tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39897022024-03-06T21:03:39.661-08:00Modern Middle ManagerPrimarily my musings on the practical application of technology and management principles at a financial services company.
Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.comBlogger280125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1167850083343845422007-01-03T10:31:00.000-08:002007-01-03T10:48:03.433-08:00Change Your Mind?One of my favorite stories goes like this: after being given a very disturbing prognosis delivered in an offhand manner by a medical resident, a real doctor came in to examine my condition. He was far less flippant and weighed the risk of the resident's prognosis as highly unlikely. The resident, still eager to show off how intelligent he was, declared my condition to be the result of damage to a particular nerve. The response from the doctor was, "Are you sure?" The resident, slightly less confident, repeated his conjecture. Once again, the doctor stated, "Are you sure?" Even after years of management, I know when you're being given a second or third chance to get the right answer, so I helped the resident by saying, "Sounds like you need to change your answer." I rather enjoyed getting in that barb.<br /><br />On Friday the 29th, I had a conversation with the senior manager of our biggest business unit (we'll call him BK for Big Kahuna) about how to approach his extremely important make-or-break the company and his career project for 2007. I gave him my perspective, which he initially found appealing. The following Tuesday I called him to find out if he had accepted my solution. The conversation went something like this:<br /><br />Me: I was wondering if you made a decision on our approach to the Really Big Initiative.<br /><br />BK: Yes, you were going to send me a recommendation.<br /><br />Me: I was? {Note: This part should not have been voiced. Duh.}<br /><br />BK: Yes.<br /><br />Me: I thought I gave you my suggestion on Friday. {Note: See how I grow denser.}<br /><br />BK: You need to factor in [thus and so].<br /><br />Me: [Finally catching on.] I will have my analysis and recommendation to you by Friday.<br /><br />To recap: I made an practical, appealing suggestion on Friday that I thought was all but a done deal. On Tuesday, it was turned into "you are going to give me a recommendation." But I already had. That was my hint. And so I wrote the recommendation up, giving weight to the "thus and so." And he had the answer that affirmed the approach he already wanted me to take.<br /><br />That is how office politics is done.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1167577699810190252006-12-31T06:57:00.000-08:002006-12-31T07:08:19.823-08:00ProjectsSunday morning before a flight to Paso Robles and my mind turns to...projects. Specifically, keeping the project stakeholders coordinated the business unit manager doesn't think anything's moving forward. Out of a portfolio of 12 projects, we have one project that suffers from substandard programming and will be moved to our offshore team. The remaining projects are either 1) in development or 2) awaiting the requirements phase, meaning that the project owners aren't writing a specification, they want the imaginary BSA that the IT department doesn't have available to write the spec. That's a shame and it holds up our projects. However, it also means we'll keep Orange County's job rate low. So we're procuring a body.<br /><br />In the meantime, the business unit manager (and also my boss) thinks that someone needs to be in a position to coerce both the projects group (not a PMO, mind you...more an application development group) and the business unit product manager to "move things forward." So I may see the development of a project management office (PMO) that reports to me, or him, or someone else and partially runs my IT projects group. Or the IT project group may report to the product manager. Or to my boss, who would prefer to be more hands-on sometimes and less hands-on at other times. I smell a reorg coming (again). My empire has both grown and been sacked by the barbarians before, so I roll with it. In the long term, the Visigoths find that managing really isn't to their taste and doesn't accomplish what they desire: agility and speed to market without planning. I do not think that is a worthy target.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1167366321274843492006-12-28T20:19:00.000-08:002006-12-28T20:25:21.286-08:00Here's a Challenge for You...The COO of the company says that he has a major initiative that will involve a great deal of software development. Without actually starting the design and specification process, he wants to hire more programmer (specifically, software developers located at a subsidiary in India). Do you:<br /><br />1. Calmly explain that it is unlikely that we can hire the right number of people before we even know what is involved in the creation of this application / suite?<br /><br />2. Say, "Yes, sir," and try hiring a half-dozen developers who very well may sit on their ass for weeks and leave out of sheer boredom before development begins?<br /><br />3. Try to find another route, such as hiring a well-known offshore development firm to start the project, and then scale up the Indian subsidiary as phases are completed?<br /><br />You decide!Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1167233861071235262006-12-27T07:28:00.000-08:002006-12-27T07:37:41.083-08:00What Happened to 2006?This has been a tumultuous year for us. We've tackled multifactor authentication, established an offshore development group, reorganized the department, gained people, lost people and accomplished a few business initiatives along the way. I've made some people happy, frustrated others and finally proven once and for all that third party examiners are a cross between Homer Simpson and Satan. Homer Satan. That sounds about right.<br /><br />On a personal note, I got married in April, became a private pilot in November and gained about 20 pounds during the course of this year. I look forward to making that disappear in 2007.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1140391343817317152006-02-19T15:13:00.000-08:002006-02-19T15:31:44.600-08:00Driving Desktop Operational Costs DownWhat a droll title for a post. Next week my group is working on two intertwined projects in an effort to drive down our ongoing operational costs. I've mentioned one guiding principal in doing that -- <a href="http://computing-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/server-based+computing">server-based computing</a>. We use Citrix's MetaFrame XP product at this time, presenting the entire desktop on a Citrix server. Our proof of concept over the first part next week will encompass the following changes:<br /><br />1. Moving to the enterprise version of <a href="http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/product.asp?contentID=186">Presentation Server 4.0</a>.<br />2. Incorporating the <a href="http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/product.asp?contentID=15005&ntref=PROHOME_Main">Citrix Access Gateway</a> to provide an SSL VPN and customize the kind of access that can be had to internal network resources.<br /><br />The goals will be to gain the advantages of PS 4.0 (better printing, CPU usage control, server load balancing at the software level) with the addition of the CAG's security options. I forsee existing costs going down because we eliminate the #1 and #2 problems our end-users have with the existing platforms (i.e., printing issues and the follow-me desktop). In addition, we will be able to provide a secure method to publish certain applications for clients that require a highly secure connection, slashing the necessity to maintain private networks to those client sites.<br /><br />The second proof of concept going on next week is a test of <a href="http://www.softricity.com">Softricity's</a> SoftGrid. We will be determining if software virtualization is all it's cracked up to be. If so, imagine no need to image desktops anymore. Take them out of the box from your favorite provider, patch, install your favorite client antivirus/firewall software, join the domain. That's it. This dovetails the server-based computing initiative by virtualizing the software running under Metaframe. Set up the basic Citrix server, join the farm & domain, publish the virtual apps for whomever logs in. Done. No more software conflicts. Disaster recovery procedures practically write themselves, similar to the ease of recovery we've experienced from virtualizing our servers. I'm sure that the devil is in the details (i.e., actually "sequencing" the application to virtualize it). However, if it is a a one-time major pain followed by the occasional patch, I can't see it will be worse than the current software deployment and patch management nightmare.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1136593619571284932006-01-06T16:19:00.000-08:002006-01-06T16:27:09.163-08:00Goals & RantsOn Thursday I laid out the 30 and 90 day objectives for my staff. The good news is that none of them looked like deer caught in the headlights. The bad news is that I didn't get a lot of questions. There was a lot of nodding, which means I'll have a private follow up for the people who didn't want to talk in public. Management also means reading between the lines.<br /><br />Ninety day objectives remind me of <a href="http://www.optimize.com">Optimize</a>, a magazine that I have a love-hate relationship with. There's usually one article that I find very useful and the rest are just a waste of time. Maybe with all of this deli.cio.us tagging and such, a group can smart tag the good articles so I don't have to waste my time looking for them. I want Cliff's Notes for every industry magazine with some kind of Usefulness rating from my peer group. That would be helpful.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1136261550456586352006-01-02T19:34:00.000-08:002006-01-02T20:12:30.536-08:00Microsoft IT OrganizationLooking for benchmarks I came across this <a href="http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/sample/DOMIS/update/2004/11nov/1104hmoi_illo.htm">page</a> on Microsoft's IT organization. What caught my eye was two things:<br /><br />1. Microsoft's organization is broken into two pretty standard groups, infrastructure and application development (internal IT services is basically infrastructure as far as I can tell). This is similar to the ideal division drawn up by Baschab & Piot in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471266094/modernmiddlem-20/103-1609673-7361412?creative=327641&camp=14573&link_code=as1">The Executive's Guide to Information Technology</a>.<br /><br />2. They rely heavily on contractors. That point doesn't sound as stupidly obvious as you might think. Yes, I am well aware of their use (and abuse) of contractors. However, I think I've missed something important over the years.<br /><br /><br />Once upon a time, I thought I'd never use contractors because I believed that you should hire employees, mold them the way you wanted to fit the corporate culture, invest time and energy into them and nuture them into great corporate citizens. That sounds great (OK, it sound like naive horse manure) but it doesn't necessarily work out. What happens when project demand is not smooth? What about keeping up the employee's technology skills while still getting the work done? <br /><br />The answer may lie in exploring contract labor. For the first eight years with my current company, we institutionally feared outsourcing and contracting. Two years ago we broke the outsourcing fear and have outsourced/hosted several important support applications. Last year we used offshore development for the first time, implementing a software project that paid for itself before it was implemented in its entirety. This year will be the year we break the contracting taboo. I have a small cadre of very bright people working for me who are just not able to absorb any more training without significantly impacting their ability to execute. I do not believe that you use smart people by working them to death -- the more people work 50-70 hours per week, the stupider they get. So it's time to supplement our labor pool.<br /><br />As I see it, contracted labor can be used in two ways -- to augment existing staff and on a per-project basis. I have need for both. The downside of contract labor is that their accumulated knowledge walks off the job probably every 6-24 months as a new person rotates in. The upside is that a contractor can be dismissed for any reason without turning the department inside-out if he/she turns into a problem. Bad employees are time sinks and it takes a long time to get marginal employees out.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1136257916326250502006-01-02T18:28:00.000-08:002006-01-02T19:17:23.770-08:00Spending MetricsI started in on a book called "The Professional Services Bible" by John Baschab and Jon Piot. Messrs. Baschab and Piot have written yet another tome weighing in at 500+ pages. The virtue of their books is that they don't waste time with appetizers before serving the meaty topics. Within the first three chapters they have given the outline for the book and delved into professional services organization, management and benchmarking. Much of the book looks like it can be applied to any business organization.<br /><br />Benchmarking is one such chapter. Some benchmarks may not be indicative of company success and should be viewed with a dim eye <a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=16013">according</a> to Christopher Koch of CIO Magazine. On the other hand, where do you start?<br /><br />Our company took 3 metrics from the META Group (now a part of <a href="http://www.gartner.com">Gartner</a>). Those metrics are:<br />1. IT spending as a percentage of revenue (Koch's least favorite).<br />2. Ratio of IT support personnel to total employees.<br />3. IT spending per employee.<br /><br />We have managed our company to within 10% of META group's banking industry average for #1 and #2, including operational costs (something Koch contends is not included in the revenue metric). #3 confounds me, because I'm consistently 20-30% over the benchmark. I assume it's because we're a small company leveraging a lot of technology. I believe it's because we leverage technology in a big way and senior management agrees. Part of my argument is showing the return for specific revenue-enhancing projects and how they've paid off in a short amount of time.<br /><br />Looking around on Google, I'm hard pressed to find more (free) information on metrics. One <a href="http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdbln/is_200202/ai_ziff22295">article</a> I came across from 2002 is from <a href="http://www.baseline.com">Baseline</a> and includes several more metrics. <br /><br />Koch is correct in that picking benchmarks for the right reason is important and that trust should not be placed in a number for its own sake. I remember hearing Zig Ziglar say once that you will manage your organization to whatever you're measuring. Ultimately I (and the organization) need to ask whether the IT department is worth the 1/13th of every dollar of revenue we get. If we don't contribute more to the bottom line by helping to bring in more money, peel away expenses or mitigate appropriate business risk then we're a sinkhole.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1135148119153703962005-12-20T22:49:00.000-08:002005-12-20T22:55:19.163-08:00Change Management, Still UglyAfter two weeks of our initial CM process, I have proclaimed the weekly change advisory board (CAB) meetings a failure, taking 90 minutes to review our changes. That's 90 minutes for the three people involved in the CAB.<br /><br />I'm a practical person. I don't care what the damned examiners want, if it's become a ridiculous drag on our business then we need to do something about it. So I've revamped our process as well. Changes involve relying more heavily on the help desk system, tagging the tickets with labels so that running reports on different stages in the process isn't as time-consuming. Because of the limitations with our help desk system, we are essentially running four reports. We're working on simplifying that but won't have that ready for another couple of weeks at the earliest.<br /><br />The toughest part? I understand that some of our other departments have had problems using digital signing to show that reviews had been done. I'm hoping I can avoid that problem, but won't really know until our next exam. Wishing myself good luck...Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1133854263210365022005-12-05T23:06:00.000-08:002005-12-05T23:31:03.253-08:00Change Management, Two Weeks LaterIt didn't take long for the recent round of auditors to tell us that the change management process I started envisioning two weeks ago needed to be implemented NOW. Surprise! I held an hour-long staff meeting explaining the process, answered some questions, let everyone know that this would be a work-in-progress and then started on the hard work: putting together the procedures and memo for the rest of the company.<br /><br />The most important thing for the rest of the company to know, if not understand, how this new process will slow things down. They say change management is like brakes on the car, it helps you go faster. Bah. For a small department, it means more paperwork and more bureacracy.<br /><br />There is a game being played by this whole regimen of examinations and regulations. The game is this: if you are a company that hosts systems and/or applications, at a certain scale you can devote people to creating and maintaining compliance. Small companies can't and will be forced to outsource to the big guys who can, if they can stay in the game at all. So our leading lights of legislative prowess create barriers to entry in the public financial service arena. Thank you, Congress, for screwing the small guy yet again.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1133602237256255672005-12-03T01:15:00.000-08:002005-12-03T01:30:38.010-08:00Offshoring Investment ResearchSometimes that <a href="http://www.barrons.com">Barron's</a> subscription actually yields a good investment idea. Not because it helps me pick better stocks. Oh, goodness no. I'm a terrible stock picker, worse when I actually listen to someone else. No, in this case they had a brief sidebar article on a new trend in outsourcing -- sending investment research to India.<br /><br />Our wealth management line of business has a razor-thin margin. To be honest, it's not very profitable and we don't have the kind of scale or retail distribution that makes it incredibly successful like a Northern Trust or Merrill Lynch. So what does that leave us? Making what we have more profitable. If we could save 20%-30% a year in investment research costs by outsourcing that internal function, we would improve our margins for that line of business by about 10 basis points. Does that make it worthwhile? If it turns a not-so-profitable product into a profitable one, yes. If it outsources a few IR jobs to keep several other jobs, yes. At the end of the day, competitive advantage and shareholder value win.<br /><br />I've read pundits who predit that the CIO/CTO function will eventually wither away, either outsourced or subsumed into some other business function(s). That day will be loaded with irony for me. Hope I like it.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1133601320750702592005-12-03T00:57:00.000-08:002005-12-03T01:15:23.070-08:00Mobile Data SecurityIf you do any business in California, surely you have heard of <a href="http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/01-02/bill/sen/sb_1351-1400/sb_1386_bill_20020926_chaptered.html">SB 1386</a>. While I appreciate the warning provided to me as a consumer in this age of identity theft, I have to admit that it really throws one more damnable monkey wrench into doing business as a small company (or in our case, small division). For years IT has been assailed for not adding to the bottom line of the business. With the onslaught of more laws, whether SOX or GLBA or SB 1386 or whatever well-intentioned piece of legislation gets through the state or federal legislature (or hell, even created by the courts), a relatively small IT department like ours gets the Hobson's Choice of either derailing existing initiatives to comply with the law or covering its behind by letting management classify the regulation as a small business risk. In this case, we're choosing option #1 because we know how careful our salespeople and front-office personnel are with laptops and handhelds. That thought keeps me up at night. Check out the timestamp if you think I'm lying!<br /><br />There are some vendors I've found in this space: <a href="http://www.safeboot.com">Control Break's Safeboot</a>, <a href="http://www.pointsec.com">PointSec</a>, <a href="http://www.pgp.com">PGP Corporation</a>, <a href="http://www.safeguard.com">Utimaco's Safeguard</a> and <a href="http://www.trustdigital.com">TrustDigital</a>. I'm sure there are others, but at least I've seen some reviews on these folks.<br /><br />What are the points of pain? Let's count the easy ways to for employees and vendors to lose data:<br /><br />1. Laptops.<br />2. Handhelds.<br />3. Removable media (e.g., CDROM and USB keys).<br />4. Tape backups (really a special case of #3).<br />5. Failed hard drives.<br /><br />This list doesn't even touch on third-party network access, although we restrict that pretty tightly. Failed hard drives we physically destroy before tossing. The rest are out of our control. Password protection is insufficient as to keep from reporting under SB 1386; only encryption provides safe harbor.<br /><br />I sent the memo to senior management. I am awaiting their response.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1132866850134553822005-11-24T12:53:00.000-08:002005-11-24T13:14:10.190-08:00Mo PoliticsOne of the continually fascinating aspects of my position is the need to understand and master the company's politics. Like a twisted game of Survivor, it's about making alliances and passing tests (i.e., executing on projects). Unlike Survivor, alliances are multidimensional -- you make them with subordinates, peers and executives. Subordinates and peers pull for initiatives, executives push. That combination can be very effective. For example:<br /><br />One nagging problem that's festered for about the last four years is who will take ownership of business processes related to the company's CRM platform. The CRM is mostly used by a single line of business from sales to support. However, no one is left to own, maintain or review those processes, many of which are admittedly out of date. In fact, one particularly enterprising individual is trying to get changes made on his terms by declaring everything he doesn't like as a "bug" in the existing applications. How do I neutralize this turkey while getting some responsible, broad-based support for owning the processes and responsibly changing them?<br /><br />A little digging and I find that there's a task force consisting of members of this LOB from the support side. Good start. I have an unrelated meeting with a senior member of this task force and starting ranting about obsolete business processes and who will take ownership, help streamline them and then work with my group to implement them. Naturally, she offers the task force as a great place to do this work. Heh.<br /><br />Not too long after that, I start a rant in an unrelated meeting with my boss about the turkey who is trying to classify everything as a bug (my boss isn't too fond of this individual, either). I note that it's time the LOB took ownership of the business processes and their end results and I suggest the task force. He says it's time he told the head of the other LOB to show some interest in their CRM and figure out what they want with it instead of just complaining. Good, good. I'm pushing the right buttons.<br /><br />The story is still being written and it may not work out quite right. However, knowing your audience and trying to get everyone on the same page without force of authority or bribes is called politics, and its something all managers who want to move an organization forward should possess.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1132865615835693442005-11-24T12:44:00.000-08:002005-11-24T12:53:35.846-08:00Change ManagementWe are currently undergoing a couple of routine audits (SAS 70 II and SOX), and one of the holes being pointed out to us is our change management process. It is insufficiently auditable and controlled as far as the examiners are concerned. I believe we're pretty decent for a small division, but SOX 404 does not care. So how do you invent a bureaucracy?<br /><br />First you start by Googling everything in sight and finding out that there isn't much out there that helps. Most of the papers I looked at were more theoretical than helpful. Software vendors want to sell a solution that's customized just for me. Hey, that's great. What do I really want? Back to square one. Of course, the companies auditing us would love to design a "best practices" change management solution that would cost us an arm and a leg and probably require a full-time person just to manage it. No way.<br /><br />What am I left with? I started by stealing the change management flowchart out of Microsoft's <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/cits/mo/mof/default.mspx">Operations Framework</a>. The next part is to revise it so it's a bit more streamlined for our 2.5 FTE IT operations group. Finally, after kicking the ideas around with the two senior guys on my staff (and the ones who will have to live with this the most), we've decided to model the standard change process and walk through it on paper. Like paper trading, so we can empirically discover the flaws before I declare it to be The Process by fiat. I prefer to learn by doing, and most of my staff does as well.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1126494230514215012005-09-11T20:01:00.000-07:002005-09-11T20:03:50.520-07:00It's Hard to Post......with a broken arm and heel bone. I've been out since 7/30 after a head-on collision totaled my car and put me temporarily in a wheelchair. If nothing else, my staff hasn't had me breathing down their necks for over a month and they seem to be doing pretty well keeping things running.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1120622591156103432005-07-05T20:43:00.000-07:002005-07-05T23:35:53.560-07:00Wheeling and DealingI am not always the best negotiator. Case in point: I've tried to pry away a contract employee from his employer the proper way, coming to mutually agreeable terms that nullify their contract's existing do-not-solicit clause. After four weeks of negotiating, the way I found to break this impasse was to finally offer a ridiculously low sum of money and bring in our COO to play the Last Word.<br /><br />First Round (3 weeks ago)<br />Us: We want the contractor and are willing to do a deal. What do you have for us?<br />Them: Contract-to-hire lasting 6 months and a 15% buyout at the end. I have to maintain my top & bottom line, you know.<br />Us: Ouch. We'll think about it.<br /><br />Second Round (2 weeks ago)<br />Us: We still want the contractor. Can we link other business we drum up to replace the loss of our business?<br />Them: No.<br />Us: OK, what about 3 months at rate X with a 10% buyout.<br />Them: Too low. I have to maintain my 20% margins, you see.<br />Us: I'll see what I can do.<br /><br />Third Round (1 week ago)<br />Us (via e-mail): I've given a lot of thought to this. We really aren't willing to pay that kind of premium. Final offer: we will give you rate Y for 100 hours of the contractor's time and rate Z for 100 hours of some programmer time. Then you lift the non-solicit. That's it.<br /><br />Fourth Round (today)<br />Them: You insult us by offering a ridiculously low amount. I have margins. What happened to 3 to 6 months?<br />Me: We can't afford anything more. With the amount you're asking, we can get an outside project manager.<br />COO: Look, we want to be reasonable. What will it take?<br />Them: 15% buyout.<br />COO: That's steep. What we offered (the 200 hours at rates Y and Z) was a premium of A. You want a premium of B. Can't we meet in the middle?<br />Them: We only offer our best clients a buyout rate of 10%.<br />COO: Then we'll pay for 200 hours of support at rates Y' and Z' to make it 10%.<br />Them: Deal.<br /><br />Yes, we probably didn't get the best deal. On the other hand, at least my initial attempts weren't so far from where we settled. And the ham-handed negotiating at the end seemed to get them to move.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1120457985472937672005-07-03T23:08:00.000-07:002005-07-03T23:19:45.480-07:00The Royal ScamOn Saturday I was posing as your everyday yuppie, mingling with people at a blind wine tasting event (brief plug: we were using the <a href="http://www.baggedwine.com/">Bagged Wine</a> product to perform the blind testing and it's up to the job). One of the guys I talked to runs his own consulting business installing systems management software. No biggie. However, he told me about one of his buddies who consults in the server virtualization and consolidation space (you know, VMWare ESX server and all that). Apparently this guy charges $1000 per server for virtualization and consolidation projects. I realize the savings are immense, but if anyone is talking to consultants to perform this project please realize this:<br /><br />YOU ARE BEING TAKEN FOR A RIDE.<br /><br />Good grief, go buy PlateSpin's <a href="http://www.platespin.com/Products/PowerP2V.aspx">PowerP2V</a> product and save yourself some money. Better yet, pay me $950 per server. I'd rather make that kind of filthy lucre.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1120454755002938072005-07-03T22:17:00.000-07:002005-07-03T23:08:21.870-07:00IT Cost AllocationI don't believe in fate or higher powers or the will of the universe or any of that mumbo-jumbo. Sometimes it seems like Someone or Something is mocking me by trying to prove me wrong.<br /><br />In my last post I mentioned that my company has two factions, led by the head of banking and wealth management, respectively. Both of these guys want to be the CEO of the company, and I believe I can describe their strategy thusly: grow their own line of business (LOB) and cash cow the other one. I currently report to the head of Banking who is also the Chief Operating Officer. I have had hints dropped my way that my department will wind up reporting to both LOB's and become a football between them in regards to IT expense allocation. The issue is that the Wealth Management (WM) LOB consists of about 75% of the company's personnel but really doesn't need the high-tech core infrastructure that we've created for Banking. Naturally, Banking does not want to pay 100% of those costs, especially if it is shared in any way with WM. Hence my dilemma -- how to charge back "fairly." I really don't have time for this crap. However, like I've said before, politics is ever with us and to believe that you can avoid it at the middle or executive management layer is folly.<br /><br />So what to do? I have pondered that for the last three months as the writing started to appear on the wall. Within the last month I ran across a couple of resources that got me thinking. The first one is the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471660485/qid=1120455015/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_ur_1/102-3195068-9796943?v=glance&s=books&n=507846">Professional Services Firm Bible</a> (PSFB), written by John Baschab and Jon Piot (disclaimer: I'm not done reading it). This book appears similar to their Executive's Guide to Information Technology, which was a comprehensive reference guide to IT organization, operations and strategy. The second resource is an <a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/060105/transparency_sidebar_three.html">article</a> in CIO Magazine on how an electric utility structured their IT chargebacks.<br /><br />What does this mean for us? I believe we can create a similar model as Southern Company while providing the level of service expected by a professional services firm. Banking's #1 concern is uptime. Wealth Management's #1 concern is lowering their cost structure. Therefore, my model for a shared-service chargeback would consist of:<br /><br />1. A per-capita desktop charge. We would have a full desktop or thin client offering, depending on what the LOB wants to spend. This makes it less likely that I'll need to argue the value of thin clients over desktops yet again.<br /><br />2. A per-incident help desk charge. Again, this could vary depending on the SLA required. Banking generally wants priority over WM. Great, as long as they pay for it.<br /><br />3. A per-capita shared infrastructure charge. This charge would be for all of the shared services (network, server, software, Internet) used by the company. These charges should be high enough to pay for upgrades every 3-5 years.<br /><br />4. Demand-based infrastructure charges. This charge would be for equipment and maintenance used specifically by an LOB. For example, firewalls used specifically for Banking would be identified and charged to them. Branch office expenses, such as firewalls, routers and data circuits opened by WM would be charged back to them. This would put choices such as T1's vs. DSL into their hands rather than have to fight with them to reduce the costs of data circuits for 4-person offices.<br /><br />5. Demand-based project charges. This is my favorite and where the PSFB comes in. I want to provide a cost-plus structure in order to make our services very attractive to both groups, including selling them on what we can do. I have no problem being competitive with outside vendors and believe I can provide what the LOB's need at a much lower cost structure.<br /><br />Items #1-4 are to fund the infrastructure and include maintenance agreements, upgrades, capacity expansion and the IT Operations personnel necessary to keep everything running. Item #5 is the one I'm really keen about. Not only would it give my department more visibility and accountability, it would give us an opportunity to run as a profit center. I know that is not an easy task, but nothing focuses a department as much as responsibility for its own bottom line.<br /><br />A major benefit of running a department with profit and loss responsibility is the opportunity to reward the people within it based on their results. Compensation is a subject I'll review more in-depth, but on a simplistic level I believe the IT Projects personnel should be rewarded if they "bill" certain levels back to the departments and those departments are happy with the deliverables. The IT Operations personnel should be rewarded based on uptime and "customer service" factors.<br /><br />In theory, this would provide the Wealth Management LOB IT overhead expenses of the fixed (infrastructure) and variable (help desk, desktop and specific infrastructure/project) variety. If they believe that their cost structure is unappealing, it will be within their power to lower it. For Banking, their cost structure is less important -- they are willing to invest in IT for a return which would be far more measurable than today. They also desire a higher priority and greater uptime than Wealth Management, both of which should carry a premium. However, they should not be penalized for the per-capita expenses.<br /><br />Unless I've lost my mind, this looks like a win-win situation for us all.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1120454155247099422005-07-03T22:08:00.000-07:002005-07-03T22:15:55.253-07:00Another Battle BeginsFrom time to time I have documented the factions that struggle for supremacy in our company. Last week another potential contender for the CEO throne, the head of our investments department, was derailed from his ambitions. Instead of being in line for the kingship, he was "booted upstairs" and will now work directly for our parent company. In many ways this is a good thing, for his skills are in sales and marketing, not in management. I do not know for a fact whose hand was behind this, but I have a pretty good suspicion. Naturally, I support it. Why? Because our investments department's culture has not been assimilated into ours. They do not yet serve the role for which they were acquired, i.e., to service our clients. Instead, they want to be a boutique research firm. However, their cost structure is still a drain on our wealth management line of business. I expect to see further departures in the near future, most of which will probably be welcome.<br /><br />The race is now down to two senior managers -- the head of the banking line of business (LOB) and the wealth management LOB. This sets the table for my next blog post, which will be about IT cost allocations and how I believe I can prevent my department from being a football between these two fiefdoms.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1117073285532254612005-05-24T18:55:00.000-07:002005-05-25T19:08:05.540-07:00It's Tuesday Again???I'm completely baffled by the speed at which time passes. Especially as of late.<br /><br /> Well, today's technology will be Platespin's <a href="http://www.platespin.com/Products/PowerP2V.aspx">PowerP2V</a> software application. This is a tool that is great if you want to virtualize your data center (P2V -> physical to virtual). Our data center is about 90% virtualized with VMWare's ESX server, so why would we need this tool? Because sometimes you need to grow your virtual servers, and this does a great job of resizing those virtual hard drives without screwing around with partitioning software in a VM. Was 10GB too small for your VM? Too bad unless you have a tool like this. It paid for itself in headache and hassle after about 8 resizings. It works great with Windows guest operating systems and supports Linux, but only one flavor -- Red Hat. Too bad for us because we're a Debian shop. That's about the only knock I have against the product. I requested that they pursue Debian support, although I suspect it didn't make it very high on their list of product requirements. Aside from that, it is a good, solid product. At least for Windows P2V conversions.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1116381544627535412005-05-17T18:41:00.000-07:002005-05-17T18:59:04.633-07:00Technology Review TuesdaysI write this as I try to shake off a cold I picked up in Vegas. Blah.<br /><br />I've never made a regular, recurring topic on this blog. Maybe having one will inspire me to write more. Today's technology is from <a href="http://www.symark.com">SyMark</a>, which makes an appliance for password escrow called <a href="http://www.symark.com/powerkeeper.htm">PowerKeeper</a>. This handy, dandy little device controls the generic admin accounts running throughout the network, including such platforms as Linux, Windows 2000/2003, MS SQL Server and Cisco equipment. Passwords are "checked out" from the device for a specified period of time and with or without dual controls on a per-account basis. As a financial institution tired of getting beat up about having generic admin accounts (something we're remediating this year), I like what I see. <br /><br />Access is controlled by the interaction of systems, collections of systems, users and groups of users. One group can be assigned to request passwords for a collection and another group can be set to approve the requests. There are two "superuser" accounts on the box that override all other security, which may provider something of a security hole. It looks tedious to set up and the HTML interface is pretty simple. However, once set up it seems easy enough to maintain.<br /><br />The box produces about a dozen reports showing information such as checkout activity, password aging (if you choose to let the device automatically change passwords according to customized rules), and about 10 other items I don't remember from the demo. Reports can be scheduled and e-mailed as HTML or CSV files.<br /><br />I'm impressed enough to request an evaluation box. I understand that pricing is based on the number of systems that it manages, so hopefully they won't be too greedy.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1116302592090403402005-05-16T20:54:00.001-07:002005-05-16T21:03:12.096-07:00Project Methodologies and UsWe've been using Scrum for a few months now and it works great for software delivery. We've had mixed results with its use for systems projects. I'm not entirely sure if it's the methodology or the personnel, though I'm trying to get a handle on that. Is Scrum too vague for the people I have? Are the participants behind on their skillsets? Why is it that developers can take off and work on implementing requirements while the systems people struggle to find time to work on their projects? I'm not entirely certain. Hmm.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1116302082857131912005-05-16T20:54:00.000-07:002005-05-16T20:54:42.856-07:00Nothing New about ProjectsMeeting deadlines is better than blowing them.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1116301219915700222005-05-16T20:34:00.000-07:002005-05-16T20:53:18.466-07:00PersonnelThe toughest part of management is personnel. Everyone says they want to be a leader, blah blah blah, but leaders generally don't worry about the dotted "i"'s and crossed "t"'s. They are busy preaching change and strategy, leaving the broken pieces to be picked up and sorted by middle management.<br /><br />Damn, that's some jaundiced stream of consciousness that has nothing to do with my point about personnel.<br /><br />Three weeks ago I restructured our department and eliminated a position (aka "put someone on the street"). An uninviting task and the first person I've ever directly sent packing. I have another similar task for a probationary position who isn't working out. She'll be gone at the end of Monday. It seems like I'm on a losing streak with personnel lately. And every time I make that decision, someone's losing their livelihood, maybe their home, maybe their chance to make it big. It's an ugly decision made under cold fluorescent lights in a small office with stale air. If you stop "sharpening the saw" and keeping up your skills, whether technical or managerial, the axe may come for you. And yet it's a sound business decision, not just for the company, its shareholders, bondholders and customers -- it provides opportunity for someone else who is hungry and hardworking and fulfills the needs of the organization. That new person may grow and prosper or may get complacent and get left behind. I'm just here picking up the pieces. And sometimes breaking them.<br /><br />On a somewhat more positive note, I did put a candidate through hell today in order to gauge whether he could become a systems engineer in our firm. I think he did well -- not only polished on a personal level, but able to produce positive results on the practical skills part of the interview. I didn't get any heebee jeebees (HR jargon) from his resume or the interview. I hope I've done my due diligence a little better than the last time.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989702.post-1113802381654714612005-04-17T22:30:00.000-07:002005-04-17T22:33:01.656-07:00An Article I Found......coincides with my last post. <a href="http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/cio/article.php/3454271">In it</a>, George Spafford discusses the need for solid processes so that the pace of change does not totally disrupt an IT organization. Bottlenecks must be identified and addressed. What are our bottlenecks? Hmm.Henry Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15865152797870371555noreply@blogger.com0