Scary Thoughts on Energy

I put my Green IT hat on and went to a meeting in London this week to learn more about the Carbon Management Association. Our host was Lord Redesdale a Lib-Dem Peer and former spokesman on Energy.

Lord Redesdale opened the meeting with a startling government projection. The government estimates that UK will need around 30-35GW of new electricity generation capacity over the next two decades as many of the UK’s current coal and nuclear power stations, built in the 1960s and 1970s, reach the end of their lives and are set to close.
He went onto highlight a number of specific concerns for anyone engaged in IT Management.

The first is that there will be insufficient energy available to satisfy peak demand from 2015 onwards. The second related is that the price of energy is set to rise even more sharply than it has so far as the combined effects of the Climate Change Levy and the underlying increase in cost of energy continues. His third point is that IT infrastructure continues to expand massively and is set to consume around 10% of the UK electricity supply if it doesn’t do so already!

A study from IT services supplier Computacenter and Fujitsu Siemens Computers, for example, shows that the UK’s top 200 listed companies waste more than £61m in electricity a year by not maximising the energy efficiency of their desktop computers. With the IT industry accounting for more carbon emissions than the airline industry our appetite for energy seems almost insatiable.

In these circumstances is it not incredible that IT Managers are rarely held accountable for the energy cost of the IT deployed to support the business. Sure, many have implemented power-management software on desk-top PC’s, but this is rarely ever part of a coherent energy management strategy.

There is a real need to extend the education of IT professionals to include energy management as part of their responsibilities. The ISEB Foundation Course in Green IT is a significant first step but more, much more needs to be done, urgently.

Stuart Sawle                           www.sysop.co.uk

Formulating a Strategy, Setting Objectives

Lately, I’ve been involved with a committee that’s been developing a three year strategy. They’re not ITIL people. Many are not managers at all. Their stated objective was to develop a strategy that was “aspirational”. They argued that without aspirational objectives the strategy would not be challenging enough in today’s tough climate.

This set me thinking.

I agreed entirely with their sentiments but I was concerned they would fail because the objectives / goals they were setting were not SMART. By that I mean they needed to be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable (Attainable)
• Relevant
• Time Bound

Setting a challenging goal can sound quite specific (e.g. reduce expenditure by 75%, increase profits by 50%) but without any hint / outline of how this is to be achieved it fails the “Achievable” criterion. When the goal stretches beyond what is possible it fails the “attainable” criterion.

What we need to do is to take each of the goals we set ourselves and break them down into lower-level SMART objectives that, much more specifically, state what is to be done, by whom and by when and how this is to be achieved – the road map if you like.

A specific goal will usually answer the five “W” questions:

• What: What do I want to accomplish?
• Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
• Who: Who is involved?
• Where: Identify a location?
• Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

The Achievability term stresses the importance of setting goals that are realistic and attainable. While an attainable goal may stretch a team in order to achieve it, the goal should not be extreme. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance, as these may be considered meaningless.

When you identify the goals that are the most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. Attainable goals encourage goal-setters to identify previously overlooked opportunities that will bring them closer to the achievement of their objectives.

Stuart Sawle               www.sysop.co.uk

Selling Change to the Team

Isn’t it amazing how we can use a simple phrase that would actually lead to our undoing – making it difficult, if not impossible, to actually achieve what we intend.

If your approach is to “sell” the idea of change to the team they will see right through you. The change becomes more about what you want; change is being imposed; those whose co-operation you seek will react with the smile that says “yes boss, no chance”. And that’s the best you can hope for – the more recalcitrant ones will actively work against you.
Change needs to be managed, people need to be understood and involved.

I well remember a reorganisation at Woolworth’s when a manager, I regarded as a fool, was appointed as my boss. He took the trouble to have a face to face chat with me. He allowed me to express my fears and concerns. He listened to me and sought to find ways in which we could work together. It worked. Not only did we develop a fruitful, purposeful relationship – we became firm friends and still are – some 30 years later. He even acted on some of my advice to downplay some of his traits that led people like me to dismiss him as fool!

If you think a change is needed quickly, take time out to assess whether the drivers are really that urgent. We can be so go-minded that we can overlook this simple check. Consider would a more relaxed time-frame still achieve your objectives? Would taking a little more time to consult and truly involve those affected make your decision more acceptable? Would the ideas and discussions allow you to improve the quality of the change?

As a senior manager you probably relish change and thrive on it. Be aware that the chief insecurity of most staff is change itself. Their first reaction will be to feel threatened.

Remember, like grief, there is a series of stages that people go through before they become accepting of change. From suspicion, through curiosity, to visualisation, acceptance and finally commitment, your team members need to be allowed the time, and your time, to explore, understand and respond.

Stuart Sawle              www.sysop.co.uk

Managing the Motivation of an IT Team

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. General George S. Patton

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

 

 

Banking the Green Dividend

In recent years, many organisations have reduced their costs and improved their effectiveness by rationalising their IT infrastructure:

• 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

The value of service management

I’m often asked for examples of the return on investment that sound IT service management delivers and I’m always put on the spot to quote concrete examples.

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

Why eschew management training

It’s long struck me how ill prepared IT specialists are for management responsibilities.

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