Our local high school football team, the Columbia Central Lions, played in the 5A State Championship game last night and won, , , first time in 58 years. It was a huge accomplishment after losing in the finals with last year’s team, but it was not the real story of the day.

I should point out that I’m not really a Columbia Central fan and haven’t been to any of their games, , , and knew very little about the football team other than that they had a good one. But something drew me to them as I surfed through the TV channels last night and saw they were about to play in the State Championship Game.

As I began to watch, I learned about Dylan Rebeor and his story. He was 16 and a member of the Central Lions football team.  Dylan passed away that very morning from colon cancer complications.

Maybe it was compelling because he was 16 and that’s the same age we almost lost our son, Eddie, from an automobile accident. We were fortunate.

Dylan attended all the games this season he could even though his health and strength kept declining. He was barely able to attend last week’s semifinal game and continued to do anything he could to be part of the team and support his teammates. To say he was an inspiration to his team and community is an understatement.

Yesterday morning on the day of the big game and in a weakened state, Dylan asked his Mother if his grandmother was with them.   She told him to “Go be with her if you want to”. You see, his grandmother was no longer living.

He asked one more question, “Did we win the game?”

Her answer was simply, “Yes, we won the game.” It was soon after that moment Dylan passed away.

Well, Columbia Central did eventually win the game later that night and became State Champions.  Dylan wasn’t at the game physically, but you could tell everyone believed he was with them, , , doing everything he could do to help his team.

How does this tie to IT management?

It comes back to my personal perspective of things. As I mentioned, we almost lost our son at 16 in 1993. It was one of the toughest times a parent can go through, so I understand a little about what Dylan’s parents dealt with over the last 9 months.

These situations also help you grow, albeit painfully. Now, when I have a difficult situation, it’s easier for me to understand that there are far worse things that could happen. Dealing with a problem employee, working with an unappreciative client, or even being nervous about the big presentation you have to deliver, , , they are trivial in the big picture of things, , , and certainly not life and death situations.

Even in our most difficult moments with Eddie’s recovery, we didn’t have to look very far to see people and other parents who had far worse situations to deal with. Eddie still has his challenges, but you know what, , , we all have our challenges. His issues and challenges are unique to him just as your challenges are unique to you. It’s all about how we deal with them and become a stronger person in the process.

So, the next time you have to handle a difficult situation, put it into perspective. It may still be difficult but maybe not so stressful when you have it in context with your life and what’s truly important.

Very simple – Do what you say you will do!

More specifically, , , Deliver projects successfully.

A bit more defined: Recommend only things that contribute tangible business value, that are always cost justified, , , and then deliver what you say you can do.

If you’ve read my articles, you should know I define “business value” in specific terms:

• Increase revenue
• Decrease cost
• Improve productivity
• Differentiate the company
• Improve client satisfaction

If your projects do not target one or more of these, you need to seriously consider whether you really need to spend time and money on it. It could be possible that you think your “pet project” is the right thing to do, but your business client doesn’t understand it at all. If that’s the case, there is a good chance it’s the wrong thing to do.

Managers who are tagged for promotion and more responsibility “get it”, , , they understand that all service organizations (IT department being one of them) are useful only if they compliment business operations and do things that helps the operations deliver the core products or services to the company’s ultimate client, , , those who buy from your company.

I have managed hundreds of projects in my career and even worked for a project management company at one point, , , but the company with the best and most practical resources I’ve seen is Tom Mochal’s company, TenStep, Inc. (www.tenstep.com)

I’ve known Tom since 2002 when we discovered one another writing articles for TechRepublic. Little did we know that we lived just 20 miles from one another in the suburbs of Atlanta, GA. Thankfully, we met for lunch and got to know one another because not long after we would move “back home” to Tennessee.

Tom Mochal

Tom is one of those rare people that when you meet him, you know immediately he is someone you want to work with. Over the years I have gotten to know Tom quite well and invited him into my inner circle, , , we try to meet quarterly to discuss business issues and to collaborate as we strategize the future of our companies.

TenStep provides pretty much anything you want for project management, from training you to managing a project for you. Tom is one of the foremost authorities on PM methodology and Program Management in the PM space.

TenStep has an unbelievable amount of training for all levels of project managers including classroom, webinar, and e-Learning, , , probably as much or more than any company in this space.

TenStep also has international partners who carry the TenStep brand, , , you can find them on the TenStep web site at www.tenstep.com.

I’ve worked with dozens of project managers over the years, and Tom is at the top of the list. I’ve seen him in action on a few projects and no one handles PM issues any better, , , he is truly world class.

In looking back, I think Tom was absolutely the best choice to partner with when developing the 20 Minute IT Manager e-Learning series. He and I delivered 162, 20-minute sessions, , ,  a new session every week for 3 years. See the list at www.20minuteitmanager.com.

I try to be fun, , , even funny , , , and at times, I’m extremely funny. The problem is that maybe no one else realizes it except my wife. She laughs at me all the time because she gets my sense of humor.

The challenge I have is that I have a very dry sense of humor. But I have a secret for you. If you ever met Tom Mochal, you would realize that I am extremely funny.

Just kidding, Tom.

You see, Tom and I both have a dry sense of humor. I can listen to Tom and pick up his very subtle humor, , , and when you “get it”, he is terribly funny, , , I mean very, very funny.

A few weeks ago I said something to my wife and son that literally “cracked me up”. I started laughing at my own comment and couldn’t stop. It was so funny, I was crying. No one else was laughing, but I was totally caught up with how funny this comment was.

Wish I could remember what it was, , , ,

Oh well, the point is that I learned about humor from my Dad and from my son, Eddie.  Daddy Gene (as we called him) and Eddie were born on the same day – November 23rd. Both of them had (my Dad) and have (my son) a great sense of humor. They truly understood how to enjoy life.

Most people who know me would say that I’m a pretty serious guy. Yeah, that fits, , , but there’s a Johnny Carson in me dying to get out and make everyone laugh.

My Dad taught me how to enjoy life to the fullest. He never had a lot of money but what he had was a love of life and the people around him. I’ve often thought he was one of the richest men alive because he enjoyed his life so much. As I get older, I’m hoping I become more and more like him.

I’m pretty certain I’m getting just a little funnier every year.

The lesson: Learn to love your life or make changes so you can. Life is too short to be miserable and not be able to enjoy each and every day. What you will find is that the people around you become more positive forces as well, , , and that’s a good thing for you and your IT organization.

Over 90% of us in IT are high detail people. That’s a good thing.

However, being a high detail person comes with some drawbacks that you need to be aware of.

One challenge is that high detail people tend to be perfectionists.

Now, when you are a Systems Administrator, a DBA, a Programmer, or some other type of technical resource, , , this high detail aspect is not only desired, , , it is necessary to a great extent. What happens if your Systems Administrator updates one of the servers and selects an inappropriate parameter setting? You got it, , , he or she can crash the server, , , so being precise is important in our technical roles.

As a manager, being precise can be a tremendous disadvantage.

Being precise means it may take too long to make a decision.

Being precise may mean no decision will be made until we have enough information, , , which may or may not ever be obtained.

Being precise may mean we do things right but fail to do the right thing, , , a big problem for an IT manager.

Be aware that if you are a high detail person, it may be appropriate and necessary for you to “pull it back” to a level when you become the manager. Now is the time to depend on others to wade into the detail and understand all the technical issues of a situation. Now is the time to manage and delegate, not to try to do everything yourself.

It’s difficult to back off your innate desire to get to the bottom of an issue and to be the problem solver like you have been for so many years, , , but if you don’t, your team and you will suffer.

Take a hard look at yourself and ask yourself the question, “Am I a perfectionist?” If so, make a conscious effort to let go of some of the detail and rely on the expertise of others you work with to be the experts. Your role as manager is to focus at an issue level, not necessarily the detail level.

CONGRATULATIONS, , , you finally received that promotion you have been looking for , , , smooth sailing ahead – right !!

Hopefully when you get promoted it will be smooth sailing and lots of opportunity ahead. But, it could also be a big challenge for you, , , especially if your promotion means you will be managing some of your peers.

Managing peers can be a huge challenge. When I was with IBM many years ago, they had a policy of moving you to another city when you got promoted because they understood how difficult it is to manage your peers.

That’s right, at the end of the week you are big buddies with everyone you work with but come next week when you start your newly assigned management role, things are going to be different.

Very Different !!!

The dynamics change drastically and they change immediately when you become the manager after being one of the employees. Whether you think so or not, your former buddies you worked alongside view you differently now. You are management, , , not “one of the guys”.

Most will be more cautious around you now, some may wonder why you got the job and what makes you qualified, and one or two might even be jealous that you got the promotion instead of them. Regardless of how they see the situation, they will react differently to you from now on, , , because you are the manager.

Now that you have the job, you have to be careful and avoid micro managing your employees. Most of us in IT are high detail and we like doing things “our way”. You may have gotten the Programming Manager position because you were the best programmer.

As the senior programmer, you probably had your way of doing things and was very effective. As manager, your tendency will be to require all programmers to do things the way you did them. I’m not saying this will be wrong but you need to have good reasoning when you make changes in the way things are being done, , , especially if the team is already effective.

You had credibility as a programmer, but you don’t have it as the manager, , , you must earn your management credibility. You do this by delivering results and in treating your employees and clients with respect.

I usually develop two strategies after completing an IT assessment.

First, a tactical strategy that entails the next 60-90 days, but could be up to 180 days (6 months). Once I get my staff focused on the “immediate” targets of our tactical plan, I begin working on developing the strategic IT plan.

The strategic plan is usually focused on the next 18-24 months unless my company wants something longer like a 3-year strategy or a 5-year plan. If that’s the case, my primary focus still tends to be on the first two years, , , and the strategy elements beyond two years get much more general in nature.

The reason I try to keep my IT strategies focused to two years is because you can see two years out, but technology is changing so fast that it can get pretty blurry beyond two years.

Think about this for a second. Look back to 2005, just five years ago. Lots of change and many innovations have occurred in the last five years, , , and technology continues to change at a faster and faster rate.

I have been in the IT world since 1969 and I can tell you that we take many things for granted. For example, most of you reading this article were not in IT before the spreadsheet. Prior to Excel and Lotus 1-2-3, it was Visicalc that revolutionized the accounting world by eliminating paper and pencil, , , and lots of erasers.

You might also be surprised to learn that we didn’t always have project management methodologies, let alone project management certifications like PMP thirty years ago.

Have you paid attention to the advances in PC and laptop technology? The power and capacity keeps going up while the price falls. The 300GB disk drive capacity alone in the Lenovo ThinkPad I carry around would have required some 6,000 square feet of floor space 30 years ago, , , and think of the heat all these disk drives created. In fact, one of the Division Headquarters of IBM actually heated its building from the heat created from the CPU’s, disk and tape drives that had less disk capacity than my laptop.

That’s right, many of the things we have today and take for granted had to be developed as new technologies, methodologies, and tools. What will be great about this is that in ten or twenty years from now, we will look back at what we have today and think we sure were struggling compared to what we will be able to do then.

Enjoy the fact that technology is doing so much to improve our lives, , , but be careful when you try to forecast or build your IT strategies beyond two years out.

If you are in the IT world for very long, you soon learn that things can go awry at times. You need to “expect the unexpected” and plan on what you would do if and when it occurs.

What I mean is that you should anticipate things will happen, , , because they will. Think about the scenarios of what can go wrong and plan your move in case it does so you are ready when it happens.

I’m not saying that you should spend all hours of the day worrying and thinking about what might happen, , , but you do want to give it at least a little thought. You will be much more prepared to react and take care of the problem when it occurs.

Let me give you a couple examples:

1. When I travel to teach an IT Manager Institute, I do two things to anticipate potential flight problems. First, I reserve a flight that gets me there on Saturday so I have an extra day (just in case) and it also allows me to rest and get adjusted to the local time. Many of my trips are 14 hour flights and more. Second, I take an earlier flight to Atlanta or wherever I must make my international connection. If the flight gets postponed or cancelled, I can always get the next flight and still get to the main airport to make my connection.
2. I built time buffer into my IT Manager Institute class, , , just in case we have a power outage or other mishap. In my 10th Institute in Curacao, that’s exactly what happened, , , a tropical storm knocked out the Marriott Hotel’s power and their backup generator. We had no power for half the day, , , but because I anticipated the possibility of such a thing, it was no issue in getting through all the material. 

When you manage projects, build budgets, install a system upgrade, etc., , , be sure to anticipate the things that might go wrong and put some buffer into your plan. When the unfortunate event does occur (and it will at some point), you will be glad you did.

Make it a habit to “expect the unexpected” and teach your employees to do the same. It will help you become a more responsive IT organization.

Expect the unexpected !!

I’m sure you have experienced a time when you called in your IT resource to help you troubleshoot an issue. Maybe you have called a Help Desk resource supporting one of your software applications.

The story often goes like this. The technicuian starts “working on things” before you even have a chance to fully describe the problem you have. Before you know it, he is either making settings changes to your PC or telling you over the phone to do things.

I call these guys “hip shooters”. They start doing things before they understand the issue. These types can be very dangerous, break a lot of things, and create much frustration.

After a lengthy time and getting no further than when you started, the support resource tells you that you need to reload the software or to rebuild your PC. I’ve only had this happen once or twice and glad I decided to seek a second opinion before going down this perilou path.

Today, I’m in a Dubai hotel and my Internet connection is lost. Everything was working fine last night and early this morning, but seems like I haven’t been getting to the Internet for a couple of hours. The three email messages I though I had sent are still sitting in my Outbox, , , OUCH!!

I hate it when this happens.

Well, when you travel you are going to have Internet connection challenges from time to time. I’m pretty comfortable doing the basic checks that end up getting me the connectivity I so desperately seek, so it wasn’t a big deal.

But today, , , all the troubleshooting ideas I could come up with simply didn’t work!!

Finally, after about an hour of doing my own troubleshooting, I call the Front Desk and ask if they have an IT Support Technician, , , knowing that this could be either a very good experience , , , or a very bad experience.

My support arrives within 10 minutes, , , a good sign.

The result, , , a couple of quick checks, , , a router reboot in his system room, , , and we are all squared away. In all, it took maybe another 10 minutes.

I plan to give the hotel manager a note of appreciation and a job well done. This guy was sharp, no nonsense, great communication skills, , , asked my permission to do certain things on my laptop versus just making changes on the fly, , , just a super professional. I was impressed!

Guys like this need to be appreciated, and I certainly appreciate his help, , , hence, you are getting this Blog post now and not many hours or days later. 

A good IT technician is worth his weight in gold. When you have a really good one, treat him or her well.