IT staff are valuable company resources because of their unique specialist skills, knowledge and experience.

They are a challenge to lead because: they are very intelligent and highly individual; and also because they are often involved in complex projects where they may have to work in isolation using considerable delegated discretion.

Most IT specialists will tell you that they prefer to be left alone to get on with the job. Nevertheless, like everyone else they do need to be given feedback, told when they’re doing a good job, corrected when they’re not. Providing feedback is particularly difficult when a goodly proportion of their time is spent working at home – out of the normal cycle of intra-office communication and observation.

Maintaining IT staff motivation is a crucial element in the success of a project. Knowing when to delegate and how to review is a key factor in achieving motivation.

If you are to do this well, and it does need doing well, you need to very aware of your own skills and abilities. You need to identify your management style and understand:

• The theory of motivation.
• How to delegate successfully.
• How to understand yourself and others – what drives you, what drives them?
• Why values are important and how to use them.
• How to communicate effectively with your team.
• How to build on-going fruitful relationships.

I’ve blogged before about the lack of management training that we IT professionals undertake. Here is a starting point – an opportunity to develop and deploy a very valuable set of skills that will help you, your organisation and your team members.

Stuart Sawle

www.sysop.co.uk

• Reducing the number of servers
• Implementing load balancing
• Deploying storage area networks and using storage more effectively
• Reducing the number of software licences Improving resilience
• Reducing maintenance costs.

This is, of course, to be applauded. Return on capital employed is a critical success factor for any modern data centre. Yet, these organisations often feel to realise another major achievement – gained as a result of their efficiency drive.

• Data centre energy consumption is reduced significantly.
• Less heat is generated.
• Less energy is required to cool the server room.
• The IT Carbon footprint is substantially reduced.

More and more organisations find that adopting a sustainability policy not only reduces costs, it actually increases sales! The British consumer is actively supporting those businesses that can demonstrate real and tangible Green initiatives.

The sad thing is that, for the most part, data centres don’t measure their carbon footprint. This means that they aren’t able to claim their full share of the credit when their efficiency programmes return a Green dividend.

The carbon footprint of the IT Industry is now greater than that of the global airline industry. Some 40% of the energy consumption within a typical administration complex is due to that used by the IT infrastructure.

We need to become Green aware. We need to be able to measure our carbon footprint. We need to be able to predict the improvement in greenhouse gas emissions and to justifiably claim credit for the improvements we have made.

The ISEB Foundation Certificate in Green IT is a good first step towards helping an organisation to achieve its sustainability goals.

Stuart Sawle

Whatever your position in your company, like me you know that IT Service Management matters. You know that implemented correctly, the ITIL® Service Management disciplines will provide you with a stable, reliable, and cost effective environment for the provision of your IT services.

I’m sure that at some point, early in the ITIL implementation lifecycle you conducted a baseline exercise and that, as you conducted further measurements, you found real evidence of process improvement:

• better problem management resulting in fewer incidents,
• Improved change management resulting in smoother implementations and fewer post-implementation glitches,
• more comprehensive monitoring of device performance resulting in fewer hardware failures and capacity issues,
• more realistic customer expectations as a result of sound service level agreements,
• greater customer satisfaction as a result of better service level monitoring and reporting.

All of these things are real and tangible benefits of improved service management processes. All are measurable. But none of them are expressed in terms of the contribution to the profit and loss account. What’s the bottom-line effect?

I’m sure there are organisations out there that have calculated the return in this way – I’m just surprised that they are not readily available as case studies. Do you know differently?

Stuart Sawle

As long ago as 1992 when we first began to offer the ITIL “Managers” course we were surprised at how poorly developed were the presentation skills of the course attendees. Our students were often tongue-tied and seemed incapable of marshalling their thoughts to convey the simplest of ideas. They also struggled with any aspect of financial management – even simple budgeting techniques were totally alien to them.

As we delved further into the management skills that were required to transform highly competent technical specialists into team leaders it also became apparent that motivational and performance management skills were also absent.

I have been at the Learning & Skills / Learning Technologies exhibitions this week. During the two days I was there, I spoke to many HR managers from a whole range of organisations – public and private, large and small. A common theme of our conversations was the under-development of general management skills within IT specialists.

Perversely, it seems, training to support these skills are readily available. Sysop, for example, has a range of management development courses specifically designed for IT specialists.

The shocking revelation, from the HR people I spoke to, was that IT specialists are incredibly reluctant to undertake this training. When it is identified as a logical career development step, they view it as some sort of punishment detail.

So, why do we IT guys shy away from developing our management skills? What is it about our psyche that makes us view them as a chore rather than an essential and enjoyable career development step?

I confess, I don’t know. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Stuart Sawle

We overcome this by describing our business users as customers. We talk about providing service. We remind our technical teams that without the business operating effectively, making profit, the demand for IT services, and their job, might be abruptly curtailed.

Our strategy works. Once the service culture becomes the norm: IT services improve; effectiveness increases; costs reduce; and the virtuous circle of continual service improvement becomes well established. Job done – we may think; but hold on!
Why have we created “a Them” and “Us”? Why do other specialist groups within the organisation see themselves as part of the business – not some-how external to it? We don’t hear of HR specialists or facilities management staff talking about customer service and “the business” as some discrete entity.

This conundrum highlights where IT service management has to go next. The” business as a customer” analogy works well in the initial stages of IT service management implementation but we must recognise it as flawed. Our IT Director will not see him/herself as just a service provider. Indeed IT Directors need to and do provide valuable input to the corporate decision making process. They take responsibility for the advice they give and accept their share of the corporate objectives.

The challenge, in years to come, will be to complete the integration of the entire IT specialism -encouraging them to continue to pride best of breed service but from within not as a semi-detached group somehow grafted onto the side of the business operation.
Your comments on how this might be achieved are awaited with interest.

Stuart Sawle

I think it’s a hugely ironic that IT specialists at the forefront of implementing change for the business are, as a group, most resistant to change themselves. That makes it very difficult to develop a culture of continual service improvement and to implement a framework like ITIL®.

It is widely accepted that the top three barriers to service improvement are:
• Plan, Do, Stop
• Saying Yes and meaning No
• Lack of Commitment from senior management.
Planning and acting to overcome these three obstacles is a crucial element in any programme of change.

Resistance is good. Winning people over helps validate that Yes really means Yes and that the improvement programme will continue even when the initial focus is switched elsewhere.

Management commitment is more difficult but goes to what I said in an earlier blog about speaking truth to power. All too often I see projects effectively killed off because senior managers display an attitude characterised by “You have my full commitment – just so long as you don’t need my time, effort, budget or involvement”.

This remark hurt at the time and that’s probably why I remember it so vividly. But shouldn’t I have taken it as a compliment? After all the essence of sound project management is to plan for and demand sufficient resource to meet the project criteria.

Some years later, I was engaged on an assignment to deliver a project that had a deadline that just could not be moved (the clue is: it was the 5^th April).  Given that end date is fixed, the only other variable is the level of manpower available – more bodies for a shorter time or, in our case, more hours in longer days.

That’s when I fully understood the perspective of my colleague.  He was Applications Development Manager driven very much by business imperatives, I was Technical Manager – relatively free to set and manage my own deadlines.

Nevertheless, of course, project management is just that – the sound management of a project. There is no merit in taking on a project that has either unrealistic timescales or inadequate resources to enable it to be delivered to the required quality.

That’s why in our PRINCE2 ® training courses we take a very practical and pragmatic approach to the real-life challenges that face project managers. Our course takes a workshop approach based on the principles of accelerated and practical learning. We know that people learn more effectively where learning events are activity-centred and that they can better relate the theory to the real world. Sadly, the dynamics of modern business do not always fit the theoretical model.

Project managers need to be flexible and prepared to stand up for their project. If the planning reveals that there is insufficient time, budget or resource to deliver reliably – the project manager has not only a right but a duty to escalate to the project board. Senior management need to know and acknowledge risk. The ability to speak truth to power is an essential quality that project managers must have – backed by sound planning and an international accepted framework – the true value of PRINCE2 ®.

I first met Kate when I engaged her company to carry out some training for the Sysop team itself.

Kate reminded us, first of all, just how much experience there was in the room – the collective experience of the Sysop team was and is pretty impressive. She then went on to demonstrate to us that even the most daunting tasks could be accomplished if one were properly aware of how it should be done and, importantly, if we had self-belief!

Her challenge was to get us to memorise 20 random items and to be able to recall them in sequence and on demand. In just a few minutes the entire team achieved this seemingly impossible task with ease – in fact, many years later, most of us can still remember many, if not all, of the items Kate gave us. At the end of the training session, the whole team was buzzing. We were inspired – confident that we could achieve anything. That’s when Kate delivered the most important lesson of all . . . .

Kate lit a candle and set it on the table at the front of the room. Our challenge was to focus our minds on the candle and extinguish it using the power of thought alone!
Up for the challenge, the team directed its total thought energy at that candle. It flickered. It fluttered. It wavered. It burnt fitfully but it did not go out – failure!

Then Kate stepped forward and pinched the wick. The flame went out.

The lesson, of course, is that you can think and plan as much as you want but if you want to achieve anything you have to get off your backside and do something.

So it is with IT service management. So many service management professionals return to their workplace fired up with the enthusiasm for ITIL® only to be frustrated by the difficulties of persuading colleagues and senior management to act together to deliver best practice.

Carrying the burden of changing people’s attitudes alone is a heavy one indeed. That’s why we almost always recommend a series of workshops at the start of a project to make sure everyone is on the same page, that pain points are brought out into the open, priorities are set and the quick-wins are identified so that progress can be made visibly – swiftly building momentum and winning management commitment.

Kate and Miles continue to support our management and cultural offerings. More information can be foundhere:  http://www.sysop.co.uk/training-courses/19/business-change-and-prince2#c25

Merry Christmas and a happy and Prosperous New Year.

Stuart Sawle

• In a typical office environment the IT Infrastructure will account for around 40% of the total energy consumption (carbon footprint) – the remaining 60% being (mainly) heat & light.
• Cities and towns cover 2% of the surface of the planet, 50% of the world population live there, they use 75% of all the energy produced and in turn, they produce 80% of all emissions.
•  Of a total world population of 7 billion, 5 billion have mobile (cell) phones and there are more than 7 billion in use.

These statistics demonstrate the dramatic changes that have taken place on this planet over the past thirty or so years. In fact the change-rate is exponential! One of the most compelling effects of this rate of change has been the compression of time.

For example, we now expect a response to our communications, probably through text or email, in hours and preferably minutes, whereas even fifteen years ago, we had to wait for a snail mail response which could have taken days if not weeks.

Everything is urgent! We are continually distracted by that ping which tells us that another text message or email has arrived demanding that we read it and reply instantly.

The next ten years may see the demise of email as the use of instant messaging and other forms of less formal communication take over. How long will instant messaging last before something else arrives out of left field to improve our lives?

None of this is right or wrong, good or bad.  It is simply the reality of the way in which our lives have been changed and it is up to us to determine if it is for the better.

Change is inevitable. Like it or not, change will happen around us and by definition affect the way we live and work.  By far the best way is to embrace these exciting changes and use them for the benefit of our organisation and for ourselves.

The pace of change and the ever increasing demand for technology driven solutions has a huge environmental cost. From 2012, the global carbon footprint of IT activity will exceed that of the airline industry!  A typical administrative centre packs an annual IT energy bill of over £200,000. This too must change!

The parallels with IT service management best practice are striking.

There is a service desk (CapCom) handling all the communications between the astronauts and mission control. There are professionals dedicated to incident and problem management.

There are carefully thought out processes and a robust change management team responsible for making absolutely certain that the safety of the astronauts is never compromised by a poorly tested change. There is a carefully crafted strategy with clear mission objectives that had to be re-evaluated in the light of the catastrophic explosion.

Yet in all of this, the astronauts were returned to Earth safely.

Whenever Sysop consultants run our Apollo 13 simulation as an ITSM learning workshop, they observe the ITSM professional participants disregarding all that they have learned about ITIL® best practice. Processes, designed by the team to see them through the simulation, are forgotten and abandoned; communication breaks down; leadership seems to be lost in space.

The lesson from this, of course, is that this is exactly what happens in the workplace when best practice processes are stress tested by a major crisis. Just when reliable resilient processes are needed to support problem-solving and crisis management, best practice goes out of the window.

We often say that adopting service management best practice is as much bringing about culture change as it is about rolling-out the framework set out in the core volumes. If an organisation fails to win the hearts and minds of everyone involved in the provision of IT services, then an implementation of best practice, no matter how well intentioned, is doomed to failure.