The New IT Leader

Conclusion

Introduction

Let’s Begin

If you are a technology manager, congratulations, you’ve landed one of the most difficult and demanding jobs in modern history. The challenges in sustaining critical business infrastructure while helping business leaders realize their strategic visions are often difficult to overcome. Consider these examples of obstacles IT managers must contend with:

•Consumerization of technology drives unrealistic expectations on the part of the customer that technology is easy

•Security concerns and breaches requiring new layers of technology introduced into the architecture that then introduces new variables into the maintenance equation

•Relatively uneducated managers put into roles around technology that then drive technical decisions (this happens more often than governments and corporations want to admit)

And there are countless more examples. Yes, it’s a tough job, one of the toughest in the marketplace. But if it were easy, everyone would do it. You are in your position because you are expected to have the technical skills to navigate the complex landscape of technical interdependencies and the management skills to govern your team and the teams around your department.

As difficult as the job is, I still love technology. I’ve always been fascinated with what it can do for people and society. Ever since I was in junior high, when I started programming on an Apple I, I realized that somehow this was going to change the way we live our lives. Technology certainly has lived up to its expectations – the innovations that have been developed over the past 40 years have influenced every corner of society and every corner of the world!! We’ve got capabilities at our fingertips that have transformed our lives in ways people could not have imagined outside of the realm of science fiction – can you image what you would do without your cell phone? Even now, cell phones are becoming so powerful that they dwarf the capabilities of computers from 15 years ago.

It is amazing the impact that technology has had on the world given its relatively new footprint in corporations and governments. Look at traditional functions like sales, marketing, finance, and accounting. These disciplines have been around for centuries: well thought out standards and approaches are the luxuries that time has provided them. Technology hasn’t had this advantage. As technologists, we’ve leveraged and wielded technology to the extent possible, but we continue to struggle with what seems to be often an unmanageable number of variables to effectively deliver technology that fits precisely what the business is looking for (just look at the Affordable Care Act website as a case study).

In my experience, I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that the problem stems from a lack of basic operational discipline in the delivery of technology. This leads to several delivery problems including the inability of IT organizations to express what will or can be delivered in a way that the business can appreciate (along with all of the caveats and risks with delivery of a technology solution).

What’s missing? Well, look, I wish I could point out the one thing that makes technology management easy, but this isn’t a single-dimensional problem. Most technologists I’ve worked with, while brilliant and can solve complex problems, are naturally introverted. Then there are equipment failure and downstream implications those have. Oh, and let’s not forget that business leaders may not know what they are looking for (they know something’s wrong but don’t have a clear vision about how to address it). And there are infinitely more variables that come into play including the examples above.

So everything in technology is unique, every solution, every problem, every project. In response, standards have been developed, processes embraced, and certifications earned. These will only get a technology manager halfway there. I ask again, what’s missing? We have to go back to my conclusion: there’s a lack of basic operational discipline.

I’m not implying that technology managers are incompetent. Just the opposite! We have a monumental task on our hands. What I am saying is that in general the track record for technology organizations to deliver services to the business hasn’t been stellar. I’m also saying that this job is complex. In order to be successful in a complex environment, full of unknown variables, you have to have a disciplined approach to management. And no, it’s not easy. But it can be done, and done very well almost every time.

About 10 years ago, I was confronted with management consultants who assigned to build efficiencies into our IT department. Problem was, they didn’t know anything about IT. As I tried to describe the entirety of the scope of an IT leader’s job, I started to feel like one of those employees being interviewed by the Bobs in the move Office Space. And no one else they talked to could either. Yeah, there was the obvious keep your customer happy by landing projects on time and on budget and minimize outages. But when you are in the crosshairs of the Bobs, how do you rebound?

That’s what spurred me to begin building out a framework to describe what I was supposed to do as a manager. At that time, most education provided to managers was around specific processes (and might I say siloed processes at that) to help navigate only one specific discipline (Six Sigma, PMI, ITIL, and on and on).

I decided to define the scope from the IT application manager’s point of view because they have the closest ties to the business. Eventually, everything in technology rolls up to that point where an application is delivered to the business.

The purpose of this book is to provide you, the IT application manager, a framework to organize yourself around. The book covers, at a high level, all the focus areas or domains that I’ve found are needed to cover the basics of your job and gives you some tools to more effectively support your customer. It’s also a reference for those managers supporting you so they can be better prepared to help you in that delivery. Finally, from that framework, you can build a dialog with your customer to assess their needs and jointly determine how best to wield technology to suit their needs, creating real innovation and value with technology.

It’s that last point which has eluded so many IT organizations. However, it is entirely within your ability to effectively manage the areas described here, leveraging technology as a strategic asset rather than just another technical platform.

Evolution of IT Management

Before we delve into the basics of IT management, I think it’s important to understand where we’ve been as an industry. We’ll briefly discuss the history of IT management to provide insight on how we got to where we are now.

There wasn’t too much to managing technology back then. But it did have its drawbacks; primarily, little or no upward migration from technology to other parts of the business. In the early days, you tended to be siloed into the systems organization

IT organizations, 30 years ago, were much smaller, requiring only focused monitoring and management. Largely absent from the forefront of business operations, system programmers could do most of their work behind the scenes. These organizations usually reported into a CFO as they mainly supported accounting and finance functions. The systems used were largely mainframe based and sat behind glass walls. The concept behind the glass wall was that someone could look in, but could not directly influence the day to day activities of the technology staff. As a user, you did not need to know what was going on behind the glass wall – only that the system was kept up (most of the time).

There was a reason for that – the chasm between the technology and the business value provided by these systems was filled with tiny bits of micro code. There wasn’t much in the way of 3GL or 4GL code available and most programmers needed to write to one layer above the operating system. Application frameworks were a set of programming best practices, as programmers shared ideas about how to build the most efficient programs to make best use of very limited computing resources available to them, while meeting the ever increasing appetite the business had for productivity gains using technology.

There was a time when many systems organizations lost control of the technology platforms as that technology and the people who could wield the technology became accessible to the business. This was the birth of shadow IT organizations and several of those organization still exist today.

Programmers of that day were a rare breed in a mostly misunderstood profession with a limited fraternal presence. Your worthiness to join the ranks was based on the caliber of code you developed and your knowledge of the computing environment you worked in.

The late 80s and 90s saw a massive transformation of how technology was used by businesses as it moved from back office productivity tools, to enable mission critical business transactions. The underlying technology also became more complex with the introduction of distributed and web based technologies. With the introduction of the personal computer, and the advancement of 3GL and 4GL application frameworks, technology became more accessible and less prohibitive.

Distributed systems brought more and more products to market built around these new platforms. Corporations grappled with cultural and process changes that came with them, anywhere from should we use e-mail because of what employees may put into them to the implications of sharing data in real time with vendors and partners. The numerous challenges that corporations faced was huge – those that could weather the information technology storm definitely came out on the other end with competitive advantages unprecedented in modern corporate history.

The underlying technical delivery philosophy, however, did not change as quickly as business leaders would have liked. In many cases, IT organizations treated themselves as closed entities with little or no accountability. Most still reported to the CFO. It was not until the mid-1990s did the industry see the rise of the CIO as a direct report to the CEO, especially in larger companies. Even so, there was an air about an IT organizations that the business did not need to see how technical services were delivered, only that the systems remained up and running (most of the time). The glass house was as strong as ever.

I don’t want you to think that I have a vendetta against IT shadow organizations. They are a reality of the IT landscape and need to be recognized. Given the right architecture support, they are very effective.

Market conditions being what they are, businesses found new ways of getting the technology answers they wanted. Individual business units came to realize that they could deploy technologies seemingly as easy as IT could. The birth of the shadow IT organization came about.

Still, many IT leaders initially dismissed shadow groups and felt compelled to dictate requirements to the business. But when IT leaders could not deliver to the new demands of the business, they often found themselves on the short end of a pink slip, especially when the business was left with multi-million dollar write-downs for systems that didn’t fit their processes.

IT managers faced the daunting task, sometimes unsuccessfully, to compete with the business funded and managed shadow IT organizations. Sometimes business leaders seeing this dilemma would, out of frustration with the perceived lack of performance from IT, apply their own business processes which made them successful and tried to implement them in IT, seeking to improve the management practices in IT. This almost always yielded minimal benefit as the processes never addressed the spectrum of management disciplines required to effectively run an IT organization.

In other cases, to justify a value proposition to their customers, some IT organizations would leverage cost cutting. But this approach would often fail as expectations for ensuing financial periods would require additional cost cutting in lieu of meeting key performance benchmarks.

TIP

Especially where there is business growth, cost cutting by itself almost always fails as a way to prove business value.  This should be done as a standalone effort only if recessionary pressures exist within the business.

All of these events were leading technology organizations towards an inexorable and fundamental shift of technology’s role in business strategy from support to enabler. Instead of technology coming in after the fact of the development of a business strategy, technology now is a key component in deciding which business strategy to pursue!

Relations with Business Leaders: It’s all About Trust

As a consultant, I started to take note of the IT management practices that were in place at various companies, ranging from the Fortune 500 to small start-ups. In the IT organizations that were successful, I found two common themes that contributed to their success:

1) They had close and good relationships with the business units they served

2) Their disciplined management approach allowed for consistent execution and delivery of services to their customer

So when I talk about the relationship with the business, I’m talking about a real trusted relationship. You present to them lucid, well thought-out approach to a business problem and opportunities and maintain systems performance to a level acceptable by the business; they, in turn, place their trust in you to make decisions as needed to support the agreed to SLAs. In this kind of a trusted relationship, there is transparency into what both sides are doing – information is available to help the business make the right decisions and help you guide the business. It also gives you the latitude to voice concerns or be a contrarian when necessary.

But to be able to put yourself in the position of a trusted advisor, you need consistent process execution. That means keeping the systems infrastructure up and running while providing the solutions to keep up with the demands of the business. Like any other professional discipline, without solid execution, you won’t be able to build the trust you need. Conversely, each operational failure causes you to loose trust of the business, until at some point, the business begins to turn to other sources to fulfill its needs, regardless of the strength of the relationship you’ve built with them to date. Without that trust, you won’t be able to effectively assert yourself when needed to help the business navigate through the myriad of counter-balances between IT spending and business priorities.

The New IT Leader Framework

One of the biggest challenges I’ve had as an IT manager is engaging the business in a dialog that means something to them. As complex as systems and their supporting infrastructure are today, it’s not about the inner working of these systems, but how well did they meet the needs of the business. You don’t have to look any further than the processes in place that you use to support the systems for the business to build out a framework for that discussion.

I don’t want you to think that because the IT Customer being outside edge of the framework diminishes in anyway their importance. Rather, this book is about you, the IT leader, and the domains you must manage to provide value to your customer.

The intent of this book is to break down those practices used by successful IT organizations that led to facilitating a dialog with their customer and a framework of best practices that help them create solutions that match the tempo and flow of the business processes they support.

I’ve broken down what an IT manager should oversee into 12 process areas. They encompass everything you need to effectively manage your team and to provide transparency for your customer.

Figure 1: The New IT Leader Framework

Clearly, the overriding beneficiary of this approach is the business (the IT Customer). Being a service provider, your world revolves around making sure that their investment in IT is maximized. Much of this depends upon the level of service you can provide, and working with them to make the right decisions on their behalf. How companies refer to a customer of IT is as varied as they are - Team Member, Associate, Business Partner, Co-Worker, Patron, just to name a few. We’ll refer to them in this book as the IT Customer.

As I will state several times in this book, every organization is different, which means your ability to control any of these process areas will differ from organization to organization. For purposes of framing up this book, I’ve taken these twelve process areas and broken them into two general categories:

•Process areas that you have direct management control over, where you make decisions as needed to influence the outcomes as required to meet business needs

•Process areas that you don’t have control over, where you will need to understand how these process areas work and be able to influence their behaviors

What You Can Control

There are 8 process areas that are under your direct management control. Your ability to govern these process areas will directly reflect your mastery of the underlying disciplines and your management abilities. Each area has its own unique aspects within their respective frameworks, yet is highly inter-dependent on other process areas. As you work through each area, keep note of these inter-dependencies.

•Projects and Support : this constitutes the bulk of the work your team will be doing on a day to day basis delivering solutions and maintaining systems

•Quality Assurance : this isn’t just simple testing, but also requirements management, auditing and ensuring that the processes you’re following are providing the highest quality deliverable to your customer.

•Resource Management : the allocation of your employees to meet the demands of the business and measuring their effectiveness and efficiency in delivering solutions to the business

•Budget : the management of costs required to maintain your organization, and how those costs would be allocated across multiple business lines (if applicable)

•Service Level Management : measuring the performance of those systems and processes under your control

•Portfolio Management : presenting to your customer how well your organization is performing, setting priorities, looking at tactical and strategic options for processes your organization and the business you support

•Business Continuity : identifying those critical business processes are and how your organization will support them during a disaster or emergency

•Metrics : measuring process outcomes that impact the business and your team. Also developing baselines and objectives for those measurements

What You Have to Influence

So that leaves us with four process areas that you will need to influence, but which you won’t have direct control over. Mastering these will require political tact, interpersonal skills, and your technical aptitude to influence them to help in your delivery.

•The Business : put it simply, this is the company or organization that you support. Knowing how to navigate the organization will be critical to your success as a manager

•3 rd Party Vendors : companies don’t work in isolation. Effectively dealing with vendors from negotiating contracts to seeking out the right solution is a major factor in your success as a manager. This also includes how to sort through the bombardment of marketing materials vendors push your way and how to deal with off-shore resources

•Human Resources : while you can control how your resources are deployed, people are people. You’ll need to know how to deal with the extraordinary array of personalities and work ethics

•Infrastructure and Security : while more oriented towards the business application organizations, this section has lessons for organizations managing infrastructure and security as well

Approach to This Book

I wrote this book primarily for the technical IT application manager. The most difficult challenge I had was transitioning from a technical role to a management role. I struggled because I couldn’t find a decent, holistic reference on how to do this job. I found books on how to do parts of the job, but they were fragments at best. The aim of this book is three fold:

•Present a framework for application managers to improve strategic and tactical relationship with their customer.

•Develop manageable work products from your customer’s strategies, leveraging various methodologies & approaches.

•Provide a framework for consistent execution and reporting.

I designed this book where you can start at any chapter, taking each chapter as you see fit; however, I organized the chapters where they build upon each other. What I did not want to do was to rewrite the litany of books on the various subjects covered in this book, so you won’t find a detailed breakdown of PMI or ITIL in this book as an example. What I wanted to do was to encapsulate the various disciplines into one place and provide details of where I believe the gaps exists, providing you a well-rounded view of what an IT manager does.

It’s not to say that the myriad of books, articles, white papers, periodicals, and magazines aren’t well written; on contraire, they helped me work through several different process challenges that I had to implement. But what they lacked was a broader viewpoint of the job that I had to do. I have included a section in each chapter called More to Explore that has reference material for you that I’ve used in my career.

Also note that the IT manager is at the center of the diagram above, and the IT customer is represented on the outside, which would seem counter intuitive given that everything you do as a manager would serve the IT customer. I wrote the book from your perspective, what you do need to do to get your job done and how do those activities help your customer.

So, I started the book off with metrics. I would strongly encourage that you start with this chapter – after all if you can’t measure what you’re doing, how do you know if you are improving, not to mention that metrics provide a great frame of reference for your customer.

Part 1: Managing by the Numbers

Chapter 2: Metrics

Introduction

The incontrovertible truth is that Information Technology has evolved into a strategic asset for companies, partially driven by consumer adoption of electronic devices and partially by competitive pressures. Tasked with the stewardship of a company’s information, a new level of accountability has emerged requiring unprecedented transparency into IT operations. However complex the IT infrastructure is, IT managers must be able to articulate operational outcomes in a way that the business can use.

This is done by describing infrastructure in terms of services provided to the business. Consider for a minute that the services consumed by the business are applications (after all, have you ever known a user to use the network directly). These applications are integral to the execution of business processes.

So, in developing metrics to provide to the business, there has to be an alignment between the processes executed by the business and the underlying infrastructure to support those services. This is where a well-documented and robust CMDB (Configuration Management Database) comes into play (see Chapter 11 – Infrastructure and Security).

This all