MORE ENTRIES
- Motivating a clock puncher
- Are lateral assignments a good idea?
- Creating a big company with the trust of a small one
- When interviewees volunteer off-limits information
- When they change your job without asking you
- Handling family matters
- Gender does matter, and it doesn't matter
- Why corporations exist - a data point
- Go green the cheap and easy way
- The reason corporations exist
Advice Line | Bob Lewis »
TAG: General
I agree with your perspective on clock punching Jim ("Rights, privileges, fairness and equality," Keep the Joint Running, 5/5/2008). But in the best of all worlds (which seems rare to me), the manager would be proactive instead or reactive -- s/he would be working with and encouraging staff to find ways to be more productive and then allocate resources as needed so those increases occur.
As my "friends" in the lean community keep reminding me, the people who do the work know a lot about what helps them and what hinders them as well as where the waste is.
I agree with you, but I also believe that most people don't get up in the morning and say to themselves "My goal for today is to set a new standard of mediocrity that will go down in the record books as a standard to live down to." If individuals are just there to collect a paycheck then that is what they have been taught is appropriate (ala Deming).
In a prior incarnation as a department chair in a community college, I managed some tenured faculty members who seemed very de-motivated and I can assure you that no one goes into that business to get rich and famous.
They were de-motivated because of what the organization had "done to them." I quickly learned that working on the hard cases was a poor use of resources. Instead I worked with the many who were still motivated to support their new learning and innovations in teaching and learning methods. Their enthusiasm did more to encourage the hard cases than anything that I could have done directly, but then when one of hard cases came to me with a reasonable professional development proposal, I was quick to support it.
No student should have to be in an educational environment where the teacher is just biding time.
On a related note, I read yesterday a perspective on morale that you might find interesting. The person said that if pay was $1.00 that people with low morale produced about $0.25 worth and that people with high morale produced $3.00 worth. There is no question in my mind who is responsible for morale and it is not the people "on the line."
- Watching Clock Punching Jim
Dear Watcher ...
It is regrettably the case that while some employees are self-motivated and most others are amenable to motivation, there are those who are just there for the paycheck and do only what it takes to continue to collect it.
I have no quibble with anything you say, other than your underestimate of what proportion of the total effort high-morale employees contribute.
There is an inescapable point, though, and I don't know whether you're taking it into account: Employees bring their expectations with them when starting an new job -- their morale, attitudes, stick-to-it-iveness and so on aren't a blank slate on which their current manager writes.
Quite the opposite - those expectations begin with their upbringing: Clock-punchers beget more clock-punchers, just as low-confidence parents are more likely to be the ones who tell their kids, "You have to be realistic -- you'll never be the scientist who cures cancer. Why don't you get a good job as a nurse?"
Effective leaders have a positive impact on morale, drive, enthusiasm and everything that goes along with it. There are, however, limits to that impact, because no matter how effective a leader you are, it's hard to have more of an impact than Mom.
- Bob
I think you expressed the point about "Jim", the marginal employee well (see "Rights, privileges, fairness and equality," Keep the Joint Running, 5/5/2008).
What about the flip side where management only grants "lateral" transfers, but the new job is actually a downgrade or at most equal in pay, more responsibility and more work.
When I was younger, I might have taken such an offer for more experience and skills, but as I've gotten older, I've become a little more wiser and a little bit more cynical.
This actually happens at my current group. If you want off the monitoring consoles for a systems or network admin position, you have to go days and there's no extra pay. Of course, up until the economy went south, a lot of people voted with their feet and got better offers elsewhere within or outside of the company.
Your thoughts?
- Sideways is a movie, not a career direction
Dear Miles ...
Hard to say as a blanket generality. In well-run companies, lateral assignments are the best way to get ahead. They provide visibility and an opportunity to prove your versatility. The people who take them and succeed at them are the ones who get ahead in the long run (and the long run isn't usually all that long).
In poorly run companies it's an excuse to take advantage of people. Or else, it isn't -- it's a way to retain good employees when you know you're going to be laying people off.
Me? I learned -- although too slowly and painfully -- that taking lateral assignments when they are offered is almost always a good career investment. My regrets are entirely around the ones I didn't take, not around the ones I did.
- Bob
I think you're right on the money about community size, rules, trust and treating people fairly [from "Rights, privileges, fairness and equality," Keep the Joint Running, 5/5/2008 - Bob]. It's true that as groups get larger more rules and laws are required. Once people are able to be anonomyous many have no compunction about doing bad things to others. So we have to have laws and locks.
Getting to the point, your comment that as companies get larger, progressively more rules are required because its hard to trust a stranger really got my attention.
I'll have worked at HP 19 years next week -- long enough to remember the old HP and the HP Way. Certainly the way we used to do things had its faults, but what struck me about your comments was the fact that no matter how large the old HP got (and it was 100K+ employees) it was a company that operated on guidelines and trust, not rules.
We trusted complete strangers to do the right thing because we all worked for HP. This was true right up until we started hiring outsiders who didn't get that concept into senior management. They started creating rules and enforcing policies instead of guidelines. They didn't get that we all trusted each other and that it was rare for someone to abuse that trust.
Yes, we had our clock punchers and the guys who pushed their travel expenses to the very edge, but they were the exception, not the rule. I'm willing to bet you that more people break the rules now than ever bent the guidelines in the past.
I'm not arguing with your premise one bit. I just think that Bill and Dave managed to create something really special that managed to become an exception to the rule that you have to put more rules in place as a company grows and I thought I'd share that observation.
That place is gone now, as are most of the people that made it that way. It's a shame.
- HP Holdout
Dear Holdout ...
I've wondered often about how the exceptions happen. Here's my guess -- let me know if you agree:
It isn't really that employees are willing to trust total strangers. It's that employees are willing to trust the judgment of non-strangers (in the case of HP, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, who made sure employees didn't consider them to be strangers).
In particular, employees trusted Hewlett and Packard's judgment about the people they hired as executives, and by extension ended up trusting ... or at least giving the benefit of the doubt ... to just about everyone else in the company because of it.
Maintaining that kind of culture of trust takes a lot of time and hard work. Clearly, it's well worth the investment.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I think you're right. We all trusted Bill and Dave and we all felt that we knew them. Everyone in the company who has met them readily shared their stories.
No one had an unkind word (except maybe for Dave's politics). We trusted their judgement and that they'd hire good people. We all assumed that each person in the chain would hire good people because they were hired by other good people. So, even though they were strangers to us we trusted that they were the kind if people we could trust.
In addition, the company's antibodies quickly rejected people who didn't fit with the HP Way. Sometimes this wasn't good as it pushed out people with new ideas, but mostly it pushed out hiring mistakes -- people who couldn't be trusted.
It did take a lot of work to maintain but everyone was committed to maintaining it. It was a great culture and it's what made HP such a successful, enduring company. Now its just like every other big company.
- HP Holdout
All this talk about interviews and illegal questions has me wondering ...
If I'm interviewing someone, and they disclose information about themselves without my prompting, what do I do?
For example, a very realistic question "Why did you leave XYZ job?"
with a reply "XYZ company wanted me to start travelling on a regular basis. Since my wife just had our first child, I couldn't be away from family that much."
Now, I understand that I cannot ask "Are you married?" or "Do you have children?" And the information does not really change my opinion of whether or not to hire. We don't require overtime, and there is minimal (and for the most part, optional) travel involved.
So my understanding is nothing is illegal. But what do I do if someone voluntarily discloses information that might effect my decision?
- Interviewer
Dear Interviewer ...
Legally, if they disclose it without any prompting on your part you are allowed to know it (so far as I know -- I'm knowledgeable but not a specialist; consult your HR department for the definitive answer).
Professionally, if it's an excluded area of conversation it isn't a good idea to take it into account when making a hiring decision. The laws in question aren't an example of government bureaucracy run amok. They're an example of what government requires lining up very well with what businesses ought to do anyway: Hire based on the ability to do the job.
Which brings me to the short answer to your question: When an applicant strays into territory that isn't relevant to the position, ignore what they tell you and redirect the conversation back to what does matter.
There's one exception to this: If you think the applicant is offering the information to influence your decision-making, count it as a negative. I know of cases where applicants have revealed their religiosity, family situation, ethnicity and so on because of their expectation that these factors might lead the interviewer to consider them more favorably. If you think that's what's going on it should tell you something.
The best applicants will try to lead you to consider them more favorably by impressing you with how well they can do the work.
This is especially true with applicants for management positions, because they are supposed to know the rules - it's part of being a professional manager.
There are, of course, gray areas. I'm more likely to forgive an applicant who says, "I raised five children - of course I can multitask!" much more than one who says, "I'm a Christian and a father and that's how I manage people."
Raising five children really is evidence of the ability to multitask, after all.
- Bob
I have a bit of a dilemma that I'm hoping you can help me out with because I'm stuck.
I was recently "promoted" to a new position. I say promoted in quotes because the promotion seems to be hardly that. I was suddenly given a new title, new and extra responsibilities, and a new boss (someone I don't get along with). There was no pay increase with this position change, actually more like a pay cut. In my old position I worked quite a bit of overtime. In this one, I don't. Same hourly rate, but less take home each week.
The change in position wasn't offered to me, I was put in to it. The position may be new but it was handed to me as an expansion of my previous position, leaving behind previously held duties that of course would need to be filled by another candidate. While I enjoy striving to improve my quality of work, I find it a bit hard to continue with the constant reminder that I seem to work in an environment that shows favoritism and unfair working conditions.
So with that being said, I have a few questions that I'm hoping you can help me with ...
First, is it legal to change someone's position, title, responsibilities, and supervisor without their prior agreement? I have not signed anything stating that my responsibilities have changed. As far as I know, to Human Resources, I still hold my previous position.
Second, as you stated in a previous article, Capitalism assumes I'm an individual working to maximize my own "utility" ... and I am. So now that I have a new boss, how do I approach the pay issue? I need an increase, but here, now, that's unlikely.
On top of that, I have no data to support my contention that my position is worthy of a salary increase. All I have is my new and extra responsibilities; and the fact that the expanded position is a necessity in the organization. However, I am certain (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that if the organization were to publish an open position like mine, they would have to increase the salary to get the quality of work I deliver.
I see my quality of work deteriorating if my salary does not increase. It would be hard to consistently deliver with excellence when I'm not rewarded for it. I enjoy working in this organization and my bottom-line makes it hard for me to search for another job right now.
What should I do?
- Not ready to pack yet
Dear Unready ...
Let me answer the legal question first: Unless you are governed by a union contract, for most employers it's perfectly legal to assign you new duties. There are exceptions (for example, assigning you duties that conflict with a union contract) but with few exceptions these days, organizations are "at will" employers which means they're free to reassign you or let you go; you're free to leave whenever you like.
It really isn't that bad a system, either: It gives employers the flexibility they need to make sure they have the right people in the right positions, promotes a meritocracy better than systems based on security and seniority, and makes it clear to employees that their continued employment depends on their ability to deliver value. Jobs aren't entitlements, they're contracts; "employees" are really no different from contractors in that they should consider themselves independent companies that have to sell on value.
The downside to at-will employment, if you'll forgive a bit of pontificating, is that when a company becomes dysfunctional, at-will employment can turn into no-particular-cause termination pretty easily.
In any event, it's clear the promotion was handled badly. You make less; you have a new boss with whom you don't get along; and new (and presumably more important) responsibilities; and nobody took the time to talk it over with you first.
Here's how it looks to me:
First of all, you need to either change your attitude or change your employer. Your current situation is untenable and will, eventually turn you into an undesirable employee.
Right now you appear to be thinking like an hourly employee (and I get at least a hint that you were relying on your overtime pay instead of considering it to be gravy … always a bad idea). If you are career-minded I'd advise re-thinking this.
As a generality, those who think like hourly employees exchange an hour's work for an hour's pay. That's the end of the transaction. Professional employees include the exchange of extra effort for extra opportunity in their calculation of the employer/employee relationship.
You might decide to consider the change to be an opportunity. It's a new, and apparently a more important position. That puts you in a different salary range, even if your current compensation hasn't changed and even if you don't get more money with your current employer: The new position will qualify you for better positions externally when and if you decide to pursue them.
You have to be successful at what you're doing before going that route.
By all means, schedule an appointment with someone in Compensation and Benefits Administration (or whatever it's called where you are) and ask what the salary range is for your current title compared to your old one. It's likely you'll find that you were being paid near the high end of your old position and have more headroom now, which means you have the opportunity to earn more in the future if you perform well.
Two other thoughts, since you asked: If your quality of work deteriorates based on not getting more money, that strongly suggests you don't take pride in your work. Employees who are in it only for the money eventually find themselves in the same position as corporations that are in it only for the money: They become also-rans, because the ones who are in it for the value they create out-compete them.
Of course, money matters. Don't put it first. If you do you're short-changing yourself.
And second, regardless of how it ought to be, the way the world works is that you have to take responsibility for the quality of working relationship you have with your new boss. It's like this: You are in business for yourself, and your boss is your customer - the person who makes the buying decision about the services you provide. Making sure you have a positive working relationship with your boss isn't sucking up. It's making sure your customer is happy with you as a provider - something we business consultants generally endorse as being a good business strategy.
- Bob
In my department, a few core people are getting leaned one heavily since others have "lives".
The classic case is when certain team members have kids, both parents work, and they miss random blocks of time for kids stuff. The non-kid (or different priority) folks end up picking up the slack. They don't complain (to me at least) but in my mind that doesn't make it okay.
I don't want to be the kind of heartless boss who won't let a parent attend a special event. On the other hand, I certainly don't want to be such a curmudgeon that I don't allow these things.
Any suggestions?
- In prevention mode
Dear Preventer ...
Good for you for seeing a potential problem before it turns into a real one. You're right on the money regarding the risk.
Luckily, you have a couple of easy options open to you. One is to establish an informal comp-time arrangement to allow people who work extra hours to get some of them back ... not on a tally-for-tally basis, but just to be reasonable. They can use that time to attend a daughter's soccer game, a son's chess match or to take their poodle to the Westminster Dog Show.
It's their time, and anyone can earn the privilege the same way.
Or, you can enforce your company's vacation policy. Parents are free to use vacation to attend family events; non-parents are free to use it in other ways. Again, everyone gets the same deal.
And you don't end up turning yourself from leader to enforcer.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I have been in IT a very long time and I am a woman.
I agree with you [see "Does gender matter?" Advice Line, 4/12/2008 - Bob] that there are competent, supportive managers of both sexes and evil, incompetent managers of both sexes. However, I do not agree with you that the woman who wrote is filtering all her input by the male/female attribute.
IT has been historically and is still today dominated by males. The relative population of females in IT is not increasing. There are male managers who have never worked with a female in IT unless they did technical writing and/or training or were some kind of junior programmer.
Your comment about managers tending to like people that are like them is very true. Most women in Technology are not like their male managers; they have different interests and often perceive and approach problems differently. I'm not saying better, just differently.
Most male managers are not sexist, at least not consciously. They are many, however, who do discriminate without even realizing it. The interesting or prestigious project usually goes to a male employee who is most like the manager, or plays golf with the manager, etc.
I've seen managers who will give a great project to a less capable male employee and not to a more capable female employee. I was previously a consultant for many years. Sometimes during a project this would happen and I would ask the manager why he selected so-and-so to do a task rather than whats-her-name. Many, many times they start blinking and stuttering and I realize that they never thought of the woman. This is subtle, but still a real problem for the woman.
There are many variations on the unconscious discrimination. The only way to combat it is for the women to talk to the manager first and ask for more challenging work, a new project or whatever would advance her career. She also need to ask the manager why she did not get that project when passed over. I using "project" but it could be to do a briefing, or attend a seminar, or something else. There are other approaches like talking more in meetings, volunteering to help, etc.
Each situation is individual, but for a woman to advance in most IT staffs, she has to be better than the men around her and must do something that makes her unforgettable and irreplaceable or she is overlooked. This was true 30 years ago and it is still true today. It is one of the reasons it is hard to get young women to consider IT as a career.
If you think about it, that's truly sad. When you discriminate, you are limiting the talent available to you.
Thanks for letting me rant.
- Been there a lot
Dear Been there ...
Rant away. That's what I'm here for.
I have no doubt at all that many IT managers, some unconsciously, others because they are "realists" (in their own minds), discriminate against female employees to a greater or lesser extent. Also against older employees, younger employees (depending on the assignment), pimply employees, overweight employees, and still, sadly, African American or Hispanic employees.
Physical appearance creates a set of expectations, for better or worse, because managers are, in addition to their other responsibilities, human beings.
Your advice is good, too -- good advice for any IT employee in fact. In order to get ahead you first have to be visible, and your manager has to know about your abilities and ambitions. It isn't always true that women must be twice as good to receive the same recognition but it's true often enough to be a real problem.
There are other reasons women are under-represented in IT, I think, that are purely social in nature. At least the way families raise daughters in the United States, there is even less emphasis on analytical thinking than there is for sons. The old stereotypes run deep, resulting in fewer women who aspire to technical careers than men (I'm pretty sure of this, although I'm not familiar with the formal studies).
Which doesn't excuse the industry from doing everything it can to promote a meritocracy as the most appropriate way to run IT organizations.
None of this changes my advice. The moment you or any other female IT professional falls into a mode of thinking that begins with the assumption of discrimination you risk crippling your own thinking, damaging your ability to interview well in the process. Focus on being the best-qualified candidate, best-qualified employee, most-visible employee (thank you for making that point!) ... and for taking whatever prudent steps you can to discover whether the organization you're talking to is run as a meritocracy or not.
Just because sexism, racism, age-ism and ethnocentrism are real doesn't mean they're so pervasive that you have to let them hem you in.
Sometimes you have to be a realist. Other times you're better off making reality into what you need it to be. Assume things are as they should be, state the assumption as your expectation often enough, and you'll be surprised how effective you can be at changing things for the better.
- Bob
On your explanation of why corporations exist, Bob, ("The reason corporations exist," Advice Line, 4/20/2008) I don't think you're full of beans ... on this one, at least :-)
Just read an interview today with Jeremy Jaech that I thought punctuated one of your points.
"MJ: Startups are both exciting and unpredictable; how do you keep your team focused on the big picture, especially when there’s resistance to growth or acquisition?
JJ: It’s a lot of work. It’s one of the three or four jobs that leadership has, is to constantly go around and reiterate the important goals, make sure people understand how what they do fits into the larger picture and supports it in some way.
It’s a part of the work, as an organization gets bigger and bigger there’s some information loss as it moves down the chain and the only way to keep people on track is to keep repeating it in front of them all the time.
As Visio grew, it was a really important as CEO to go around to team meetings and department meetings and say, here’s what we’re focused on as a company and here’s how what you do supports it. And to just keep saying it, and as you do that, people get snapped in. Then they start to drift, and so you got to come back to snap ‘em back; and they start to drift, snap ‘em back, they start to drift, snap ‘em back. That’s just human nature."
Regards,
Bruce Gutzmann
Bruce ...
It's always good to get reinforcement from those who have done the actual work. Thanks for the sharp eye.
- Bob
My old friend Fitz should be on the list, but won't because his innovation took place too many years ago -- back in the 1980s.
What Fitz figured out, back when we both worked at the StarTribune in Minneapolis, is that for much of the year there was a cheaper way to cool a data center than the expensive and expensive-to-operate chillers that were installed for the purpose.
He asked the construction department to run a vent to the building's exterior, with a fan in it.
If there's one thing I'll guarantee, it's that a Minnesota winter is as reliable a source of cold as any chiller ever manufactured.
For any one reading this whose data center is located in an area where winter is something you can see out your window at least a few months each year: I commend Fitz's example to you. It's nearly free, pretty much foolproof, saves electricity, and will make you look smart besides.
What's not to like?
- Bob
There is some value in your description of the purpose of running a business ("Of businesses and marketplaces," Keep the Joint Running, 4/14/2008). But really there is only one purpose, to make a profit.
Everything else is secondary. No profit, no business.
All of this talk about mission and survival and such is just a means to the end of making money.
- Hard-headed Pragmatist
Dear Pragmatist ...
This is more than opinion and less than settled fact: Your statement is only true of companies that aren't going to be around very long.
No question, companies have to make a profit or they fail, for all the obvious reasons. That makes profit a necessary condition for success, not a purpose for existing. Money is the corporation's food. It's true that if you don't eat you die. That doesn't mean eating is the reason you exist.
Here's why I take the position I do. Compare three companies.
The leaders of Company #1, from the CEO on down, focus on creating the best products in their marketplace.
The leaders of Company #2, from the CEO on down, focus on providing the best customer experience in their marketplace.
The leaders of Company #3, from the CEO on down, focus on maximizing profitability.
I don't know who will come in first and second. I'm confident I know which company will waste most of its time and attention playing stupid financial games to make the books look good, eventually failing to compete the only place it counts - for the hearts and minds (and wallets) of the people who have to decide whose products to buy.
The leaders of the very best companies are like the best gamblers in Las Vegas. The money is interesting, but more for knowing who is winning, and for giving you what you need so you can play again, than for getting rich.
- Bob
Your recent column regarding the Canadian woman who got pregnant while unexpectedly starting a new job search got me to wondering -- what are you supposed to do if an employer asks you an illegal question when they're interviewing you?
This happened to me once -- the employer asked for my date of birth, including the year. I was so startled that I just answered without thinking. It probably didn't have any impact on the hiring decision in that particular case, but that's not the point, obviously. What should I have said? (Setting aside the question of whether I'd want to work for a company that did that, that is.)
Employment law is of increasing interest and concern to me, since I am disabled (Asperger Syndrome) and am going to be hitting "the big four-oh" in a few months, so any thoughts or suggestions you have would definitely be helpful. Thanks.
- Semi-disabled
Dear Semi ...
"Why do you ask?" is one of the better responses. "I'm going to call my lawyer, just as soon as I get him out of jail," is one of the worst.
With every illegal question you have to decide if refusing to answer is worth the effort. Think of every outright refusal as a confrontation, akin to invoking the 5th Amendment on the witness stand. It's your right. That doesn't make it an obligation.
If someone asks about kids, it might be a good sign -- it might mean you've moved beyond total-stranger-and-unknown-risk to person-I'd-like-to-know-better. Feel free to answer.
Or, it might be a coded way to find out if you're likely to work long hours without complaining. Decline to answer.
You have to decide what's going on and whether answering builds rapport or harms your position. Just remember, your goal is to get an offer, not to enforce the rules.
One disadvantage to answering is that every illegal question you do answer takes the interview in an incrementally unprofessional direction. That isn't a good idea because unless you're looking for a job where schmoozing is a core competency, you have only a limited time to present your abilities in the best light possible, and to ask questions about the company and position. Your age and marital status don't get you there.
That's why I suggested replying with "Why do you ask?" It's a gentle reminder that the question has nothing to do with what the job requires.
The problem is, you can only use it once. After that, you sound evasive. So you need more alternatives in your bag of tricks.
One is a quick wisecrack followed by a question of your own that's back on track. "How old are you?" "Old enough to know better, but not old enough that I always remember I know better. Hey, when we were talking about data design a few minutes ago there's a point I meant to make. Mind if we go back to it?"
For the exact date of birth question you can just misunderstand and provide only your birthday ("March 4th - what's yours?"). Or, if it's becoming persistent, "I'm a Pisces if that's what you're driving at, but I really don't believe in astrology." That forces the interviewer to repeat the question, and applies some pressure to explain why it matters.
If you run out of deflections, it's time for direct diplomacy. Keep a smile on your face, focus on being relaxed and professional (especially the relaxed part) and say something like, "I'm not exactly sure how to handle this. We both know the rules, and a lot of what you've been asking me is out of bounds for job interviews. I'm pretty relaxed about this sort of thing, but I'd rather use this time to talk about what you need me to do and how I'd go about it."
If that kills the deal, it probably wasn't a deal worth having.
- Bob
I'm a female manager. I think I'm pretty good at what I do, and throughout my career I have produced tangible results that back this up.
My problem is, I'm not "one of the boys," and don't want to be one of the boys. Throughout my career, though, being one of the boys has been at least as important as my actual performance.
This is starting to get to me, to the point I've been reading some of the current research on male/female differences. I understand male and female brains are physiologically different, males and females really do look at the world differently and so on.
Between the research and my experience I'm starting to think it's the reality of the workplace and not just bad luck on my part. I'm at the point where I don't know if I should just drop out of the workforce altogether, look for jobs only in places where I'd be reporting to another female, or what.
I'm not sure if you can empathize with my situation, being a guy and all, but if you can and have any advice, I'd sure like to hear it.
- Gender-aware
Dear Aware ...
Before giving you any advice, I first have to debunk the research you've been reading. It isn't that it's bad research. It's simply irrelevant research.
To explain why, go back to Richard J. Herrnstein's awful book, The Bell Curve. Let's pretend that it actually meant something (it didn't) -- that Americans of sub-Saharan African ancestry really did have lower IQs than Americans of other ancestries, and that the difference really was genetic.
Would that have meant that when hiring your next network administrator that excluding African-Americans would make any sense?
Of course not. The Bell Curve reported (and misinterpreted) averages.
So does the research you've been reading. It's certainly true that males and females aren't the same (Isaac Asimov once pointed out that there's a vas deferens between them). Knowing this provides no useful guidance about what the next person you deal with will be like, especially in a business situation.
In my career I've worked with male managers who were ruthless and entirely lacking in compassion. I've worked with female managers who were worse. I've also worked with both male and female managers who were empathic, supportive, encouraging and collaborative with everyone around them.
I haven't seen much of a trend, except that, maybe, the guys were more likely to know and care who plays third base for the Mets.
This isn't just a flip comment. There are plenty of people in this world who are more comfortable and relaxed with people who are, more or less, similar to themselves than with people who aren't. People who share this trait are called normal human beings. The more you and I have in common, the easier it is to exchange ideas without the barriers imposed by experiences and hidden assumptions we don't have in common.
To a certain extent, gender plays an inescapable role here. So does sexual orientation. How much of a role it plays depends on the individual.
In fact, everything that matters in this discussion depends on the individual.
What I'd advise is this: Pay attention to everything that's been concerning you, only without attaching male and female categories to any of it. Decide on the characteristics you need in your next employer -- of both the corporation, and the person you report to.
Then, as you look for your next opportunity, remember that you're interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing you. Ask the questions you need to ask to determine whether it's the sort of place you want to work, and the sort of manager you want to work for.
The process isn't perfectly reliable, any more than the process of interviewing job candidates is perfectly reliable. In both cases you learn how good an interviewer you're dealing with, and hope that your interviewing technique means there's a decent correlation between this and actual performance.
It isn't perfectly reliable, but I think you'll find it's more reliable than relying on gender as a predictor.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
"Also as with business deregulation, once a good thing starts to be too much of a good thing, it can become a bad thing. Balance matters," - Bob Lewis ("KJR themes in the news," Keep the Joint Running, 4/7/2008)
Malice matters, too. So do chiselers, sneaks, grifters, grafters, free-riders, shysters, gonifs, thieves, embezzlers...
Consider the category of people who will put their own good above the good of "the public", "the commons", or "others". Some folks might do so only once in a lifetime. Others will do so habitually, passing up even honest ways to get ahead, always looking for an angle, a way to screw somebody or game the system. In a given workplace or organization, you might not run into such a person for years, or even decades. Or, you might be incessantly plagued with them.
I happen to know the treasurer of a school. The school is effective and well-run, and serves some 900 students. It's also honest, and no one diverts money into their own pockets. Money taken in is correctly accounted for, the spending and accounting are transparent, the money is spent in ways of which "the reasonable person" would approve.
The school also operates with a fairly large degree of trust. Quite a few families pay in cash, and this treasurer I know routinely (twice a
year) literally sits before a large pile of cash, being sole possessor of it before depositing it in the bank.
I don't have the mentality to figure angles, other than the obvious one that the treasurer could simply run off with the cash one day. But I am certain that a person with the right skills and mindset could come up with a way to jiggle the books and siphon off money. Neither do I have the mentality to devise financial controls, "double-approval" systems, and other ways to make stealing from the school so difficult that thieves would move on to easier targets. But I am sure that someone could.
I recall a food co-op I was involved in, also successful, that also handled a lot of money. A retired executive from SCORE (Service Corps Of Retired Executives) came in an analyzed the operation, and made several suggestions for improving the cash-handling operation, with an eye to preventing theft. We took his suggestions, but before his visit, we had never had a problem. Well after his visit, we heard about another co-op that did (a head cashier simply rang up certain sales normally, then hit the "no sale" key instead of completing the transaction).
Regulation could be unnecessary in a situation where no one is trying to chisel or steal. The maximal flexibility, convenience, and enablement that universal deregulation might provide could work well in certain circumstances. In fact, very loose regulation does actually work quite well in quite a few instances, judging by my own experiences including the two I cite above.
But it all changes as soon as an actor willing to victimize (or disregard the welfare of) others, enters the picture.
What do you think?
- Deregulator
Dear Dereg ...
Here's the challenge: Capitalism doesn't assume everyone acts for the public good. It assumes each individual works to maximize his or her own "utility" (financial advantage is the usual economic proxy measure). There is no hard line that separates doing this in an appropriate way and doing it in a way that harms others, since many economic transactions constitute a zero-sum game.
For example: Every time you buy stock or sell it, you're making a bet on which way the market will go. If you buy and it goes up, you win and the seller loses. If you bought and the seller sold because you'd done better and more effective research, it's considered a fair transaction. If you bought and the seller sold because you had access to "insider information" it's now illegal and considered unethical besides. That wasn't always the case.
And I'm quite sure there is no hard line that clearly separates insider information from the other kind. There's always a gray area.
Here's a second challenge: The Constitution's framers were very clear about the importance of distrusting individual motivation. The entire structure is designed to create controls that prevent malfeasance -- the usual term is "checks and balances."
The third challenge is one you allude to: The act of creating controls can damage the relationships that can make them unnecessary. I could imagine your school treasurer becoming out of sorts if you conducted an audit and the auditor added steps designed to keep him from embezzling.
The solution: Ask him, while he's in place and not going anywhere, to design a system of controls that would be effective should he (1) go on vacation and someone else had to fill in; and (2) decide to retire or move on, because there's no guarantee his successor will be as trustworthy.
Another alternative is to redesign systems to close the easy holes. For example, you could configure any good cash register system so it only prints receipts on confirmed sales. Hit the No Sale button and the transaction is cleared; the customer doesn't receive a receipt. Cashiers won't consider that a lack of trust -- they won't even notice, unless they're looking for ways to steal.
It isn't that I disagree with your thought process. In fact, I agree completely -- trust is the foundation on which efficient and effective organizations rely. Without it, everything slows to a crawl, if there's any way to even define progress at all. Smart executives focus on the leadership techniques that foster it, do their best to encourage it among the teams they lead; and eliminate team members who prove to be untrustworthy.
Because people can sometimes fool you, and because things happen that cause people to change, they don't rely on trust entirely.
Once again, balance is the key.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I have a real ethical dilemma and would appreciate any advise. Two weeks ago I was notified that the company I worked for for the last eight years is closing down. It was an "effective immediately" kind of a notice. A week later I found out I am expecting.
I held a management position with that company and I have lots of experience. Naturally, the kind of job I will be looking for is not an entry level.
My problem: how can I honestly sell myself to a company without telling them I am actually only going to be around for 7-8 months and then out on maternity leave? (I live in Canada where maternity leave is 3-6 months). On the other hand, it is a little early to disclose this in the interview, things can happen with pregnancies in the first 2-3 months. Plus, if I am upfront about it, surely it will drastically cut my chances of getting the job.
Add to the mixture that I am not entitled to unemployment payments (was working as a contractor for that company) and that I really need an income and cannot go without a job, and I have a real dilemma in my hands.
Thank you in advance for any advice you can offer.
- Maternal
Dear Maternal ...
Here in the U.S. your legal obligations would be clear. You wouldn't have any obligation to disclose your pregnancy and no prospective employer is allowed to ask.
You didn't ask about your legal obligations, though. You asked about your ethical obligations.
Luckily enough, I'm not an ethicist, so I can 't provide definitive guidance. Neither, I suspect, could a professional ethicists, but that's a different matter.
The sticking point, of course, is the notion of taking a job under false pretences. Do and you've done something bad. Disclose, on the other hand, and you don't get the job, which you need, and going on welfare when a baby is coming isn't a particularly ethical course of action, especially when you're fully employable.
My take: I'm not sure there's much of an ethical issue here to worry about. You aren't interviewing under false pretenses. You plan to do a great job once hired, obey the rules, obey the law and so on. All you're doing is remaining silent about a subject you have every right to remain silent about.
Your concern, I think, is less about ethics than it is about expectations - that by interviewing for a job and not mentioning your pregnancy, you're creating an expectation that you'll be on the job more or less without a break, with nothing on the horizon that might intervene.
The law sets the expectations, though, and the law is clear on all points. No employer should have any expectation that a job applicant would reveal a pregnancy, any more than one would reveal any other medical condition that might affect attendance, during the interviewing process. The subject is clearly and unambiguously out of bounds.
So set your mind at rest. When the time comes you and your employer can figure out how long you'll be gone and how to handle your absence. Companies do this all the time, just as they figure it out for employees who need heart surgery and appendectomies.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
[In response to "Running an effective meeting," Advice Line, 3/24/2008)] An old military tradition when soliciting consensus or opinion on a specific topic is to ask the meeting participants in reverse seniority order. The thinking there was that you'd get the person's real opinion, rather than hearing him parrot the senior officer present if you went in the order of seniority.
Do you think that this is a worthwhile approach in civilian meetings?
- Old Military Traditionalist
Dear OMT ...
My orthodox Jewish friends tell me the Talmud offers similar guidance. In capital cases, the rabbis who form the deciding council speak in order from most junior to most senior, for the exact reasons you cite.
I don't know how applicable this is to business settings, since the rank of the people who participate in most planning meetings isn't as clearly fixed.
With one exception - I've advised leaders numerous times to speak last ("Knowing when to speak," Keep the Joint Running, 12/8/2008).
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I agree with your proposition (maybe I state it a little differently) that the majority of business users are professional people, reasonably intelligent, and intent on doing a good job [see "The portal," (2/25/2008) and subsequent columns in Keep the Joint Running, and recent discussions in Advice Line - Bob].
My questions are, since not all users are created equal, and at least a small percentage are not computer-friendly at all, how does that fit in this model.
Should businesses be expected to hire only people who have at least a minimal relationship with their PC? We still have users here who have no computer at home!
And what happens when those users click on the anti-spyware ad and unlease the latest Trojan horse -- will they be responsible for reloading their operating system because it can't properly be cleaned? Should the business and IT bear the burden of that, or how do you envision that working?? When you go to that user and tell them that your ID system indicates their machine is acting as part of a botnet, what happens when they give you that blank stare and ask "What do I do now?"
I'm not saying the goal isn't a worthy one, I just can't see quite how it works yet.
- Interested but not convinced
Dear Convinceable ...
First of all, yes. I'm of the opinion that in 2008 a knowledge worker who doesn't know how to competently operate a PC is better called an ignorance worker. There are, of course, exceptions (I'm not sure what they are, but there are always exceptions). For the most part, a knowledge worker who doesn't know how to operate a PC is like a carpenter who can't handle a compound miter saw -- not competent.
Second, for years I've advocated a simple approach: If an end-user does something to render his/her PC non-functional, IT's responsibility is to restore it to a standard image, then to restore the data. In an age of virtual machines, this is even easier, and far less time-consuming, than restoring to a ghosted image.
- Bob
Another correspondent weighs in on the lock-or-not-lock debate - Bob
Dear Bob ...
I'm not sure that workers downloading "stuff" on their PCs is really the place that innovation should come from. The reward that something might happen there of value is far out weighed by the risk the corporation faces of being out of compliance or having unauthorized or inappropriate software on company owned PCs. And there is no way to really quantify the risk of "catching a virus" on the back of a downloaded executable.
That being said there should be a process to initiate approval for test software, down loads, etc. that can be pretty simple and not a bottleneck. That's what my previous company did.
- Download Preventer
Dear Preventer ...
I agree that workers downloading stuff isn't where innovation comes from. Workers downloading (for example) open source solutions that will fully or partially automate a business process that is currently handled in a cumbersome way, and that isn't important enough to be a priority for central IT? That's a different story.
Your phrasing is telling. "The reward that something might happen there of value …" makes it clear you consider any potential upside to be, not the result of thought and planning on the part of employees, but an accidental byproduct of random, aimless activity.
I agree. The risks associated with random, aimless activity far exceed the potential benefit.
All I have to say is that if your employer hires employees who spend most of their time engaged in random, aimless activity, the company has a much bigger problem than the risk of a computer virus.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
We work with a software vendor whose app we host. They are small (20-ish employees), we have to cover a lot of customers and pretty close to 24/7. We are, unfortunately, their largest install, certainly larger than they designed for.
There have been scaling problems.
My problem is in figuring out how to get us past the "cowboy" software support process. When I started in IT in the early 90’s I worked for ATT in New Jersey so I found all about software quality Bell Labs style. And worked in electronics before that and got the Deming et al background. I even was a Fagan Inspection facilitator. We counted function points.
Years later I find myself in a different universe. There's been lots of growth, and more potential but we have very little common understanding of the need for configuration management or a rigorous testing/promotion process. We have a test environment but it's often bypassed with my management going straight to the vendor, changes going straight to production.
CMM level 0.5 all around. Maybe -1.
Managers have been around at large orgs and pay lip service to the process thing, and we have made improvements, but we also suffer from the pride of "let's put on the show right here in the barn!" thinking -– we're small, unconventional and smarter than the rest, yessir.
And even when we have made a stride or two in the quality direction, each personnel change on our side or the vendor side results in the whole thing falling down and going backwards, because it really wasn’t a core process change.
So where do I look for tips on how to get us all on the software process cluetrain?
Your article "A scandal unveiled," (Keep the Joint Running, 9/15/2003) was right up the same alley, but pointing in the opposite direction –- about enterprise apps that don't downscale. Well, we need the other thing –- upscale the brains to the support the enterprise approach, because we are already in the enterprise world.
My web searches only find the enterprise stuff -– ITIL, CMM, Six Sigma and all. Those are overwhelmingly complex and I get glassy eyed looks mentioning anything like that to my compatriots.
So are there any "software process improvement for SMB dummies" kind of programs I can latch on to?
- In Chaos
Dear In Chaos ...
Sounds to me like you do have a scaling-down challenge. You need software quality assurance and change control, only you need the "lite" versions.
They'll be far better than nothing at all, and as much as your company culture will allow. Let them gel, and remember, once you get on the process train, it's hard to stop before you arrive at bureaucracy station. I can understand your managers' allergies to the bulky ways of doing things they escaped from. I've escaped from them myself, and am glad of it.
I've also lived through the We're-Smarter-Than-Everyone-Else mentality enough times to know what it leads to ... usually, being dumber than everyone else. People who are really smarter than everyone else get that way by first learning what everyone else knows. Then they figure out what to do differently.
Assuming you're in a position to influence things, I see two basic strategies for getting the ball rolling, depending on the specifics of the social situation.
In the first, you and a compatible soul with equivalent influence in the software vendor work together to develop the plan. In the second, you and your manager put it together. It depends on which you think will be more effective.
The plan itself is pretty basic. It's a presentation that starts with two questions: (1) What risks aren't we willing to take? And (2) What risks are we willing to take?
The risks you aren't willing to take are:
The risks you are willing to take are:
Next slide: "This isn't just theory," listing catastrophes and near-catastrophes that everyone in attendance knows about.
Your next slide is titled, "Procedures we need to enforce to prevent the risks we aren't willing to take." List them.
Your voice over is that you no longer have a choice about instituting and enforcing these procedures. You do have a choice about how lean or bulky you make them.
Present to the key decision-makers ... one-on-one first, to get buy-in, then in a group setting to demonstrate consensus. Plan the sequence of presentation carefully, too. You don't want to offend key decision-makers by leaving them to last. You also don't want to waste their time by meeting with them too early, before you've perfected the pitch.
This is just a sketch, of course. It should get you pointed in the right direction.
And don't become discouraged if nobody buys what you're selling. Chances are they won't, until there's a life-threatening experience.
Facts and logic by themselves are rarely persuasive, especially in companies that are making money.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I actually agree with your position [on opening up PCs, see for example "The feasibility of unlocked desktops," Keep the Joint Running, 3/24/2008] and I try to advocate policies that only "punish the guilty", but this is a very hard sell in the boardroom. Directors will not make decisions based on what my gut says is the right policy. They also make it very painful to explain this position whenever something goes south and the bad apple employee floats to the top.
So, I'm looking for a way to sell an "open use" culture to the board without completely leaving my pants down around my ankles. I hate metrics also, it's like "no business left behind" where one size "must" fit all. But unfortunately, that is the stream we are all swimming in today. If you have any specific ideas of how we can translate this message from the soapbox to the bottom line, I sure would be listening. I'm in the choir preacher Bob, now how do we sell this good news to the directors and shareholders?
- Open to open
Dear Open ...
One of the best approaches is to force people in leadership roles to lead, rather than critiquing. Here's what I mean:
Put some values in front of them that they endorse -- in particular, the cultural value I mentioned, of encouraging initiative. Establish this as a precondition for specific acts of innovation -- the "cultural infrastructure" that's required for innovation to happen. Unlocking the desktop ("loosening the controls" is a better description) is part of this program.
It's the individual acts of innovation that provide measurable benefit. The challenge: Assigning a business value to the preconditions that encourage it.
Ask the company's leaders what value they place on establishing these preconditions.
This isn't at all different from more commonplace questions, like how a company should evaluate the business value of cycle time improvements. You can measure cycle time all you want and demonstrate that a process change has improved it. What you can't do is decide the financial value of a one-hour reduction.
Somebody has to accept that not all dots can be directly connected - that customers value faster delivery; that their valuing it leads to increased walletshare and retention rates, but that proving the connection probably isn't possible.
Part of asking leaders to lead is asking them to tell you what they value, especially when the connection between good practice and business success is indirect. Some will answer the question when you ask it. Others will duck. Either response tells you something important.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I need some meeting tools, to keep order, steer content on point and so on.
I find that often, meetings up here take on a life of their own and the moderator cannot take them back without banging on the table.
Also, my boss is very articulate. In the last two tech meetings which he asked me to setup, I wrote concise invitations, and attendees came prepared to get work done.
Fortunately or unfortunately, he took control of the meeting. In the end, he acknowledged his commandeering of the meetings, said there was a lot accomplished, and thanked me for setting them up.
Nevertheless, I felt unprepared as a moderator in comparison to him and see I need to improve my skills. I have asked him to approve my attending some more practical seminars on this.
Before that ... any advice?
- Facilitation-challenged
Dear Facilitating ...
Sometimes, you do have to bang on the table. Just keep your good humor about you as you do so. Here are a few other techniques you might find helpful:
1. Make sure every meeting has a point -- a reason for taking place. Announce the reason at the beginning of the meeting (except for recurring meetings; even in these it's worth reminding attendees on a regular basis).
2. Make sure every meeting has an agenda -- a list of specific topics to be covered. First item on the agenda: Status of action items from previous meetings. Last item on the agenda: A review of all open action items, including new ones this week.
3. Always have a flip chart or whiteboard. Use it to list ideas so everyone can see them; to sketch designs so everyone has a common point of reference; and to keep a "Parking Lot" -- a place to list ideas that have no place on the agenda but still shouldn't get lost. If you use a whiteboard, bring a digital camera so it's contents don't get lost.
4. Every topic should finish with agreement on action -- who is going to do what, and when it will be delivered.
5. Get good at facilitation -- at making sure everyone is heard (including people who would rather sit silently) and that nobody dominates. For people who dominate: "Thanks, Ralph. I think we have that point recorded already -- does this say it?" (pointing at an item on a flip chart or the whiteboard -- another reason for making sure you have one, the other, or both). For non-participants, "What do you think about this, Fred? I know you have expertise in this subject."
Another aspect of facilitation: Get good at recognizing when the group has beat a subject to death. "I think we've said everything we have to say about this subject. The next agenda item is ..."
One more: Recognizing when it's time for a consensus check. "It sounds like we're close to a decision on this - namely, blah blah blah. Let's go around the room. Fred - agree or disagree? Ralph? John?"
6. Rotate responsibility for meeting notes. Whoever is responsible must get them out within 24 hours.
One good format for meeting notes is: Topic/Decisions/Comments (if needed)/Action Items. Repeat and summarize the action items at the end of the notes.
Bad format for meeting notes: "He said/she said/they said." This wastes everyone's time.
Last point: If you do need to bang your shoe on the table, use the heel. Otherwise you'll scuff the leather.
- Bob
More about the legalities of running multiple virtual machines on the desktop:
I did some research on Microsoft's website. The language seems quite clear: OS licenses are tied to physical machines, not virtual machines.
In the current EULA for Windows XP Professional Edition Service Pack 2, the relevant text says:
Here's the relevant text from "MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS WINDOWS VISTA BUSINESS":
Note that there is a lot of confusion on this subject, driven by the use of "Virtualization" both for server-side processing (for example Citrix, where you do need a license for each user) and for multiple VMs on the desktop (what I've been talking about).
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I have long been a skeptic of metrics in IT. So many problems -- measuring the right thing, the reliability and sensitivity of the measures, creating perverse incentives, and gaming the measurement systems for starters. As a CIO, the only thing that really matters to me is how well the services I provide help everyone else in the organization perform well (output, cost reduction, quality, creativity, goodwill, widgets -- whatever they are measuring success on) relative to what IT services cost.
As I was crafting a message to a colleague today, I had an ah-ha moment fueled by and reinforcing my skepticism. I wondered:
Can we measure the value of performance metrics?
Has there been some objective measure of the performance of organizations that use SMART metrics versus those that don't?
In business it might be some measure of profitability trends, P/E ratio, and/or market capitalization. In government... well, that's tougher? Some measure of the effectiveness and value of the government services?
I have doubts as to whether the link between performance metrics and organizational performance has been proven. And if we can't measure it (the performance impact of metrics), how can we manage it?
Thought you might appreciate this angle on the topic. Most people I know would think I'm crazy with this line of reasoning. I may be crazy, but I don't think this line of reasoning is proof.
- Need a diagnosis
Dear Diagnosticated ...
Ah, you remind me of me! Way back when, I asked the budget director of my then employer what the Return on Investment was on the budgeting process. His answer ... I'm not making this up ... was, "We have to have budgets!"
Spoken in a thoroughly shocked tone of voice, too.
I don't know of any certain answer to your question regarding the existence of research on the subject. For questions of this kind -- do metrics/SMART goals/outsourcing/offshoring/whatever the heck -- result in business success, I go back to the two big studies I know about that looked at the sources for long-term business success: Jim Collins Good to Great study and William Joyce, Nitin Nohria, and Bruce Roberson's Evergreen Study.
Both isolated a list of factors required for companies to outperform their competitors consistently. Neither included metrics, SMART goals, outsourcing or offshoring as factors common to highly successful companies.
Draw your own conclusions.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I talked with our PC support group about the topic you've been discussing the past few weeks [see for example "Getting to 21st century IT," Keep the Joint Running, 3/3/2008 - Bob].
The overriding concern voiced is the liability for improperly licensed software. From the company's point of view, we are liable for any illegitmate copies of software on any computer that connects to our network, no matter which virtual machine it is installed in. What would you say to an SPA auditor who came in and found this situation? There was also concern about the cost of three copies of the operating system - one for each virtual machine, etc.
- Concerned
Dear Concerned ...
I wonder to what extent fear of SPA audits prevents good business. In any event, to answer your question (what would I say to an SPA auditor?) I think I'd say, "Show me your search warrant."
Then I'd call my Microsoft sales rep and point out that while I don't have a lot of choice about whether to use Windows on my company's desktops and laptops, nor about whether to use MS Office, I have a lot of choice when it comes to whether I use/continue to use SQL*Server, Sharepoint, Exchange, IIS, and a very wide variety of other Microsoft products.
Yes, it's Microsoft. Microsoft is a business. That means its sales reps want to do more business with you, not less.
I'm not sure of the legal situation when it comes to virtual machines layered on top of physical machines. To the extent I can figure out the Windows EULA, each license is good for one physical machine. I don't think I've seen any prohibition against installing a license more than once on different virtual machines that run on the same physical machine.
In any event, corporations can usually negotiate minor changes in license terms. I'd think this one would be pretty innocuous from Microsoft's perspective.
So far as illegitimate application software, I'm pretty sure (although I'm certainly not an attorney) that as with harassment, a demonstration that the company has exercised reasonable care in trying to prevent abuses is the key issue - not the existence of a small number of "undocumented" applications.
Plus, with both the locked-down and sandbox VMs the company can and should use scanning software to detect and inventory all applications installed everywhere. When something new pops up, IT asks the user to document the software's legitimacy.
That leaves the personal VM - the physical hardware attaches to the corporate network but the personal VM stays outside the corporate firewall.
You educate your employees regarding the rules; a bad apple or two violate the rules. How liable is your company?
I don't know the answer. I do know that Exxon/Mobil is pushing the legal theory that it isn't legally responsible for the actions of the Exxon Valdez's captain. That would seem to be an applicable precedent.
Even if the SCOTUS finds against Exxon/Mobil, I'm pretty sure the harassment standard of taking reasonable care should keep a company out of trouble with this, but it's very hard to say for sure.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
What do you think of weekly status reports for developers?
As an IT manager with a number of direct reports, I find it hard to keep track of work being done so I know when to assist some developers. More to the point, some developers tend to spin their wheels on work and need direction from time-to-time to keep moving.
I want to avoid micromanaging but I also need to make sure I can keep the projects moving and mentor those that need help.
Note that I do have one-on-one meetings with everyone on the development team but cannot meet with all of them every week.
- Macro-manager
Dear Macro ...
Weekly status reports are, I think, like timesheets. Some managers insist on them, others don't. Sometimes they provide valuable information, sometimes employees more or less invent the data just before they're due. Generally, developers like neither, viewing both as bureaucratic wastes of time.
The difference between the two is that managers eventually discover inaccuracies in the weekly status reports.
I think the big challenge with weekly status reports is that they are something employees do to help managers, not something employees perceive as creating value for them. They don't pass the WIIFM (What's In It For Me) test.
One possibility (not something I've tried) is to divide the status report in two. Monday morning, developers would be responsible for delivering their plan for the week - ideally, not more than half a page of expected deliveries, each with a space next to it to enter the date delivered. Friday afternoon they are responsible for delivering the same document with delivery dates filled in.
Add to the Friday document comments on issues, barriers and so on, and it might be painless enough that it will make sense to everyone as being a planning exercise as opposed to a reporting exercise.
The most important factors for deciding whether to do this, and then on making it work, are:
When you interact with employees, the second version is far more effective, for a simple reason: You're talking with them about their work as what matters, not about their obligations to you as what matters.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I've read your recent article concerning the PC at work viz-a-viz the PC at home ("The portal," Keep the Joint Running, 2/25/2008).
Needless to say as a support technician dealing with the users in a corporate environment, the idea of the PC as a portal is not only a bad one, it merely throws wide the barn door to a series of problems and issues. And opening up the PC for the users leads not to a portal, but a black hole that sucks away time and energy from both the user and the technician who has to support the systems.
Let me give you a good example. Our systems are locked down so that the users cannot install whatever software they wish on the machines. The reason and rationale for this is because of the cost of maintaining and repairing the machines when (not if, when) the user causes either conflict with existing company packages or incompatibility with the same packages.
The need for maintaining a common software platform is to provide ease of maintenance and lower the cost of support. Yet when we do allow the user administrative rights (either via local rights or via a software server that elevates rights prior to installing software) the user will put all kinds of software on the machine that has nothing to do with the business. Media players, browser plugins, screensavers and other downloads will appear overnight, springing up like the fungus that they are.
When the machine starts having problems, it's your responsibility to fix it, but mention removing the problem software and they'll scream they need it.
You also mention 'work/life balance.' Oddly enough, I may be an exception to the rule, as when I leave work for the day, I LEAVE work. As in, I leave whatever problems, issues, projects, documentation, etc. at my desk where it belongs, and enjoy my evenings, weekends and vacations without having to answer emails, phone or text messages about work issues.
I don't want to be bothered when the idea is for rest and relaxation, and actually despair at my co-workers who absolutely have to bring their work home with them. That portal is a ball and chain, erasing their personal life and replacing it with a madness that typifies today's society.
Central IT provides a core set of procedures and products that every user in a company has. You don't want the users to be going down to Costco to purchase those PC's as they'll come back to you demanding support for their problems, their mistakes and failures.
Because I'd tell them 'you bought them, you support them. Oh, and figure out how you're going to get the company software on them, as we won't let them on the network otherwise.' Letting the users go where they want, install what they want, do whatever they want only leads to madness.
Please have exact change ready if you're going that route.
- Support tech
Dear Tech ...
I'm not recommending that users view their PCs as portals. I'm reporting it.
I'm not advocating a wide-open free-for-all either. I'm pointing out what should be obvious to everyone in IT. The reason it isn't is because of the tendency most of us have to look at the world through our own eyeballs instead of the eyes of the people we need to communicate with.
What I'm asking you and my other subscribers to do is to forget all about how inconvenient and costly it all is, and instead to think about the world as end-users experience it. They go home, fire up their Costco PC (or whatever) which has, in addition to Office and e-mail, and AOL or MSN or whatever: The software they use to download digital photos from their cameras and edit them; Skype; various games; browser plug-ins; iTunes; PDA/Smartphone interface software; Quicken; and TurboTax.
Or whatever their list happens to be, and it all works together with no problems.
Then they go to work, where they have MS Office, Outlook, a browser with no plug-ins allowed, and nothing else. Knowledgeable people like you inform them it has to be this way because if you allow anything else it will all fall apart.
Then they go home, where it hasn't fallen apart. They don't feel like they dodged a bullet. They wonder about why you tell them something that's so counter to their experience.
This is the world IT is living in: End-users who find themselves using crippled technology at work compared to what they use routinely at home.
Just my opinion: IT's credibility is at stake. Providing an impoverished technical environment is why. Figuring out what to do about it won't be as easy as just locking everything down. That doesn't make it less important. Just harder.
- Bob
I use a Treo 700P. Not the newest technology, but certainly not obsolete.
I don't travel to Europe very much, but I do have a trip next week, so I called my cellular provider to activate international roaming.
I waited in the various queues, was only transferred once, and then was told, "to activate international roaming, call this number:" followed by a toll-free number.
Think about this for a moment - it's a telephone company, and its customer support representatives can't transfer me to another number in the same company!
Which leads to the first piece of advice: If you're responsible for the company's telephone technology ... Don't. Do. This. It. Makes. Your. Company. Look. Stupid. And. Incompetent.
Are we clear?
And now for the coup de grace: I called the number and talked with a very nice person who told me the Treo 700P isn't compatible with European cellular telephone standards - it can't be made to work.
This leads to my second piece of advice: At least be honest. The 700P works fine in Europe, for providers that use GSM. My cellular provider doesn't support international roaming on the Treo 700P. Blaming Palm isn't just cheesy.
It assumes I don't know how to use Google.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I found it ironic, that just as you are suggesting a new way of looking at the PC (in "The portal," Keep the Joint Running, 2/25/2008), Microsoft is making it even easier to look at it the old way.
I received from InfoWorld a letter: A long, long look at Windows Server 2008. This is Tom Yager's review of Windows Server 2008.
In the email, it states: "Tom notes the strength of the security features, especially the ease with which administrators can lock down clients on and off the network. "
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/25/09TC-windows-server-2008_1.html
While the individual may look at the computer as a portal, business apparently can not be so lax. After all, look at how much trouble has been caused because an individual downloaded a database to his laptop so he or she could continue work on a project at home, and then when the laptop is lost or stolen, a few gigabytes of customer information gets released.
My view of the corporate computer is a world away from my view of my personal computer. But maybe that's because I was brought up in the days of the Teletype, paper tape, punch cards and the VT220 terminal.
- Pondering the irony
Dear Pondering ...
I'm not the first to ask the question of why any business user ever would need credit card or social security numbers in any kind of personal file for any reason at all. The subject is usually folded into this debate. It shouldn't be: Look at the PCI specification and you'll find all credit card numbers should be encrypted in all databases if they are stored. Period. I'd say the same basic prudence should be applied to social security numbers, too.
If you run an operation where business users routinely have sensitive information in their files, use one of the many available products that encrypt the contents of the hard drive. Use biometrics (now cheap) instead of password protection.
There are solutions to most of these challenges other than locking everything down.
Of course, it is also true that nothing fits every situation. I'm sure there are contexts in which total lockdown is the only appropriate solution. That this is true doesn't mean it's therefore the right answer for all of the other contexts.
- Bob
In this week's Keep the Joint Running, ("Getting to 21st century IT," 3/3/2008), I mentioned a radical approach:
Comments, anyone?
- Bob
In this week's Keep the Joint Running ("The portal," 2/25/2008) I described the contrast between IT's view of the PC as a business computing device and the average end-user's perspective - that it's a portal to a universe of possibilities - I received this suggestion. I'll be interested in everyone's comments on this approach.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
What if...
... each employee's PC had two virtual machines installed -- one the locked-down "business computer" with the standard productivity and security apps and conservative security settings (for doing "serious" work) and the other a "sandbox" with wide-open, go-to-whatever-web-site, minimal security settings and any cool app you wanted to install and try out.
Add a keystroke toggle (or even an extended desktop with both environments open) and a secure (but not impossibly hard) way to move truly useful information from the sandbox to serious side, and mix in some process for peer review of your downloaded app "finds" (that IT has to consider for installing on the serious side if enough users give it an "A").
Finally, give the users a button to click to "reset" the sandbox to pristine condition if (when) things get too crazy.
Could we make peace between the IT and user worlds?
- Will Pearce
Dear Will ...
Will …
Seems like a good start to me. As with so many ideas, the devil is in the details. Let's think what Advice Line's subscribers think about it.
- Bob
A comment in response to a comment in response to my recent KJR and Advice Line discussing Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI):
Stephen wrote:
"The problem is that "one size fits all" can easily turn into "one size fits none". Innovation is easily stifled when all changes have to go through layers of bureaucracy (which I presume CMMI imposes)."
Your statement above is ~85% right. The first 85%.
CMMI does *not* impose layers of bureaucracy. How exactly do layers of bureaucracy improve productivity and performance and reduce waste?
Granted, layers of bureaucracy are exactly how way too many organizations get to a CMMI rating, but that's not the model's fault. That's a fault of making the rating the goal (at any cost) instead of honest improvement the goal (to lower cost).
Bob's Last Word:
Oh, now hold on a minute, hoss. "... but that's not the model's fault. That's a fault of making the rating the goal (at any cost) instead of honest improvement the goal (to lower cost)."
You're forgetting the first rule of measurement: You always get what you measure. It's the risk you take.
That means:
If you measure the right things wrong, you get the wrong results.
If you measure the wrong things, right or wrong, you get the wrong results.
And anything you don't measure you don't get.
Once SEI established a maturity measure, it's a slam dunk organizations will go for the number. They'll only achieve the underlying goal (a) by accident, or (b) because the number is so well correlated with the goal that you can't achieve one without the other.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
How do you feel about compressed work weeks? As an employee I love working 4x10s. But as an IT manager it's a real headache. I work as an IT supervisor for a large, 24x7 service organization. Its staff work compressed work weeks, 4x10s starting on various days of the week.
Most of my IT staff prefers to work 4x10s as well. This practice was well established before I got here and even though it's stressed that having an RDO (regular day off) during the week (Friday or Monday) is a privilege, not a right, it's become blasphemous for managers to expect them to come in on their RDO for whatever reason, even if it's just for a one hour meeting to tackle a problem.
So if I have a project team that needs to meet, I'm pretty much restricted to meeting only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I've seen time and again where we I've had to put off meeting with customers, or working an issue for up to 5 days until I have my entire IT staff available. On Fridays and Mondays I'm basically at half staff. We're swamped with work and with severe cash problems we can't get our open positions filled, let alone get new positions created.
I've been slowly pushing my own IT team to see the benefits (from the customer's perspective) of working 5x8s as opposed to 4x10s, but it's hard going. Especially when I get flak from other IT supervisors who think it's such a great perk for their folks that they'd never think of "doing that to them".
I'm retired military and I feel my perspective must be too jaded because I try to satisfy the needs of the department first, then the work units, then the individual. And that rubs some folks the wrong way.
What's your thought on something like this where budgets are getting very tight and we're constantly expected to "do more with less", yet folks aren't willing to give an inch?
- Frustrated
Dear Frustrated ...
It (of course!) depends on a number of specifics.
A point to get out first: Times are tight, which likely means everyone has more work without getting more pay or support. A minor perk like a 4x10 work week is worth preserving under these circumstances. You need everything you can get in the way of providing a great work environment in order to prevent defections.
Other thoughts:
One big advantage to the 4x10 work week is that employees get two hours a day when their ability to focus on a single task is much improved. This isn't an advantage to be sneezed at.
On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of having everyone scheduled either Monday through Thursday or Tuesday through Friday. As you point out, you end up staffed only 50% Mondays and Fridays.
While the employees wouldn't like this as much, a switch to weekends plus a rotating third day off would fix the coverage problem without causing undue hardship. Employees would get a three-day weekend two weeks out of five. The remaining weeks they'd be off Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Employees on project teams would have identical rotations, so that while you couldn't get them all together on Friday (perhaps), you'd have four days a week when the whole team can meet.
That's one approach I'd think everyone could at least live with.
From your description, I don't think your issue is the 4x10 work week. It sounds to me that your IT organization suffers from CWS - Clock Watchers Syndrome. I am sympathetic to employees who would prefer to not drive in to work for a one-hour meeting. Teleconferencing in would see
May 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...I agree with your perspective on clock punching Jim ("Rights, privileges, fairness and equality," Keep the Joint Running, 5/5/2008). But in the best of all worlds (which seems rare to me), the manager would be proactive instead or reactive -- s/he would be working with and encouraging staff to find ways to be more productive and then allocate resources as needed so those increases occur.
As my "friends" in the lean community keep reminding me, the people who do the work know a lot about what helps them and what hinders them as well as where the waste is.
I agree with you, but I also believe that most people don't get up in the morning and say to themselves "My goal for today is to set a new standard of mediocrity that will go down in the record books as a standard to live down to." If individuals are just there to collect a paycheck then that is what they have been taught is appropriate (ala Deming).
In a prior incarnation as a department chair in a community college, I managed some tenured faculty members who seemed very de-motivated and I can assure you that no one goes into that business to get rich and famous.
They were de-motivated because of what the organization had "done to them." I quickly learned that working on the hard cases was a poor use of resources. Instead I worked with the many who were still motivated to support their new learning and innovations in teaching and learning methods. Their enthusiasm did more to encourage the hard cases than anything that I could have done directly, but then when one of hard cases came to me with a reasonable professional development proposal, I was quick to support it.
No student should have to be in an educational environment where the teacher is just biding time.
On a related note, I read yesterday a perspective on morale that you might find interesting. The person said that if pay was $1.00 that people with low morale produced about $0.25 worth and that people with high morale produced $3.00 worth. There is no question in my mind who is responsible for morale and it is not the people "on the line."
- Watching Clock Punching Jim
Dear Watcher ...
It is regrettably the case that while some employees are self-motivated and most others are amenable to motivation, there are those who are just there for the paycheck and do only what it takes to continue to collect it.
I have no quibble with anything you say, other than your underestimate of what proportion of the total effort high-morale employees contribute.
There is an inescapable point, though, and I don't know whether you're taking it into account: Employees bring their expectations with them when starting an new job -- their morale, attitudes, stick-to-it-iveness and so on aren't a blank slate on which their current manager writes.
Quite the opposite - those expectations begin with their upbringing: Clock-punchers beget more clock-punchers, just as low-confidence parents are more likely to be the ones who tell their kids, "You have to be realistic -- you'll never be the scientist who cures cancer. Why don't you get a good job as a nurse?"
Effective leaders have a positive impact on morale, drive, enthusiasm and everything that goes along with it. There are, however, limits to that impact, because no matter how effective a leader you are, it's hard to have more of an impact than Mom.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 14, 2008 05:18 AM
May 12, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Are lateral assignments a good idea?
Dear Bob ...I think you expressed the point about "Jim", the marginal employee well (see "Rights, privileges, fairness and equality," Keep the Joint Running, 5/5/2008).
What about the flip side where management only grants "lateral" transfers, but the new job is actually a downgrade or at most equal in pay, more responsibility and more work.
When I was younger, I might have taken such an offer for more experience and skills, but as I've gotten older, I've become a little more wiser and a little bit more cynical.
This actually happens at my current group. If you want off the monitoring consoles for a systems or network admin position, you have to go days and there's no extra pay. Of course, up until the economy went south, a lot of people voted with their feet and got better offers elsewhere within or outside of the company.
Your thoughts?
- Sideways is a movie, not a career direction
Dear Miles ...
Hard to say as a blanket generality. In well-run companies, lateral assignments are the best way to get ahead. They provide visibility and an opportunity to prove your versatility. The people who take them and succeed at them are the ones who get ahead in the long run (and the long run isn't usually all that long).
In poorly run companies it's an excuse to take advantage of people. Or else, it isn't -- it's a way to retain good employees when you know you're going to be laying people off.
Me? I learned -- although too slowly and painfully -- that taking lateral assignments when they are offered is almost always a good career investment. My regrets are entirely around the ones I didn't take, not around the ones I did.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 12, 2008 05:43 AM
May 10, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Creating a big company with the trust of a small one
Dear Bob ...I think you're right on the money about community size, rules, trust and treating people fairly [from "Rights, privileges, fairness and equality," Keep the Joint Running, 5/5/2008 - Bob]. It's true that as groups get larger more rules and laws are required. Once people are able to be anonomyous many have no compunction about doing bad things to others. So we have to have laws and locks.
Getting to the point, your comment that as companies get larger, progressively more rules are required because its hard to trust a stranger really got my attention.
I'll have worked at HP 19 years next week -- long enough to remember the old HP and the HP Way. Certainly the way we used to do things had its faults, but what struck me about your comments was the fact that no matter how large the old HP got (and it was 100K+ employees) it was a company that operated on guidelines and trust, not rules.
We trusted complete strangers to do the right thing because we all worked for HP. This was true right up until we started hiring outsiders who didn't get that concept into senior management. They started creating rules and enforcing policies instead of guidelines. They didn't get that we all trusted each other and that it was rare for someone to abuse that trust.
Yes, we had our clock punchers and the guys who pushed their travel expenses to the very edge, but they were the exception, not the rule. I'm willing to bet you that more people break the rules now than ever bent the guidelines in the past.
I'm not arguing with your premise one bit. I just think that Bill and Dave managed to create something really special that managed to become an exception to the rule that you have to put more rules in place as a company grows and I thought I'd share that observation.
That place is gone now, as are most of the people that made it that way. It's a shame.
- HP Holdout
Dear Holdout ...
I've wondered often about how the exceptions happen. Here's my guess -- let me know if you agree:
It isn't really that employees are willing to trust total strangers. It's that employees are willing to trust the judgment of non-strangers (in the case of HP, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, who made sure employees didn't consider them to be strangers).
In particular, employees trusted Hewlett and Packard's judgment about the people they hired as executives, and by extension ended up trusting ... or at least giving the benefit of the doubt ... to just about everyone else in the company because of it.
Maintaining that kind of culture of trust takes a lot of time and hard work. Clearly, it's well worth the investment.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
I think you're right. We all trusted Bill and Dave and we all felt that we knew them. Everyone in the company who has met them readily shared their stories.
No one had an unkind word (except maybe for Dave's politics). We trusted their judgement and that they'd hire good people. We all assumed that each person in the chain would hire good people because they were hired by other good people. So, even though they were strangers to us we trusted that they were the kind if people we could trust.
In addition, the company's antibodies quickly rejected people who didn't fit with the HP Way. Sometimes this wasn't good as it pushed out people with new ideas, but mostly it pushed out hiring mistakes -- people who couldn't be trusted.
It did take a lot of work to maintain but everyone was committed to maintaining it. It was a great culture and it's what made HP such a successful, enduring company. Now its just like every other big company.
- HP Holdout
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 10, 2008 12:04 PM
May 07, 2008 | Comments: (0)
When interviewees volunteer off-limits information
Dear Bob ...All this talk about interviews and illegal questions has me wondering ...
If I'm interviewing someone, and they disclose information about themselves without my prompting, what do I do?
For example, a very realistic question "Why did you leave XYZ job?"
with a reply "XYZ company wanted me to start travelling on a regular basis. Since my wife just had our first child, I couldn't be away from family that much."
Now, I understand that I cannot ask "Are you married?" or "Do you have children?" And the information does not really change my opinion of whether or not to hire. We don't require overtime, and there is minimal (and for the most part, optional) travel involved.
So my understanding is nothing is illegal. But what do I do if someone voluntarily discloses information that might effect my decision?
- Interviewer
Dear Interviewer ...
Legally, if they disclose it without any prompting on your part you are allowed to know it (so far as I know -- I'm knowledgeable but not a specialist; consult your HR department for the definitive answer).
Professionally, if it's an excluded area of conversation it isn't a good idea to take it into account when making a hiring decision. The laws in question aren't an example of government bureaucracy run amok. They're an example of what government requires lining up very well with what businesses ought to do anyway: Hire based on the ability to do the job.
Which brings me to the short answer to your question: When an applicant strays into territory that isn't relevant to the position, ignore what they tell you and redirect the conversation back to what does matter.
There's one exception to this: If you think the applicant is offering the information to influence your decision-making, count it as a negative. I know of cases where applicants have revealed their religiosity, family situation, ethnicity and so on because of their expectation that these factors might lead the interviewer to consider them more favorably. If you think that's what's going on it should tell you something.
The best applicants will try to lead you to consider them more favorably by impressing you with how well they can do the work.
This is especially true with applicants for management positions, because they are supposed to know the rules - it's part of being a professional manager.
There are, of course, gray areas. I'm more likely to forgive an applicant who says, "I raised five children - of course I can multitask!" much more than one who says, "I'm a Christian and a father and that's how I manage people."
Raising five children really is evidence of the ability to multitask, after all.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 7, 2008 06:34 AM
May 05, 2008 | Comments: (0)
When they change your job without asking you
Dear Bob ...I have a bit of a dilemma that I'm hoping you can help me out with because I'm stuck.
I was recently "promoted" to a new position. I say promoted in quotes because the promotion seems to be hardly that. I was suddenly given a new title, new and extra responsibilities, and a new boss (someone I don't get along with). There was no pay increase with this position change, actually more like a pay cut. In my old position I worked quite a bit of overtime. In this one, I don't. Same hourly rate, but less take home each week.
The change in position wasn't offered to me, I was put in to it. The position may be new but it was handed to me as an expansion of my previous position, leaving behind previously held duties that of course would need to be filled by another candidate. While I enjoy striving to improve my quality of work, I find it a bit hard to continue with the constant reminder that I seem to work in an environment that shows favoritism and unfair working conditions.
So with that being said, I have a few questions that I'm hoping you can help me with ...
First, is it legal to change someone's position, title, responsibilities, and supervisor without their prior agreement? I have not signed anything stating that my responsibilities have changed. As far as I know, to Human Resources, I still hold my previous position.
Second, as you stated in a previous article, Capitalism assumes I'm an individual working to maximize my own "utility" ... and I am. So now that I have a new boss, how do I approach the pay issue? I need an increase, but here, now, that's unlikely.
On top of that, I have no data to support my contention that my position is worthy of a salary increase. All I have is my new and extra responsibilities; and the fact that the expanded position is a necessity in the organization. However, I am certain (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that if the organization were to publish an open position like mine, they would have to increase the salary to get the quality of work I deliver.
I see my quality of work deteriorating if my salary does not increase. It would be hard to consistently deliver with excellence when I'm not rewarded for it. I enjoy working in this organization and my bottom-line makes it hard for me to search for another job right now.
What should I do?
- Not ready to pack yet
Dear Unready ...
Let me answer the legal question first: Unless you are governed by a union contract, for most employers it's perfectly legal to assign you new duties. There are exceptions (for example, assigning you duties that conflict with a union contract) but with few exceptions these days, organizations are "at will" employers which means they're free to reassign you or let you go; you're free to leave whenever you like.
It really isn't that bad a system, either: It gives employers the flexibility they need to make sure they have the right people in the right positions, promotes a meritocracy better than systems based on security and seniority, and makes it clear to employees that their continued employment depends on their ability to deliver value. Jobs aren't entitlements, they're contracts; "employees" are really no different from contractors in that they should consider themselves independent companies that have to sell on value.
The downside to at-will employment, if you'll forgive a bit of pontificating, is that when a company becomes dysfunctional, at-will employment can turn into no-particular-cause termination pretty easily.
In any event, it's clear the promotion was handled badly. You make less; you have a new boss with whom you don't get along; and new (and presumably more important) responsibilities; and nobody took the time to talk it over with you first.
Here's how it looks to me:
First of all, you need to either change your attitude or change your employer. Your current situation is untenable and will, eventually turn you into an undesirable employee.
Right now you appear to be thinking like an hourly employee (and I get at least a hint that you were relying on your overtime pay instead of considering it to be gravy … always a bad idea). If you are career-minded I'd advise re-thinking this.
As a generality, those who think like hourly employees exchange an hour's work for an hour's pay. That's the end of the transaction. Professional employees include the exchange of extra effort for extra opportunity in their calculation of the employer/employee relationship.
You might decide to consider the change to be an opportunity. It's a new, and apparently a more important position. That puts you in a different salary range, even if your current compensation hasn't changed and even if you don't get more money with your current employer: The new position will qualify you for better positions externally when and if you decide to pursue them.
You have to be successful at what you're doing before going that route.
By all means, schedule an appointment with someone in Compensation and Benefits Administration (or whatever it's called where you are) and ask what the salary range is for your current title compared to your old one. It's likely you'll find that you were being paid near the high end of your old position and have more headroom now, which means you have the opportunity to earn more in the future if you perform well.
Two other thoughts, since you asked: If your quality of work deteriorates based on not getting more money, that strongly suggests you don't take pride in your work. Employees who are in it only for the money eventually find themselves in the same position as corporations that are in it only for the money: They become also-rans, because the ones who are in it for the value they create out-compete them.
Of course, money matters. Don't put it first. If you do you're short-changing yourself.
And second, regardless of how it ought to be, the way the world works is that you have to take responsibility for the quality of working relationship you have with your new boss. It's like this: You are in business for yourself, and your boss is your customer - the person who makes the buying decision about the services you provide. Making sure you have a positive working relationship with your boss isn't sucking up. It's making sure your customer is happy with you as a provider - something we business consultants generally endorse as being a good business strategy.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 5, 2008 07:45 PM
May 03, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...In my department, a few core people are getting leaned one heavily since others have "lives".
The classic case is when certain team members have kids, both parents work, and they miss random blocks of time for kids stuff. The non-kid (or different priority) folks end up picking up the slack. They don't complain (to me at least) but in my mind that doesn't make it okay.
I don't want to be the kind of heartless boss who won't let a parent attend a special event. On the other hand, I certainly don't want to be such a curmudgeon that I don't allow these things.
Any suggestions?
- In prevention mode
Dear Preventer ...
Good for you for seeing a potential problem before it turns into a real one. You're right on the money regarding the risk.
Luckily, you have a couple of easy options open to you. One is to establish an informal comp-time arrangement to allow people who work extra hours to get some of them back ... not on a tally-for-tally basis, but just to be reasonable. They can use that time to attend a daughter's soccer game, a son's chess match or to take their poodle to the Westminster Dog Show.
It's their time, and anyone can earn the privilege the same way.
Or, you can enforce your company's vacation policy. Parents are free to use vacation to attend family events; non-parents are free to use it in other ways. Again, everyone gets the same deal.
And you don't end up turning yourself from leader to enforcer.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on May 3, 2008 04:51 PM
April 30, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Gender does matter, and it doesn't matter
Dear Bob ...
I have been in IT a very long time and I am a woman.
I agree with you [see "Does gender matter?" Advice Line, 4/12/2008 - Bob] that there are competent, supportive managers of both sexes and evil, incompetent managers of both sexes. However, I do not agree with you that the woman who wrote is filtering all her input by the male/female attribute.
IT has been historically and is still today dominated by males. The relative population of females in IT is not increasing. There are male managers who have never worked with a female in IT unless they did technical writing and/or training or were some kind of junior programmer.
Your comment about managers tending to like people that are like them is very true. Most women in Technology are not like their male managers; they have different interests and often perceive and approach problems differently. I'm not saying better, just differently.
Most male managers are not sexist, at least not consciously. They are many, however, who do discriminate without even realizing it. The interesting or prestigious project usually goes to a male employee who is most like the manager, or plays golf with the manager, etc.
I've seen managers who will give a great project to a less capable male employee and not to a more capable female employee. I was previously a consultant for many years. Sometimes during a project this would happen and I would ask the manager why he selected so-and-so to do a task rather than whats-her-name. Many, many times they start blinking and stuttering and I realize that they never thought of the woman. This is subtle, but still a real problem for the woman.
There are many variations on the unconscious discrimination. The only way to combat it is for the women to talk to the manager first and ask for more challenging work, a new project or whatever would advance her career. She also need to ask the manager why she did not get that project when passed over. I using "project" but it could be to do a briefing, or attend a seminar, or something else. There are other approaches like talking more in meetings, volunteering to help, etc.
Each situation is individual, but for a woman to advance in most IT staffs, she has to be better than the men around her and must do something that makes her unforgettable and irreplaceable or she is overlooked. This was true 30 years ago and it is still true today. It is one of the reasons it is hard to get young women to consider IT as a career.
If you think about it, that's truly sad. When you discriminate, you are limiting the talent available to you.
Thanks for letting me rant.
- Been there a lot
Dear Been there ...
Rant away. That's what I'm here for.
I have no doubt at all that many IT managers, some unconsciously, others because they are "realists" (in their own minds), discriminate against female employees to a greater or lesser extent. Also against older employees, younger employees (depending on the assignment), pimply employees, overweight employees, and still, sadly, African American or Hispanic employees.
Physical appearance creates a set of expectations, for better or worse, because managers are, in addition to their other responsibilities, human beings.
Your advice is good, too -- good advice for any IT employee in fact. In order to get ahead you first have to be visible, and your manager has to know about your abilities and ambitions. It isn't always true that women must be twice as good to receive the same recognition but it's true often enough to be a real problem.
There are other reasons women are under-represented in IT, I think, that are purely social in nature. At least the way families raise daughters in the United States, there is even less emphasis on analytical thinking than there is for sons. The old stereotypes run deep, resulting in fewer women who aspire to technical careers than men (I'm pretty sure of this, although I'm not familiar with the formal studies).
Which doesn't excuse the industry from doing everything it can to promote a meritocracy as the most appropriate way to run IT organizations.
None of this changes my advice. The moment you or any other female IT professional falls into a mode of thinking that begins with the assumption of discrimination you risk crippling your own thinking, damaging your ability to interview well in the process. Focus on being the best-qualified candidate, best-qualified employee, most-visible employee (thank you for making that point!) ... and for taking whatever prudent steps you can to discover whether the organization you're talking to is run as a meritocracy or not.
Just because sexism, racism, age-ism and ethnocentrism are real doesn't mean they're so pervasive that you have to let them hem you in.
Sometimes you have to be a realist. Other times you're better off making reality into what you need it to be. Assume things are as they should be, state the assumption as your expectation often enough, and you'll be surprised how effective you can be at changing things for the better.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on April 30, 2008 06:20 AM
April 22, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Why corporations exist - a data point
Dear Bob ...On your explanation of why corporations exist, Bob, ("The reason corporations exist," Advice Line, 4/20/2008) I don't think you're full of beans ... on this one, at least :-)
Just read an interview today with Jeremy Jaech that I thought punctuated one of your points.
"MJ: Startups are both exciting and unpredictable; how do you keep your team focused on the big picture, especially when there’s resistance to growth or acquisition?
JJ: It’s a lot of work. It’s one of the three or four jobs that leadership has, is to constantly go around and reiterate the important goals, make sure people understand how what they do fits into the larger picture and supports it in some way.
It’s a part of the work, as an organization gets bigger and bigger there’s some information loss as it moves down the chain and the only way to keep people on track is to keep repeating it in front of them all the time.
As Visio grew, it was a really important as CEO to go around to team meetings and department meetings and say, here’s what we’re focused on as a company and here’s how what you do supports it. And to just keep saying it, and as you do that, people get snapped in. Then they start to drift, and so you got to come back to snap ‘em back; and they start to drift, snap ‘em back, they start to drift, snap ‘em back. That’s just human nature."
Regards,
Bruce Gutzmann
Bruce ...
It's always good to get reinforcement from those who have done the actual work. Thanks for the sharp eye.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on April 22, 2008 09:05 AM
April 22, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Go green the cheap and easy way
InfoWorld will be awarding its Green 15 awards today.My old friend Fitz should be on the list, but won't because his innovation took place too many years ago -- back in the 1980s.
What Fitz figured out, back when we both worked at the StarTribune in Minneapolis, is that for much of the year there was a cheaper way to cool a data center than the expensive and expensive-to-operate chillers that were installed for the purpose.
He asked the construction department to run a vent to the building's exterior, with a fan in it.
If there's one thing I'll guarantee, it's that a Minnesota winter is as reliable a source of cold as any chiller ever manufactured.
For any one reading this whose data center is located in an area where winter is something you can see out your window at least a few months each year: I commend Fitz's example to you. It's nearly free, pretty much foolproof, saves electricity, and will make you look smart besides.
What's not to like?
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on April 22, 2008 06:09 AM
April 20, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...There is some value in your description of the purpose of running a business ("Of businesses and marketplaces," Keep the Joint Running, 4/14/2008). But really there is only one purpose, to make a profit.
Everything else is secondary. No profit, no business.
All of this talk about mission and survival and such is just a means to the end of making money.
- Hard-headed Pragmatist
Dear Pragmatist ...
This is more than opinion and less than settled fact: Your statement is only true of companies that aren't going to be around very long.
No question, companies have to make a profit or they fail, for all the obvious reasons. That makes profit a necessary condition for success, not a purpose for existing. Money is the corporation's food. It's true that if you don't eat you die. That doesn't mean eating is the reason you exist.
Here's why I take the position I do. Compare three companies.
The leaders of Company #1, from the CEO on down, focus on creating the best products in their marketplace.
The leaders of Company #2, from the CEO on down, focus on providing the best customer experience in their marketplace.
The leaders of Company #3, from the CEO on down, focus on maximizing profitability.
I don't know who will come in first and second. I'm confident I know which company will waste most of its time and attention playing stupid financial games to make the books look good, eventually failing to compete the only place it counts - for the hearts and minds (and wallets) of the people who have to decide whose products to buy.
The leaders of the very best companies are like the best gamblers in Las Vegas. The money is interesting, but more for knowing who is winning, and for giving you what you need so you can play again, than for getting rich.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on April 20, 2008 09:27 AM
April 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)
How to handle illegal questions in a job interview
Dear Bob ...Your recent column regarding the Canadian woman who got pregnant while unexpectedly starting a new job search got me to wondering -- what are you supposed to do if an employer asks you an illegal question when they're interviewing you?
This happened to me once -- the employer asked for my date of birth, including the year. I was so startled that I just answered without thinking. It probably didn't have any impact on the hiring decision in that particular case, but that's not the point, obviously. What should I have said? (Setting aside the question of whether I'd want to work for a company that did that, that is.)
Employment law is of increasing interest and concern to me, since I am disabled (Asperger Syndrome) and am going to be hitting "the big four-oh" in a few months, so any thoughts or suggestions you have would definitely be helpful. Thanks.
- Semi-disabled
Dear Semi ...
"Why do you ask?" is one of the better responses. "I'm going to call my lawyer, just as soon as I get him out of jail," is one of the worst.
With every illegal question you have to decide if refusing to answer is worth the effort. Think of every outright refusal as a confrontation, akin to invoking the 5th Amendment on the witness stand. It's your right. That doesn't make it an obligation.
If someone asks about kids, it might be a good sign -- it might mean you've moved beyond total-stranger-and-unknown-risk to person-I'd-like-to-know-better. Feel free to answer.
Or, it might be a coded way to find out if you're likely to work long hours without complaining. Decline to answer.
You have to decide what's going on and whether answering builds rapport or harms your position. Just remember, your goal is to get an offer, not to enforce the rules.
One disadvantage to answering is that every illegal question you do answer takes the interview in an incrementally unprofessional direction. That isn't a good idea because unless you're looking for a job where schmoozing is a core competency, you have only a limited time to present your abilities in the best light possible, and to ask questions about the company and position. Your age and marital status don't get you there.
That's why I suggested replying with "Why do you ask?" It's a gentle reminder that the question has nothing to do with what the job requires.
The problem is, you can only use it once. After that, you sound evasive. So you need more alternatives in your bag of tricks.
One is a quick wisecrack followed by a question of your own that's back on track. "How old are you?" "Old enough to know better, but not old enough that I always remember I know better. Hey, when we were talking about data design a few minutes ago there's a point I meant to make. Mind if we go back to it?"
For the exact date of birth question you can just misunderstand and provide only your birthday ("March 4th - what's yours?"). Or, if it's becoming persistent, "I'm a Pisces if that's what you're driving at, but I really don't believe in astrology." That forces the interviewer to repeat the question, and applies some pressure to explain why it matters.
If you run out of deflections, it's time for direct diplomacy. Keep a smile on your face, focus on being relaxed and professional (especially the relaxed part) and say something like, "I'm not exactly sure how to handle this. We both know the rules, and a lot of what you've been asking me is out of bounds for job interviews. I'm pretty relaxed about this sort of thing, but I'd rather use this time to talk about what you need me to do and how I'd go about it."
If that kills the deal, it probably wasn't a deal worth having.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on April 14, 2008 05:41 AM
April 12, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...I'm a female manager. I think I'm pretty good at what I do, and throughout my career I have produced tangible results that back this up.
My problem is, I'm not "one of the boys," and don't want to be one of the boys. Throughout my career, though, being one of the boys has been at least as important as my actual performance.
This is starting to get to me, to the point I've been reading some of the current research on male/female differences. I understand male and female brains are physiologically different, males and females really do look at the world differently and so on.
Between the research and my experience I'm starting to think it's the reality of the workplace and not just bad luck on my part. I'm at the point where I don't know if I should just drop out of the workforce altogether, look for jobs only in places where I'd be reporting to another female, or what.
I'm not sure if you can empathize with my situation, being a guy and all, but if you can and have any advice, I'd sure like to hear it.
- Gender-aware
Dear Aware ...
Before giving you any advice, I first have to debunk the research you've been reading. It isn't that it's bad research. It's simply irrelevant research.
To explain why, go back to Richard J. Herrnstein's awful book, The Bell Curve. Let's pretend that it actually meant something (it didn't) -- that Americans of sub-Saharan African ancestry really did have lower IQs than Americans of other ancestries, and that the difference really was genetic.
Would that have meant that when hiring your next network administrator that excluding African-Americans would make any sense?
Of course not. The Bell Curve reported (and misinterpreted) averages.
So does the research you've been reading. It's certainly true that males and females aren't the same (Isaac Asimov once pointed out that there's a vas deferens between them). Knowing this provides no useful guidance about what the next person you deal with will be like, especially in a business situation.
In my career I've worked with male managers who were ruthless and entirely lacking in compassion. I've worked with female managers who were worse. I've also worked with both male and female managers who were empathic, supportive, encouraging and collaborative with everyone around them.
I haven't seen much of a trend, except that, maybe, the guys were more likely to know and care who plays third base for the Mets.
This isn't just a flip comment. There are plenty of people in this world who are more comfortable and relaxed with people who are, more or less, similar to themselves than with people who aren't. People who share this trait are called normal human beings. The more you and I have in common, the easier it is to exchange ideas without the barriers imposed by experiences and hidden assumptions we don't have in common.
To a certain extent, gender plays an inescapable role here. So does sexual orientation. How much of a role it plays depends on the individual.
In fact, everything that matters in this discussion depends on the individual.
What I'd advise is this: Pay attention to everything that's been concerning you, only without attaching male and female categories to any of it. Decide on the characteristics you need in your next employer -- of both the corporation, and the person you report to.
Then, as you look for your next opportunity, remember that you're interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing you. Ask the questions you need to ask to determine whether it's the sort of place you want to work, and the sort of manager you want to work for.
The process isn't perfectly reliable, any more than the process of interviewing job candidates is perfectly reliable. In both cases you learn how good an interviewer you're dealing with, and hope that your interviewing technique means there's a decent correlation between this and actual performance.
It isn't perfectly reliable, but I think you'll find it's more reliable than relying on gender as a predictor.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on April 12, 2008 09:22 AM
April 09, 2008 | Comments: (0)
When to trust, when to regulate
Dear Bob ...
"Also as with business deregulation, once a good thing starts to be too much of a good thing, it can become a bad thing. Balance matters," - Bob Lewis ("KJR themes in the news," Keep the Joint Running, 4/7/2008)
Malice matters, too. So do chiselers, sneaks, grifters, grafters, free-riders, shysters, gonifs, thieves, embezzlers...
Consider the category of people who will put their own good above the good of "the public", "the commons", or "others". Some folks might do so only once in a lifetime. Others will do so habitually, passing up even honest ways to get ahead, always looking for an angle, a way to screw somebody or game the system. In a given workplace or organization, you might not run into such a person for years, or even decades. Or, you might be incessantly plagued with them.
I happen to know the treasurer of a school. The school is effective and well-run, and serves some 900 students. It's also honest, and no one diverts money into their own pockets. Money taken in is correctly accounted for, the spending and accounting are transparent, the money is spent in ways of which "the reasonable person" would approve.
The school also operates with a fairly large degree of trust. Quite a few families pay in cash, and this treasurer I know routinely (twice a
year) literally sits before a large pile of cash, being sole possessor of it before depositing it in the bank.
I don't have the mentality to figure angles, other than the obvious one that the treasurer could simply run off with the cash one day. But I am certain that a person with the right skills and mindset could come up with a way to jiggle the books and siphon off money. Neither do I have the mentality to devise financial controls, "double-approval" systems, and other ways to make stealing from the school so difficult that thieves would move on to easier targets. But I am sure that someone could.
I recall a food co-op I was involved in, also successful, that also handled a lot of money. A retired executive from SCORE (Service Corps Of Retired Executives) came in an analyzed the operation, and made several suggestions for improving the cash-handling operation, with an eye to preventing theft. We took his suggestions, but before his visit, we had never had a problem. Well after his visit, we heard about another co-op that did (a head cashier simply rang up certain sales normally, then hit the "no sale" key instead of completing the transaction).
Regulation could be unnecessary in a situation where no one is trying to chisel or steal. The maximal flexibility, convenience, and enablement that universal deregulation might provide could work well in certain circumstances. In fact, very loose regulation does actually work quite well in quite a few instances, judging by my own experiences including the two I cite above.
But it all changes as soon as an actor willing to victimize (or disregard the welfare of) others, enters the picture.
What do you think?
- Deregulator
Dear Dereg ...
Here's the challenge: Capitalism doesn't assume everyone acts for the public good. It assumes each individual works to maximize his or her own "utility" (financial advantage is the usual economic proxy measure). There is no hard line that separates doing this in an appropriate way and doing it in a way that harms others, since many economic transactions constitute a zero-sum game.
For example: Every time you buy stock or sell it, you're making a bet on which way the market will go. If you buy and it goes up, you win and the seller loses. If you bought and the seller sold because you'd done better and more effective research, it's considered a fair transaction. If you bought and the seller sold because you had access to "insider information" it's now illegal and considered unethical besides. That wasn't always the case.
And I'm quite sure there is no hard line that clearly separates insider information from the other kind. There's always a gray area.
Here's a second challenge: The Constitution's framers were very clear about the importance of distrusting individual motivation. The entire structure is designed to create controls that prevent malfeasance -- the usual term is "checks and balances."
The third challenge is one you allude to: The act of creating controls can damage the relationships that can make them unnecessary. I could imagine your school treasurer becoming out of sorts if you conducted an audit and the auditor added steps designed to keep him from embezzling.
The solution: Ask him, while he's in place and not going anywhere, to design a system of controls that would be effective should he (1) go on vacation and someone else had to fill in; and (2) decide to retire or move on, because there's no guarantee his successor will be as trustworthy.
Another alternative is to redesign systems to close the easy holes. For example, you could configure any good cash register system so it only prints receipts on confirmed sales. Hit the No Sale button and the transaction is cleared; the customer doesn't receive a receipt. Cashiers won't consider that a lack of trust -- they won't even notice, unless they're looking for ways to steal.
It isn't that I disagree with your thought process. In fact, I agree completely -- trust is the foundation on which efficient and effective organizations rely. Without it, everything slows to a crawl, if there's any way to even define progress at all. Smart executives focus on the leadership techniques that foster it, do their best to encourage it among the teams they lead; and eliminate team members who prove to be untrustworthy.
Because people can sometimes fool you, and because things happen that cause people to change, they don't rely on trust entirely.
Once again, balance is the key.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on April 9, 2008 06:20 AM
April 06, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Whether to mention a pregnancy in a job interview
Dear Bob ...
I have a real ethical dilemma and would appreciate any advise. Two weeks ago I was notified that the company I worked for for the last eight years is closing down. It was an "effective immediately" kind of a notice. A week later I found out I am expecting.
I held a management position with that company and I have lots of experience. Naturally, the kind of job I will be looking for is not an entry level.
My problem: how can I honestly sell myself to a company without telling them I am actually only going to be around for 7-8 months and then out on maternity leave? (I live in Canada where maternity leave is 3-6 months). On the other hand, it is a little early to disclose this in the interview, things can happen with pregnancies in the first 2-3 months. Plus, if I am upfront about it, surely it will drastically cut my chances of getting the job.
Add to the mixture that I am not entitled to unemployment payments (was working as a contractor for that company) and that I really need an income and cannot go without a job, and I have a real dilemma in my hands.
Thank you in advance for any advice you can offer.
- Maternal
Dear Maternal ...
Here in the U.S. your legal obligations would be clear. You wouldn't have any obligation to disclose your pregnancy and no prospective employer is allowed to ask.
You didn't ask about your legal obligations, though. You asked about your ethical obligations.
Luckily enough, I'm not an ethicist, so I can 't provide definitive guidance. Neither, I suspect, could a professional ethicists, but that's a different matter.
The sticking point, of course, is the notion of taking a job under false pretences. Do and you've done something bad. Disclose, on the other hand, and you don't get the job, which you need, and going on welfare when a baby is coming isn't a particularly ethical course of action, especially when you're fully employable.
My take: I'm not sure there's much of an ethical issue here to worry about. You aren't interviewing under false pretenses. You plan to do a great job once hired, obey the rules, obey the law and so on. All you're doing is remaining silent about a subject you have every right to remain silent about.
Your concern, I think, is less about ethics than it is about expectations - that by interviewing for a job and not mentioning your pregnancy, you're creating an expectation that you'll be on the job more or less without a break, with nothing on the horizon that might intervene.
The law sets the expectations, though, and the law is clear on all points. No employer should have any expectation that a job applicant would reveal a pregnancy, any more than one would reveal any other medical condition that might affect attendance, during the interviewing process. The subject is clearly and unambiguously out of bounds.
So set your mind at rest. When the time comes you and your employer can figure out how long you'll be gone and how to handle your absence. Companies do this all the time, just as they figure it out for employees who need heart surgery and appendectomies.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on April 6, 2008 06:25 AM
April 04, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...
[In response to "Running an effective meeting," Advice Line, 3/24/2008)] An old military tradition when soliciting consensus or opinion on a specific topic is to ask the meeting participants in reverse seniority order. The thinking there was that you'd get the person's real opinion, rather than hearing him parrot the senior officer present if you went in the order of seniority.
Do you think that this is a worthwhile approach in civilian meetings?
- Old Military Traditionalist
Dear OMT ...
My orthodox Jewish friends tell me the Talmud offers similar guidance. In capital cases, the rabbis who form the deciding council speak in order from most junior to most senior, for the exact reasons you cite.
I don't know how applicable this is to business settings, since the rank of the people who participate in most planning meetings isn't as clearly fixed.
With one exception - I've advised leaders numerous times to speak last ("Knowing when to speak," Keep the Joint Running, 12/8/2008).
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on April 4, 2008 01:19 PM
April 02, 2008 | Comments: (0)
What are an end-user's responsibilities?
Dear Bob ...
I agree with your proposition (maybe I state it a little differently) that the majority of business users are professional people, reasonably intelligent, and intent on doing a good job [see "The portal," (2/25/2008) and subsequent columns in Keep the Joint Running, and recent discussions in Advice Line - Bob].
My questions are, since not all users are created equal, and at least a small percentage are not computer-friendly at all, how does that fit in this model.
Should businesses be expected to hire only people who have at least a minimal relationship with their PC? We still have users here who have no computer at home!
And what happens when those users click on the anti-spyware ad and unlease the latest Trojan horse -- will they be responsible for reloading their operating system because it can't properly be cleaned? Should the business and IT bear the burden of that, or how do you envision that working?? When you go to that user and tell them that your ID system indicates their machine is acting as part of a botnet, what happens when they give you that blank stare and ask "What do I do now?"
I'm not saying the goal isn't a worthy one, I just can't see quite how it works yet.
- Interested but not convinced
Dear Convinceable ...
First of all, yes. I'm of the opinion that in 2008 a knowledge worker who doesn't know how to competently operate a PC is better called an ignorance worker. There are, of course, exceptions (I'm not sure what they are, but there are always exceptions). For the most part, a knowledge worker who doesn't know how to operate a PC is like a carpenter who can't handle a compound miter saw -- not competent.
Second, for years I've advocated a simple approach: If an end-user does something to render his/her PC non-functional, IT's responsibility is to restore it to a standard image, then to restore the data. In an age of virtual machines, this is even easier, and far less time-consuming, than restoring to a ghosted image.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on April 2, 2008 06:51 AM
March 31, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Another take on opening PCs, or not
Another correspondent weighs in on the lock-or-not-lock debate - Bob
Dear Bob ...
I'm not sure that workers downloading "stuff" on their PCs is really the place that innovation should come from. The reward that something might happen there of value is far out weighed by the risk the corporation faces of being out of compliance or having unauthorized or inappropriate software on company owned PCs. And there is no way to really quantify the risk of "catching a virus" on the back of a downloaded executable.
That being said there should be a process to initiate approval for test software, down loads, etc. that can be pretty simple and not a bottleneck. That's what my previous company did.
- Download Preventer
Dear Preventer ...
I agree that workers downloading stuff isn't where innovation comes from. Workers downloading (for example) open source solutions that will fully or partially automate a business process that is currently handled in a cumbersome way, and that isn't important enough to be a priority for central IT? That's a different story.
Your phrasing is telling. "The reward that something might happen there of value …" makes it clear you consider any potential upside to be, not the result of thought and planning on the part of employees, but an accidental byproduct of random, aimless activity.
I agree. The risks associated with random, aimless activity far exceed the potential benefit.
All I have to say is that if your employer hires employees who spend most of their time engaged in random, aimless activity, the company has a much bigger problem than the risk of a computer virus.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 31, 2008 05:29 AM
March 28, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...
We work with a software vendor whose app we host. They are small (20-ish employees), we have to cover a lot of customers and pretty close to 24/7. We are, unfortunately, their largest install, certainly larger than they designed for.
There have been scaling problems.
My problem is in figuring out how to get us past the "cowboy" software support process. When I started in IT in the early 90’s I worked for ATT in New Jersey so I found all about software quality Bell Labs style. And worked in electronics before that and got the Deming et al background. I even was a Fagan Inspection facilitator. We counted function points.
Years later I find myself in a different universe. There's been lots of growth, and more potential but we have very little common understanding of the need for configuration management or a rigorous testing/promotion process. We have a test environment but it's often bypassed with my management going straight to the vendor, changes going straight to production.
CMM level 0.5 all around. Maybe -1.
Managers have been around at large orgs and pay lip service to the process thing, and we have made improvements, but we also suffer from the pride of "let's put on the show right here in the barn!" thinking -– we're small, unconventional and smarter than the rest, yessir.
And even when we have made a stride or two in the quality direction, each personnel change on our side or the vendor side results in the whole thing falling down and going backwards, because it really wasn’t a core process change.
So where do I look for tips on how to get us all on the software process cluetrain?
Your article "A scandal unveiled," (Keep the Joint Running, 9/15/2003) was right up the same alley, but pointing in the opposite direction –- about enterprise apps that don't downscale. Well, we need the other thing –- upscale the brains to the support the enterprise approach, because we are already in the enterprise world.
My web searches only find the enterprise stuff -– ITIL, CMM, Six Sigma and all. Those are overwhelmingly complex and I get glassy eyed looks mentioning anything like that to my compatriots.
So are there any "software process improvement for SMB dummies" kind of programs I can latch on to?
- In Chaos
Dear In Chaos ...
Sounds to me like you do have a scaling-down challenge. You need software quality assurance and change control, only you need the "lite" versions.
They'll be far better than nothing at all, and as much as your company culture will allow. Let them gel, and remember, once you get on the process train, it's hard to stop before you arrive at bureaucracy station. I can understand your managers' allergies to the bulky ways of doing things they escaped from. I've escaped from them myself, and am glad of it.
I've also lived through the We're-Smarter-Than-Everyone-Else mentality enough times to know what it leads to ... usually, being dumber than everyone else. People who are really smarter than everyone else get that way by first learning what everyone else knows. Then they figure out what to do differently.
Assuming you're in a position to influence things, I see two basic strategies for getting the ball rolling, depending on the specifics of the social situation.
In the first, you and a compatible soul with equivalent influence in the software vendor work together to develop the plan. In the second, you and your manager put it together. It depends on which you think will be more effective.
The plan itself is pretty basic. It's a presentation that starts with two questions: (1) What risks aren't we willing to take? And (2) What risks are we willing to take?
The risks you aren't willing to take are:
- Intrusions.
- Installations that seriously degrade system performance or knock it down entirely.
- Becoming a stultifying bureaucracy.
The risks you are willing to take are:
- Software defects that result in unexpected application behavior (non-critical bugs).
- Features that end-users don't find as appealing as you expected.
Next slide: "This isn't just theory," listing catastrophes and near-catastrophes that everyone in attendance knows about.
Your next slide is titled, "Procedures we need to enforce to prevent the risks we aren't willing to take." List them.
Your voice over is that you no longer have a choice about instituting and enforcing these procedures. You do have a choice about how lean or bulky you make them.
Present to the key decision-makers ... one-on-one first, to get buy-in, then in a group setting to demonstrate consensus. Plan the sequence of presentation carefully, too. You don't want to offend key decision-makers by leaving them to last. You also don't want to waste their time by meeting with them too early, before you've perfected the pitch.
This is just a sketch, of course. It should get you pointed in the right direction.
And don't become discouraged if nobody buys what you're selling. Chances are they won't, until there's a life-threatening experience.
Facts and logic by themselves are rarely persuasive, especially in companies that are making money.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 28, 2008 06:10 PM
March 26, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Selling a more open environment to management
Dear Bob ...
I actually agree with your position [on opening up PCs, see for example "The feasibility of unlocked desktops," Keep the Joint Running, 3/24/2008] and I try to advocate policies that only "punish the guilty", but this is a very hard sell in the boardroom. Directors will not make decisions based on what my gut says is the right policy. They also make it very painful to explain this position whenever something goes south and the bad apple employee floats to the top.
So, I'm looking for a way to sell an "open use" culture to the board without completely leaving my pants down around my ankles. I hate metrics also, it's like "no business left behind" where one size "must" fit all. But unfortunately, that is the stream we are all swimming in today. If you have any specific ideas of how we can translate this message from the soapbox to the bottom line, I sure would be listening. I'm in the choir preacher Bob, now how do we sell this good news to the directors and shareholders?
- Open to open
Dear Open ...
One of the best approaches is to force people in leadership roles to lead, rather than critiquing. Here's what I mean:
Put some values in front of them that they endorse -- in particular, the cultural value I mentioned, of encouraging initiative. Establish this as a precondition for specific acts of innovation -- the "cultural infrastructure" that's required for innovation to happen. Unlocking the desktop ("loosening the controls" is a better description) is part of this program.
It's the individual acts of innovation that provide measurable benefit. The challenge: Assigning a business value to the preconditions that encourage it.
Ask the company's leaders what value they place on establishing these preconditions.
This isn't at all different from more commonplace questions, like how a company should evaluate the business value of cycle time improvements. You can measure cycle time all you want and demonstrate that a process change has improved it. What you can't do is decide the financial value of a one-hour reduction.
Somebody has to accept that not all dots can be directly connected - that customers value faster delivery; that their valuing it leads to increased walletshare and retention rates, but that proving the connection probably isn't possible.
Part of asking leaders to lead is asking them to tell you what they value, especially when the connection between good practice and business success is indirect. Some will answer the question when you ask it. Others will duck. Either response tells you something important.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 26, 2008 07:25 AM
March 24, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...
I need some meeting tools, to keep order, steer content on point and so on.
I find that often, meetings up here take on a life of their own and the moderator cannot take them back without banging on the table.
Also, my boss is very articulate. In the last two tech meetings which he asked me to setup, I wrote concise invitations, and attendees came prepared to get work done.
Fortunately or unfortunately, he took control of the meeting. In the end, he acknowledged his commandeering of the meetings, said there was a lot accomplished, and thanked me for setting them up.
Nevertheless, I felt unprepared as a moderator in comparison to him and see I need to improve my skills. I have asked him to approve my attending some more practical seminars on this.
Before that ... any advice?
- Facilitation-challenged
Dear Facilitating ...
Sometimes, you do have to bang on the table. Just keep your good humor about you as you do so. Here are a few other techniques you might find helpful:
1. Make sure every meeting has a point -- a reason for taking place. Announce the reason at the beginning of the meeting (except for recurring meetings; even in these it's worth reminding attendees on a regular basis).
2. Make sure every meeting has an agenda -- a list of specific topics to be covered. First item on the agenda: Status of action items from previous meetings. Last item on the agenda: A review of all open action items, including new ones this week.
3. Always have a flip chart or whiteboard. Use it to list ideas so everyone can see them; to sketch designs so everyone has a common point of reference; and to keep a "Parking Lot" -- a place to list ideas that have no place on the agenda but still shouldn't get lost. If you use a whiteboard, bring a digital camera so it's contents don't get lost.
4. Every topic should finish with agreement on action -- who is going to do what, and when it will be delivered.
5. Get good at facilitation -- at making sure everyone is heard (including people who would rather sit silently) and that nobody dominates. For people who dominate: "Thanks, Ralph. I think we have that point recorded already -- does this say it?" (pointing at an item on a flip chart or the whiteboard -- another reason for making sure you have one, the other, or both). For non-participants, "What do you think about this, Fred? I know you have expertise in this subject."
Another aspect of facilitation: Get good at recognizing when the group has beat a subject to death. "I think we've said everything we have to say about this subject. The next agenda item is ..."
One more: Recognizing when it's time for a consensus check. "It sounds like we're close to a decision on this - namely, blah blah blah. Let's go around the room. Fred - agree or disagree? Ralph? John?"
6. Rotate responsibility for meeting notes. Whoever is responsible must get them out within 24 hours.
One good format for meeting notes is: Topic/Decisions/Comments (if needed)/Action Items. Repeat and summarize the action items at the end of the notes.
Bad format for meeting notes: "He said/she said/they said." This wastes everyone's time.
Last point: If you do need to bang your shoe on the table, use the heel. Otherwise you'll scuff the leather.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 24, 2008 05:53 PM
March 20, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Licensing rules for virtual machines
More about the legalities of running multiple virtual machines on the desktop:
I did some research on Microsoft's website. The language seems quite clear: OS licenses are tied to physical machines, not virtual machines.
In the current EULA for Windows XP Professional Edition Service Pack 2, the relevant text says:
1.1 Installation and use. You may install, use, access, display and run one copy of the Software on a single computer, such as a workstation, terminal or other device ("Workstation Computer"). The Software may not be used by more than two (2) processors at any one time on any single Workstation Computer.Seems clear to me that the license is tied to the hardware, not to any VM running on the hardware.
Here's the relevant text from "MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS WINDOWS VISTA BUSINESS":
2. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. Before you use the software under a license, you must assign that license to one device (physical hardware system). That device is the “licensed device.” A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a separate device.And,
a. Licensed Device. You may install one copy of the software on the licensed device.
You may use the software on up to two processors on that device at one time. Except as provided in the Storage and Network Use sections below, you may not use the software on any other device.
f. Use with Virtualization Technologies. You may use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system. If you do so, you may not play or access content or use applications protected by any Microsoft digital, information or enterprise rights management technology or other Microsoft rights management services or use BitLocker. We advise against playing or accessing content or using applications protected by other digital, information or enterprise rights management technology or other rights management services or using full volume disk drive encryption.This last is a baffling set of restrictions, but does not require a separate license for each VM.
Note that there is a lot of confusion on this subject, driven by the use of "Virtualization" both for server-side processing (for example Citrix, where you do need a license for each user) and for multiple VMs on the desktop (what I've been talking about).
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 20, 2008 05:54 AM
March 19, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...
I have long been a skeptic of metrics in IT. So many problems -- measuring the right thing, the reliability and sensitivity of the measures, creating perverse incentives, and gaming the measurement systems for starters. As a CIO, the only thing that really matters to me is how well the services I provide help everyone else in the organization perform well (output, cost reduction, quality, creativity, goodwill, widgets -- whatever they are measuring success on) relative to what IT services cost.
As I was crafting a message to a colleague today, I had an ah-ha moment fueled by and reinforcing my skepticism. I wondered:
Can we measure the value of performance metrics?
Has there been some objective measure of the performance of organizations that use SMART metrics versus those that don't?
In business it might be some measure of profitability trends, P/E ratio, and/or market capitalization. In government... well, that's tougher? Some measure of the effectiveness and value of the government services?
I have doubts as to whether the link between performance metrics and organizational performance has been proven. And if we can't measure it (the performance impact of metrics), how can we manage it?
Thought you might appreciate this angle on the topic. Most people I know would think I'm crazy with this line of reasoning. I may be crazy, but I don't think this line of reasoning is proof.
- Need a diagnosis
Dear Diagnosticated ...
Ah, you remind me of me! Way back when, I asked the budget director of my then employer what the Return on Investment was on the budgeting process. His answer ... I'm not making this up ... was, "We have to have budgets!"
Spoken in a thoroughly shocked tone of voice, too.
I don't know of any certain answer to your question regarding the existence of research on the subject. For questions of this kind -- do metrics/SMART goals/outsourcing/offshoring/whatever the heck -- result in business success, I go back to the two big studies I know about that looked at the sources for long-term business success: Jim Collins Good to Great study and William Joyce, Nitin Nohria, and Bruce Roberson's Evergreen Study.
Both isolated a list of factors required for companies to outperform their competitors consistently. Neither included metrics, SMART goals, outsourcing or offshoring as factors common to highly successful companies.
Draw your own conclusions.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 19, 2008 05:43 AM
March 15, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Legal challenges to virtual machines
Dear Bob ...
I talked with our PC support group about the topic you've been discussing the past few weeks [see for example "Getting to 21st century IT," Keep the Joint Running, 3/3/2008 - Bob].
The overriding concern voiced is the liability for improperly licensed software. From the company's point of view, we are liable for any illegitmate copies of software on any computer that connects to our network, no matter which virtual machine it is installed in. What would you say to an SPA auditor who came in and found this situation? There was also concern about the cost of three copies of the operating system - one for each virtual machine, etc.
- Concerned
Dear Concerned ...
I wonder to what extent fear of SPA audits prevents good business. In any event, to answer your question (what would I say to an SPA auditor?) I think I'd say, "Show me your search warrant."
Then I'd call my Microsoft sales rep and point out that while I don't have a lot of choice about whether to use Windows on my company's desktops and laptops, nor about whether to use MS Office, I have a lot of choice when it comes to whether I use/continue to use SQL*Server, Sharepoint, Exchange, IIS, and a very wide variety of other Microsoft products.
Yes, it's Microsoft. Microsoft is a business. That means its sales reps want to do more business with you, not less.
I'm not sure of the legal situation when it comes to virtual machines layered on top of physical machines. To the extent I can figure out the Windows EULA, each license is good for one physical machine. I don't think I've seen any prohibition against installing a license more than once on different virtual machines that run on the same physical machine.
In any event, corporations can usually negotiate minor changes in license terms. I'd think this one would be pretty innocuous from Microsoft's perspective.
So far as illegitimate application software, I'm pretty sure (although I'm certainly not an attorney) that as with harassment, a demonstration that the company has exercised reasonable care in trying to prevent abuses is the key issue - not the existence of a small number of "undocumented" applications.
Plus, with both the locked-down and sandbox VMs the company can and should use scanning software to detect and inventory all applications installed everywhere. When something new pops up, IT asks the user to document the software's legitimacy.
That leaves the personal VM - the physical hardware attaches to the corporate network but the personal VM stays outside the corporate firewall.
You educate your employees regarding the rules; a bad apple or two violate the rules. How liable is your company?
I don't know the answer. I do know that Exxon/Mobil is pushing the legal theory that it isn't legally responsible for the actions of the Exxon Valdez's captain. That would seem to be an applicable precedent.
Even if the SCOTUS finds against Exxon/Mobil, I'm pretty sure the harassment standard of taking reasonable care should keep a company out of trouble with this, but it's very hard to say for sure.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 15, 2008 01:03 PM
March 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Are weekly status reports a good idea?
Dear Bob ...
What do you think of weekly status reports for developers?
As an IT manager with a number of direct reports, I find it hard to keep track of work being done so I know when to assist some developers. More to the point, some developers tend to spin their wheels on work and need direction from time-to-time to keep moving.
I want to avoid micromanaging but I also need to make sure I can keep the projects moving and mentor those that need help.
Note that I do have one-on-one meetings with everyone on the development team but cannot meet with all of them every week.
- Macro-manager
Dear Macro ...
Weekly status reports are, I think, like timesheets. Some managers insist on them, others don't. Sometimes they provide valuable information, sometimes employees more or less invent the data just before they're due. Generally, developers like neither, viewing both as bureaucratic wastes of time.
The difference between the two is that managers eventually discover inaccuracies in the weekly status reports.
I think the big challenge with weekly status reports is that they are something employees do to help managers, not something employees perceive as creating value for them. They don't pass the WIIFM (What's In It For Me) test.
One possibility (not something I've tried) is to divide the status report in two. Monday morning, developers would be responsible for delivering their plan for the week - ideally, not more than half a page of expected deliveries, each with a space next to it to enter the date delivered. Friday afternoon they are responsible for delivering the same document with delivery dates filled in.
Add to the Friday document comments on issues, barriers and so on, and it might be painless enough that it will make sense to everyone as being a planning exercise as opposed to a reporting exercise.
The most important factors for deciding whether to do this, and then on making it work, are:
- Being clear about what you're looking for (including providing a template, so it's a fill-in-the-blanks exercise, not a blank-sheet-of-paper essay).
- Keeping it as minimalist as possible so it doesn't become burdensome.
- Communicating why it's important, so everyone understands and it doesn't become "just paperwork."
- If at all possible, finding a way for it to be useful for the developers, for the reasons outlined above.
When you interact with employees, the second version is far more effective, for a simple reason: You're talking with them about their work as what matters, not about their obligations to you as what matters.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 14, 2008 12:13 PM
March 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)
More on whether or not to open up PCs
Dear Bob ...
I've read your recent article concerning the PC at work viz-a-viz the PC at home ("The portal," Keep the Joint Running, 2/25/2008).
Needless to say as a support technician dealing with the users in a corporate environment, the idea of the PC as a portal is not only a bad one, it merely throws wide the barn door to a series of problems and issues. And opening up the PC for the users leads not to a portal, but a black hole that sucks away time and energy from both the user and the technician who has to support the systems.
Let me give you a good example. Our systems are locked down so that the users cannot install whatever software they wish on the machines. The reason and rationale for this is because of the cost of maintaining and repairing the machines when (not if, when) the user causes either conflict with existing company packages or incompatibility with the same packages.
The need for maintaining a common software platform is to provide ease of maintenance and lower the cost of support. Yet when we do allow the user administrative rights (either via local rights or via a software server that elevates rights prior to installing software) the user will put all kinds of software on the machine that has nothing to do with the business. Media players, browser plugins, screensavers and other downloads will appear overnight, springing up like the fungus that they are.
When the machine starts having problems, it's your responsibility to fix it, but mention removing the problem software and they'll scream they need it.
You also mention 'work/life balance.' Oddly enough, I may be an exception to the rule, as when I leave work for the day, I LEAVE work. As in, I leave whatever problems, issues, projects, documentation, etc. at my desk where it belongs, and enjoy my evenings, weekends and vacations without having to answer emails, phone or text messages about work issues.
I don't want to be bothered when the idea is for rest and relaxation, and actually despair at my co-workers who absolutely have to bring their work home with them. That portal is a ball and chain, erasing their personal life and replacing it with a madness that typifies today's society.
Central IT provides a core set of procedures and products that every user in a company has. You don't want the users to be going down to Costco to purchase those PC's as they'll come back to you demanding support for their problems, their mistakes and failures.
Because I'd tell them 'you bought them, you support them. Oh, and figure out how you're going to get the company software on them, as we won't let them on the network otherwise.' Letting the users go where they want, install what they want, do whatever they want only leads to madness.
Please have exact change ready if you're going that route.
- Support tech
Dear Tech ...
I'm not recommending that users view their PCs as portals. I'm reporting it.
I'm not advocating a wide-open free-for-all either. I'm pointing out what should be obvious to everyone in IT. The reason it isn't is because of the tendency most of us have to look at the world through our own eyeballs instead of the eyes of the people we need to communicate with.
What I'm asking you and my other subscribers to do is to forget all about how inconvenient and costly it all is, and instead to think about the world as end-users experience it. They go home, fire up their Costco PC (or whatever) which has, in addition to Office and e-mail, and AOL or MSN or whatever: The software they use to download digital photos from their cameras and edit them; Skype; various games; browser plug-ins; iTunes; PDA/Smartphone interface software; Quicken; and TurboTax.
Or whatever their list happens to be, and it all works together with no problems.
Then they go to work, where they have MS Office, Outlook, a browser with no plug-ins allowed, and nothing else. Knowledgeable people like you inform them it has to be this way because if you allow anything else it will all fall apart.
Then they go home, where it hasn't fallen apart. They don't feel like they dodged a bullet. They wonder about why you tell them something that's so counter to their experience.
This is the world IT is living in: End-users who find themselves using crippled technology at work compared to what they use routinely at home.
Just my opinion: IT's credibility is at stake. Providing an impoverished technical environment is why. Figuring out what to do about it won't be as easy as just locking everything down. That doesn't make it less important. Just harder.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 8, 2008 01:07 PM
March 06, 2008 | Comments: (0)
And now, time for some self-indulgence
I use a Treo 700P. Not the newest technology, but certainly not obsolete.
I don't travel to Europe very much, but I do have a trip next week, so I called my cellular provider to activate international roaming.
I waited in the various queues, was only transferred once, and then was told, "to activate international roaming, call this number:" followed by a toll-free number.
Think about this for a moment - it's a telephone company, and its customer support representatives can't transfer me to another number in the same company!
Which leads to the first piece of advice: If you're responsible for the company's telephone technology ... Don't. Do. This. It. Makes. Your. Company. Look. Stupid. And. Incompetent.
Are we clear?
And now for the coup de grace: I called the number and talked with a very nice person who told me the Treo 700P isn't compatible with European cellular telephone standards - it can't be made to work.
This leads to my second piece of advice: At least be honest. The 700P works fine in Europe, for providers that use GSM. My cellular provider doesn't support international roaming on the Treo 700P. Blaming Palm isn't just cheesy.
It assumes I don't know how to use Google.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 6, 2008 03:09 PM
March 05, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...
I found it ironic, that just as you are suggesting a new way of looking at the PC (in "The portal," Keep the Joint Running, 2/25/2008), Microsoft is making it even easier to look at it the old way.
I received from InfoWorld a letter: A long, long look at Windows Server 2008. This is Tom Yager's review of Windows Server 2008.
In the email, it states: "Tom notes the strength of the security features, especially the ease with which administrators can lock down clients on and off the network. "
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/25/09TC-windows-server-2008_1.html
While the individual may look at the computer as a portal, business apparently can not be so lax. After all, look at how much trouble has been caused because an individual downloaded a database to his laptop so he or she could continue work on a project at home, and then when the laptop is lost or stolen, a few gigabytes of customer information gets released.
My view of the corporate computer is a world away from my view of my personal computer. But maybe that's because I was brought up in the days of the Teletype, paper tape, punch cards and the VT220 terminal.
- Pondering the irony
Dear Pondering ...
I'm not the first to ask the question of why any business user ever would need credit card or social security numbers in any kind of personal file for any reason at all. The subject is usually folded into this debate. It shouldn't be: Look at the PCI specification and you'll find all credit card numbers should be encrypted in all databases if they are stored. Period. I'd say the same basic prudence should be applied to social security numbers, too.
If you run an operation where business users routinely have sensitive information in their files, use one of the many available products that encrypt the contents of the hard drive. Use biometrics (now cheap) instead of password protection.
There are solutions to most of these challenges other than locking everything down.
Of course, it is also true that nothing fits every situation. I'm sure there are contexts in which total lockdown is the only appropriate solution. That this is true doesn't mean it's therefore the right answer for all of the other contexts.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 5, 2008 05:36 AM
March 04, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Getting to 21st century IT - User-owned PCs?
In this week's Keep the Joint Running, ("Getting to 21st century IT," 3/3/2008), I mentioned a radical approach:
Correspondent Richard Resnick provided the most extreme suggestion: No corporate-owned PCs at all. Let employees buy their own -- whatever they think they need to do their jobs. It's Nicholas Carr's vision in reverse: Only central IT remains. Employees take over ownership of the periphery, including responsibility for their own PC support.It's an intriguing alternative, and not one easily envisioned. Certainly, the nature of the protections IT would institute would be very different given the change in boundary. I leave the specifics as an exercise for the reader.This is your chance. What do you think of the idea ... not for production staff like call center agents, of course, but for travelers, analysts, developers and so on.
Comments, anyone?
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on March 4, 2008 05:45 AM
February 29, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Can virtualization resolve the IT/end-user disconnect?
In this week's Keep the Joint Running ("The portal," 2/25/2008) I described the contrast between IT's view of the PC as a business computing device and the average end-user's perspective - that it's a portal to a universe of possibilities - I received this suggestion. I'll be interested in everyone's comments on this approach.
- Bob
Dear Bob ...
What if...
... each employee's PC had two virtual machines installed -- one the locked-down "business computer" with the standard productivity and security apps and conservative security settings (for doing "serious" work) and the other a "sandbox" with wide-open, go-to-whatever-web-site, minimal security settings and any cool app you wanted to install and try out.
Add a keystroke toggle (or even an extended desktop with both environments open) and a secure (but not impossibly hard) way to move truly useful information from the sandbox to serious side, and mix in some process for peer review of your downloaded app "finds" (that IT has to consider for installing on the serious side if enough users give it an "A").
Finally, give the users a button to click to "reset" the sandbox to pristine condition if (when) things get too crazy.
Could we make peace between the IT and user worlds?
- Will Pearce
Dear Will ...
Will …
Seems like a good start to me. As with so many ideas, the devil is in the details. Let's think what Advice Line's subscribers think about it.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on February 29, 2008 09:14 AM
February 26, 2008 | Comments: (0)
A comment in response to a comment in response to my recent KJR and Advice Line discussing Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI):
Stephen wrote:
"The problem is that "one size fits all" can easily turn into "one size fits none". Innovation is easily stifled when all changes have to go through layers of bureaucracy (which I presume CMMI imposes)."
Your statement above is ~85% right. The first 85%.
CMMI does *not* impose layers of bureaucracy. How exactly do layers of bureaucracy improve productivity and performance and reduce waste?
Granted, layers of bureaucracy are exactly how way too many organizations get to a CMMI rating, but that's not the model's fault. That's a fault of making the rating the goal (at any cost) instead of honest improvement the goal (to lower cost).
Bob's Last Word:
Oh, now hold on a minute, hoss. "... but that's not the model's fault. That's a fault of making the rating the goal (at any cost) instead of honest improvement the goal (to lower cost)."
You're forgetting the first rule of measurement: You always get what you measure. It's the risk you take.
That means:
If you measure the right things wrong, you get the wrong results.
If you measure the wrong things, right or wrong, you get the wrong results.
And anything you don't measure you don't get.
Once SEI established a maturity measure, it's a slam dunk organizations will go for the number. They'll only achieve the underlying goal (a) by accident, or (b) because the number is so well correlated with the goal that you can't achieve one without the other.
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on February 26, 2008 08:19 PM
February 25, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dear Bob ...
How do you feel about compressed work weeks? As an employee I love working 4x10s. But as an IT manager it's a real headache. I work as an IT supervisor for a large, 24x7 service organization. Its staff work compressed work weeks, 4x10s starting on various days of the week.
Most of my IT staff prefers to work 4x10s as well. This practice was well established before I got here and even though it's stressed that having an RDO (regular day off) during the week (Friday or Monday) is a privilege, not a right, it's become blasphemous for managers to expect them to come in on their RDO for whatever reason, even if it's just for a one hour meeting to tackle a problem.
So if I have a project team that needs to meet, I'm pretty much restricted to meeting only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I've seen time and again where we I've had to put off meeting with customers, or working an issue for up to 5 days until I have my entire IT staff available. On Fridays and Mondays I'm basically at half staff. We're swamped with work and with severe cash problems we can't get our open positions filled, let alone get new positions created.
I've been slowly pushing my own IT team to see the benefits (from the customer's perspective) of working 5x8s as opposed to 4x10s, but it's hard going. Especially when I get flak from other IT supervisors who think it's such a great perk for their folks that they'd never think of "doing that to them".
I'm retired military and I feel my perspective must be too jaded because I try to satisfy the needs of the department first, then the work units, then the individual. And that rubs some folks the wrong way.
What's your thought on something like this where budgets are getting very tight and we're constantly expected to "do more with less", yet folks aren't willing to give an inch?
- Frustrated
Dear Frustrated ...
It (of course!) depends on a number of specifics.
A point to get out first: Times are tight, which likely means everyone has more work without getting more pay or support. A minor perk like a 4x10 work week is worth preserving under these circumstances. You need everything you can get in the way of providing a great work environment in order to prevent defections.
Other thoughts:
One big advantage to the 4x10 work week is that employees get two hours a day when their ability to focus on a single task is much improved. This isn't an advantage to be sneezed at.
On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of having everyone scheduled either Monday through Thursday or Tuesday through Friday. As you point out, you end up staffed only 50% Mondays and Fridays.
While the employees wouldn't like this as much, a switch to weekends plus a rotating third day off would fix the coverage problem without causing undue hardship. Employees would get a three-day weekend two weeks out of five. The remaining weeks they'd be off Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Employees on project teams would have identical rotations, so that while you couldn't get them all together on Friday (perhaps), you'd have four days a week when the whole team can meet.
That's one approach I'd think everyone could at least live with.
From your description, I don't think your issue is the 4x10 work week. It sounds to me that your IT organization suffers from CWS - Clock Watchers Syndrome. I am sympathetic to employees who would prefer to not drive in to work for a one-hour meeting. Teleconferencing in would see