Archive for the ‘management’ Category

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IT Managers Need To Forget The Yearly Reviews – Do It Monthly!

Thursday, January 19th, 2012
Image Credit Feedback sessions need to be done more often with younger IT workers…

Feedback sessions need to be done more often with younger IT workers…

A part of an IT Manager’s job is to let those people on his or her team know how they are doing. At most companies, this is done once a year during an annual employee review. I’m not sure about you, but have you ever asked yourself if this is the best way to do this kind of thing? In the age of Facebook and Twitter, maybe it’s time to do these kind of reviews more often…

How Most Companies Do Employee Reviews

Sure employee reviews are a good thing to do, but how are they done? Well, I’m sure that you’re aware of how they are done at your company, but do you know how they are done at other companies?

Assuming that you are an IT Manager at a fairly typical company, then you probably do employee reviews once a year. Guess what – that’s how most companies do them. In a recent survey, 51% of the 500 companies surveyed said that they do these types of reviews annually. 41% of the firms said that they do them semi-annually.

How Progressive Companies Do Employee Reviews

How about all of those fancy new-fangled firms that we are always reading about in the IT trade rags – how often do they do employee reviews? At the leader of the pack (for now), Facebook, they do employee reviews twice a year.

Some progressive firms have increased the frequency to as often as every two weeks. Their thinking is that by doing this they transform what is often a big scary meeting into something that is much more common and, hopefully, useful to the both the employees and their bosses.

What’s The Right Way To Do an Employee Review?

A number of consultants have pointed out that the frequency of employee reviews doesn’t really matter if you are doing these types of reviews wrong! They point out that if you flood the employee with too much information there is a good chance that they’ll simply shut down during the meeting.

When this happens, the review won’t produce the results that you are looking for. Instead what often happens is that the employee just ends up focusing on the criticism and ignores any suggestion of constructive ways that they can become better.

No matter how often as an IT Manager you choose to do employee reviews, you need to realize that this is an important part of your job. Being in regular communication with your staff is how you find out about small issues before they have a chance to grow into big issues that can end up distracting people and wasting time for everyone.

What All Of This Means For You

I think that we can all agree that IT workers who report to an IT Manager need to get feedback on their job performance. This is a cornerstone of good management. The big question is if getting this feedback once a year is the right way to do it.

At most companies, the employee review is an annual event. However, at a number of progressive firms it has been changed. Reviews are now done more often and are done much quicker. The goal is to provide feedback to the employee so that they can start to use the information as quickly as possible.

Ultimately, no matter how often employee reviews are held, the key is to make sure that the information that the IT worker gets is useful. IT Managers need to show leadership and make sure that they don’t overwhelm their staff with too much feedback that causes them to shut down and only focus on the negative. Become an IT Manager who knows when and how to provide employee feedback to members of your dream team, and you’ll be rewarded with a great IT department working for you.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: Do you think that it would be possible to do employee reviews too often?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental IT Leader Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

The one thing that everyone in IT has learned is to stay away from projects that we just know are going to fail, right? It turns out that over in England, they seem to have forgotten this rule. They decided to do a huge IT project to modernize their health care system and guess what, it just failed. Sounds like a great learning opportunity for IT managers…

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The Wrong Way For An IT Manager To Fire A Worker

Thursday, January 12th, 2012
Image Credit
When IT Managers fire IT workers, they need to do it the right way…

When IT Managers fire IT workers, they need to do it the right way…

It’s time for that IT worker to go. As an IT Manager, one of the most painful decisions that you are ever going to have to make is the decision to terminate an employee. Not only is this a tough call for you to make, if you have any sensitivity then you realize that it’s going to rough on them no matter how you go about doing this. Considering how important this is to both of you, perhaps we should spend a few moments talking about the right way to go about doing this part of your job…

Lessons From Yahoo – How Not To Fire An IT Worker

Just in case you were out of town and missed it, over at Yahoo they fired their then-CEO Carol Bartz the wrong way. As an IT Manager you need to be aware of what they did and why it was wrong. First off, Carol was fired over the phone. Secondly, as reported by her, Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock who was doing the firing over the phone was also apparently reading the termination to her from a script that he had prepared. Can you say impersonal?

The lesson that you need to take away from this botched job of firing a worker is that it will come back to haunt you. Yahoo is probably going to have problems convincing people to come work for them because of this story. I mean would you want to work for a company that is that cold and impersonal when it comes to letting their workers go?

If you’ve got to fire somebody, then at least show some leadership and do it the right way. This means that if it is at all possible, you need to do it face-to-face. No, this doesn’t make it easier for you, but trust me this will make the whole experience better for both of you.

The Correct Way To Fire An IT Worker

So if Yahoo has shown IT Managers how NOT to fire workers, what is the correct way to perform this painful task? That’s actually a very good question that has multiple parts to its answer.

First off, we need to understand that some of the commonly held beliefs about the best way to let someone go (given to us by countless company legal departments) are wrong. Sure, these long-held myths seem to be the best way to do things, but it turns out that they actually boost the chances that the terminated worker is going to turn around and sue the company.

Let’s start with trying to understand what a worker who is being let go wants to hear from you. Even though you are firing them, studies have shown that the process can go much smoother if during the process you take the time to praise them. Clearly you need to be careful here – complement their good qualities, but make sure that it is very clear that they are still being let go.

Next, if at all possible don’t have them escorted from the building by a security guard. This takes away all of the good feelings (if there are any) that the praise that you shared with them during the firing discussion may have caused. Instead of a guard, you should be the one who walks them out of the building.

The other thing that you should not do is to have another person present in the room when you are doing the firing. Yes, I know that this is a basic recommendation from both your HR and legal departments. However, studies have shown that by having this 3rd party present is viewed by the person who is being fired as demonstrating a lack of respect for them. I for one can agree with this – it makes the person being fired feel as though the two of you are ganging up on them.

Finally, during the actual process of firing someone be sure to do it slowly. Remember, if you have been a good manager they should have been given plenty of warning and coaching before reaching this point. If you take your time and allow them to process what is happening, they will have more time to deal with this change.

One way to slow things down is to make sure that you carefully explain why they are being let go. Studies have shown that terminated employees were 10x more likely to sue their former employer if they felt that the reason for their dismissal had not been explained to them.

What All Of This Means For You

Firing workers sucks. It’s no fun for you and it’s no fun for them. However, as an IT Manager this is actually a key and important part of your management job – you need to ensure that you have the right dream team on board and you will have to make changes to that team by firing people every so often.

You need to understand how not to fire staff. Don’t do it over the phone (like they did at Yahoo) and don’t read from a script. Take the time to meet with the employee face-to-face and provide a complete explanation of why they are being let go. Try to do the actual firing with just you and the person who is being let go – ultimately this will help them deal with receiving this information.

No IT Manager gets up in the morning with the anticipation of having to fire a worker that day (at least I hope not). However, it does happen and you need to learn how to do a good job at this part of your position. Take the time to provide some humanity and understanding as a part of the termination process and you will make a difficult task that much easier for both you and the employee.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: Would you feel comfortable firing someone if nobody else was around while you did it?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental IT Leader Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

A part of an IT Manager’s job is to let those people on his or her team know how they are doing. At most companies, this is done once a year during an annual employee review. I’m not sure about you, but have you ever asked yourself if this is the best way to do this kind of thing? In the age of Facebook and Twitter, maybe it’s time to do these kind of reviews more often…

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2 Rules For Being A Better IT Manager Boss

Thursday, January 5th, 2012
Image CreditYou can't be a buddy and be a boss

You can't be a buddy and be a boss

When I’m working with new IT Managers I often run into the buddy / boss problem. It’s perfectly understandable that any person newly placed into an IT Manager position would like to establish a positive relationship with the people that they are managing. This is all well and good, but it’s all too easy for an IT Manager to go too far – you can be a boss, but you can’t be a buddy.

Pick One: Buddy Or Boss

How did you ever learn to be a boss? I’m going to guess that you never took any courses on the subject. Rather, you went to work and you had bosses. You watched what they did and saw what kind of results they got. When you got promoted, you did your level best to be like the ones that were able to get things done.

This is all well and good; however, the world moves on. The new management philosophy tells us that as bosses we need to “connect” with our teams in part to keep them from leaving. Exactly what this means or how best to do it is not terribly well defined.

All too often what I see IT Managers doing is starting out small and going out to happy hours and such events with their IT team. This then leads to other activities and eventually real friendships can develop with some of your staff. This is when problems start to pop up.

As the head of an IT team, your staff works for you. What this means is that at work you have a very clearly defined relationship. When you start to develop personal friendships outside of work, these relationships can start to blur the work relationships.

What happens is that your new friends stop taking what you say at work with the proper amount of seriousness. They forget that indeed they do need to do what you tell them to do – it’s not a request from a friend that they are receiving, but rather a command from their boss. The difference may be subtle, but it’s very, very important that they understand it.

Too Much Information

Along the same lines, the issue of how much of your personal life you should share with your team is another difficult issue that we all need to deal with. You don’t want to be seen as being cold and aloof, but how much is too much?

One of the key realizations that I’ve seen IT Managers struggle with is the simple fact that any personal information that you share with any of your team will undoubtedly end up getting repeated. Before you share it with your IT dream team, you need to determine what the long term cost of making that information public will be.

Trivial things like the fact that you own a dog are probably ok to share with staff. The fact that you got arrested as a youth for drunken driving is probably not. The litmus test that seems to work the best in these situations is to ask yourself if you saw the front-page story in the New York Times was the information that you are about to share with a staff member, how would your mother feel? If there is any doubt on your part, then keep your mouth shut!

What All Of This Means For You

IT Managers get way too much contradictory information when it come how best to manage a team of IT professionals. Gone are the days of aloof, remote bosses. IT Managers are expected to connect with their IT department and to bond with their employees.

However, it’s all too easy for an IT Manager to take this employee bonding stuff too far. You won’t be able to effectively manage your team if you become their “buddy”. Instead you need to maintain a professional distance between yourself and everyone else. This idea means that you shouldn’t end up sharing too much of your personal information with the people who work for you.

Nobody ever said that this leadership thing was going to be easy. IT Managers need to keep in mind the role that they play in the company that they work for and what this means for the relationships that they will establish. Remember, be a boss, not a buddy!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: If you make a mistake and become too friendly with one of your team members, what’s the best way to correct the situation?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental IT Leader Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

It’s time for that IT worker to go. As an IT Manager, one of the most painful decisions that you are ever going to have to make is the decision to terminate an employee. Not only is this a tough call for you to make, if you have any sensitivity then you realize that it’s going to rough on them no matter how you go about doing this. Considering how important this is to both of you, perhaps we should spend a few moments talking about the right way to go about doing this part of your job…

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IT Managers Know That Strategies Never Last

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011
Image CreditEvery IT team's strategy eventually is used up

Every IT team's strategy eventually is used up

As an IT manager, one of the biggest management challenges that you’ll ever face is setting an effective strategy that your entire team can rally behind. As though this wasn’t difficult enough, there’s a little secret about IT strategies that nobody probably ever took the time to tell you about. They don’t last.

A Little Thing Called Change

So why is it that our most carefully crafted IT strategies don’t last? Well the answer to that question is actually pretty easy: change happens. That’s right, no matter how much of your world you think that you control, the reality is that you don’t control the changes that happen in it.

What this means for your team’s IT strategy is that although when you created it, it was probably a good fit for the team and what you wanted to accomplish, it soon isn’t. Because of changes in your team’s environment, even if you are managing a dream team you’re going to need a new IT strategy.

Change can sneak in using a whole bunch of different disguises. Sometimes it’s quite obvious: the CEO announces that the company is changing direction and the project that your team was working on is most defiantly part of the old way of doing business. Other times it’s a bit more subtle: a product that your team was developing IT systems to support goes out of favor with customers and so the company decides to sell it off to another company.

No matter the reasons for the change, it will happen. When it does, you need to first be aware that your current IT strategy is no longer going to do the trick and then you need to have the IT manager skills that will be required to allow you to take action.

Why Strategy Is An Ongoing Process

Effective IT managers make a fundamental realization early on in their careers. They come to understand that developing a strategy for their IT teams to follow is not a one-shot deal. Rather it is simply one part of an ongoing process.

This understanding allows them to always be taking action in support of the ongoing process that is IT strategy development. They know that they need to keep their eyes open and constantly be examining both the external customer environment and the internal work environment for changes that will tell them that it’s time to chuck their current IT strategy and start to develop the next one.

If you feel that this is a task that you simply don’t have the time to do or to do well, then you need to take action. You need to find a member of your team who does have the required time and tell them that you are entrusting them with a new assignment: detect change when it occurs and tell you about it. This will fill them with pride and will give you a chance to practice your delegating skills.

What All Of This Means For You

Setting an IT strategy for your team to execute is a demanding task. Once done, it’s very easy for an IT manager to sit back and assume that his or her primary task going forward will simply be to make sure that the team is executing the strategy.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that IT strategies don’t last. Due to a little thing called change, the conditions that the strategy was designed to deal with will go away. They will be replaced with a completely different set of conditions and this means that it will once again become your responsibility to develop a new strategy to deal with them.

Realizing that developing an IT strategy for your team is an ongoing process is a key part of being an effective IT manager and demonstrating leadership. Understanding that it is a constant process is what it takes to be a great IT manager.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: How often do you think that you should re-evaluate your team’s IT strategy to see if it needs to be changed?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental IT Leader Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

A quick question for you: are you afraid to fail? Would you be willing to take on responsibility for leading an IT team that might not be a success? I’m willing to bet that a lot of us would say “no” – our company’s IT managers who are perfect are rewarded while IT managers who fail are kicked to the curb. However, I’m going to tell you that you’re wrong – get ready to fail if you want to succeed.

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5 Steps IT Managers Need To Create A Strategy

Thursday, October 20th, 2011
Image Credit
An effective IT strategy can result in success for your team

An effective IT strategy can result in success for your team

Hmm, isn’t strategy something that the big boys are supposed to be taking care of? Most IT managers probably don’t think that they either have the skills needed to create and implement an effective strategy or that it’s simply not part of their job. Just to be clear about this: creating and implementing an effective IT strategy for your team is most definitely a part of your job. Now let’s figure out just exactly how to go about doing it…

Step 1: SWOT

The first step in developing a workable IT strategy is to take the time to perform a SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The key here is to perform this analysis from the vantage point of your team: what do you do well, where is your team dropping the ball, what projects or opportunities do you see coming your way, what might make your team not matter anymore?

Step 2: Identify Internal Resources

Once you’ve identified the opportunities that are available to your team, you next need to determine how you can take advantage of them. In order to be assigned to work on a project or to obtain new resources, you need to be able to leverage internal resources. Use this opportunity to reach out to people and organizations within the company and forge relationships that will help your team to be able to accomplish more.

Step 3: Threats & Opportunities

Your team will always be facing both threats to its value to the company as well as opportunities for it to become more valuable. You need to look at each of these and identify what alternatives you have for dealing with them. Ensure that you both have accurate information as well as all of the information that you need. Once you’ve done this, pick one of the alternatives and make it your strategy of record for dealing with this threat / opportunity.

Step 4: Building A Good Fit

What’s going to make a strategy work with your team is to find a way to make the all of the different parts work together to make your team stronger. An example of this could be if you wanted your team to play a big roll in the company’s rollout of a new vacation management program you might have your team take a Ruby training class so that you could offer to take care of both the front-end and the back-end parts of the project.

Step 5: Alignment

Just coming up with a strategy is not enough. Once you’ve created the strategy, you need to sell it to your team. You’ll know that you’ve successfully done this once everyone knows what the strategy is and understands what their role in implementing the strategy is.

What All Of This Means For You

Creating and implementing an IT strategy for your team is a part of every IT manager’s job. The trick is knowing the 5 steps that are involved in doing this correctly.

Creating a strategy starts with performing a SWAT analysis, finding internal resources and using them to come up with a strategy to counter threats and take advantage of opportunities, combine activities in order to create a good fit among internal activities. Finally, take the time to create alignment between the various players.

Creating a strategy is the key to providing your team with a clear direction for the work that they will be doing. That’s why it is such a critical task for IT managers to do well. Follow these 5 steps and you will be seen as a strategic IT manager!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: How often do you think that you should revisit your IT strategy to see if it needs to be updated?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental IT Leader Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

So what’s it going to take to make you a successful IT manager? Is it going to be your understanding of a wide variety of emerging technologies? Is it your ability to understand where the company stands in the marketplace and where it wants to go? Or is it your business skills that allow you to seamlessly network with the rest of the company in order to lead your IT team? Turns out that these are all good to have; however, what it’s going to take to get you to the finish line is something much more valuable: personal energy.

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