motivate others and create the right situation for the team to succeed. This is not an overnight activity - it takes significant time and effort (proportional to the size of the organization) to both communicate a vision and get everyone actively excited about the possibilities of participating in that vision. Moreover, the leader must be consistent in the message and continually find concrete examples that support the vision.<br />
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The primary positive effect of this is momentum - the team gets excited about the opportunities to grow and renews its commitment to its mission. You may also find, as I have, that you get excited as well - having these conversations and getting positive responses is motivation to keep working toward creating the situation for continuous improvement and high performance. A motivated group is probably the most important part of what comes next.Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-57059028855254443532010-09-19T10:06:00.000-05:002010-09-19T10:06:19.470-05:00Getting it right the first timeI came across an excerpted transcript of a <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gardner/hps-robin-purohit-unpacks-business-service-management-9-as-way-to-address-complexity-in-hybrid-data-centers/3717">podcast on HP's cloud management software</a>, which included this statement by Robin Purohit, Vice President and General Manager of the Software Products Business Unit for HP Software & Solutions:<br />
<blockquote><i>If you think of Agile and the pace at which now <a href="http://briefingsdirectblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/hp-service-aims-to-lower-cost-and-risk.html">new application innovations</a> are bring rolled out, it really means that you have to get things right the first time.</i></blockquote>I was struck by this initially because "getting things right the first time" seems antithetical to Agile, which is based on a philosophy of rapid, incremental improvement. At the same time, there's also the realization that once a policy or process is released, making changes to that policy or process is very difficult, and such change probably cannot keep up with the rate of change in technology. This is especially true in the cloud, where providers constantly release new features and functionality, almost without warning.<br />
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Although the source article was ultimately about management software, this holds even more true when talking about upstream processes such as governance and standards definition. Moving to the cloud means empowering end-users with a greater ability to shape his/her environment than in a traditional IT setting. If there isn't at least a basic set of guiding principles to abide by, you can be sure that in a few months the company's account will contain much of the same clutter and inconsistency as is often found in areas like file shares and document management systems.<br />
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Defining standards of usage for cloud-based services should be similar to doing so for other services:<br />
<ol><li> Identify roles and responsibilities for governance</li>
<li> Educate governance body on the service and its capabilities</li>
<li> Draft usage standards and present to the governance body</li>
<li> Establish a consensus on usage standards</li>
<li> Communicate usage standards as part of the roll-out and ongoing support</li>
</ol>What does change is the mind-set everyone involved should adopt when going into this process. Rather than ask, "How can we control how the service is used?", the focus should be on "How can we best empower people to responsibly use and extend the service?" Understanding how the service can and will be employed to share data, create mash-up applications, and otherwise fit into regular processes is key to creating a set of standards that people will want to adhere to. Trying to exercise too much control will result in the workarounds and rogue setups that frustrate both end-users and IT.<br />
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Back to the beginning - "getting things right the first time." Your governance structure and standards don't have to be perfect before deploying a service. They should be based on pragmatic understanding of the service, meet the most critical needs to protect the company from legal action or financial vulnerability, and be straightforward enough for everyone to understand and comment on. Feedback should be captured and used to help hone usage standards. Ultimately, your organization should have a usable and fairly created set of standards that are internalized by end-users and will implicitly abide by, reducing efforts for maintenance (such as data gardening and access auditing).Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-9884389370273785532010-09-04T09:50:00.000-05:002010-09-04T09:50:06.839-05:00Getting to new and improved servicesI've been spending a lot of time recently thinking about providing IT services effectively and efficiently and how to make improvements along both dimensions in any given situation. To start, let's look at IT responsibilities in two major categories:<br />
<ul><li>New/improved services - business analysis, projects, research, development</li>
<li>"Keeping the lights on" - break/fix, service requests, planned maintenance</li>
</ul>The first category is where IT really adds value, as a team that can both understand the business' needs and provide robust and ever-improving solutions that increase the "top line" of performance. Unfortunately, IT tends to spend only a fraction of its time here, largely due to the effort needed to satisfy the second category.<br />
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"Keeping the lights on" consist of a series of challenges that have largely been solved within the industry. Quick searching for any facet, ranging from authentication/authorization to service desk management to configuration management, will yield results for processes, tools, and methods. In fact, it's almost overwhelming to consider all of the available options.<br />
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The goal is to optimize the <b>efficiency</b> of this category. No one gains a competitive advantage from "keeping the lights on", so we should spend the minimum in resources to achieve the organization's needs for support and maintenance. Bear in mind, however, that doing so will be different for each organization - for instance, some organizations accept a remote call center approach for efficiency, while others demand a high-touch, in-person support experience. When evaluating an environment for efficiency, you should consider the following factors:<br />
<ul><li> Variety of technology to support and ability/need to standardize</li>
<li>Importance of support characteristics, including speed of response and resolution, interaction types (email, phone, in-person), and environment context</li>
<li>Automation of common tasks</li>
</ul>Ultimately, some balance of these factors are required, and not everyone is going to be happy with the outcome. When considering such an evaluation and potential change, inclusion is critical - involve at minimum the following people:<br />
<ul><li>The people who actually fulfill these tasks, such as end-user support, systems/network administrators, and application support personnel</li>
<li>Key end-users that require a significant portion of IT's effort for support</li>
<li>Business leadership that can help articulate overall technology goals and objectives and provide context for technology strategy</li>
</ul>Finally, be clear about the benefits of possible change. Essentially, any time not spent on "keeping the lights on" can be used for new and improved services. An end-user support person who isn't fixing an email problem for the umpteenth time can be researching and consulting on the value of mobile technology or finding out about new requirements ("wouldn't it be great if I could..."). A systems administrator who isn't manually patching servers can instead enable new features for existing services or identify new technologies based on customer feedback. An environment that can spend time on real improvement is better for the end-users, better for the IT team, and better for the organization.Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8685931389248296950.post-63526127974320906812010-08-21T09:32:00.000-05:002010-08-21T09:32:05.484-05:00Building a deskI was talking with colleagues recently about the various types of cloud services and realized that it's not exactly easy to articulate the types - after all, it's all cloud, right? During the discussion, I hit on the following analogy: let's say you want a desk. You have three basic options:<br />
<ol><li> Buy the desk pre-built, selecting basic items such as color and finish</li>
<li> Buy a kit to build the desk, using pre-defined options for the top, legs, and other components</li>
<li> Buy the raw materials and build the desk from scratch to your specifications</li>
</ol>In the cloud, option 1 is equivalent to Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS. What you want is basically ready to go, and you can make minor configuration changes to better suit your needs. You will probably also pay less for use of such a standardized service.<br />
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Option 2 is analogous to Platform-as-a-Service, or PaaS. You're given a larger range of options to develop a more customized experience within the provider's range of options. For instance, you may have only 1-2 options for programming language, database platforms, or integration with other applications. You'll also pay more for the service because of the necessary development effort, but it may be worth it to gain the functionality you need.<br />
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Option 3 is equivalent to Infrastructure-as-a-Service, or IaaS. Starting with "raw materials" such as CPU, RAM, disk, and network bandwidth, you can build a complete server farm in the cloud. You have full control over the operating system, security, data, and applications in your IaaS environment to configure and customize to your fullest advantage. However, you'll need not only developers but systems and network administrators to manage the environment, raising the cost yet again.<br />
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Ultimately, your needs (and those of your company) should determine which cloud service type is best for any given service. Because the cloud ecosystem is rapidly changing, what works today may be unnecessarily complex tomorrow. As long as your data and applications remain portable (by using standard protocols and languages), you should be able to continually move to the best service for your specific (and evolving) requirements.Chris Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02998998965737630959noreply@blogger.com0