Does your company do an “IT chargeback”?

Posted on May 28, 2011 | 1 comment

An IT chargeback is an internal accounting procedure where your company charges departments for the cost of IT support.  They do this to help organizations understand that IT is not free.

You see, it’s easy for a department manager to think IT support is free when the IT employees are part of the same company. So, if they want programming customizations, they merely submit an endless wish list of new enhancements, changes, etc.

The problem, , , IT is not free, , , IT support costs your company millions of dollars each year.

If a department had to obtain programming support from an outside company, they would pay anywhere from $50 to $150 per hour for the work they request. Our company has to pay for this whether it uses internal programming resources or an outside company, , , so it’s always a real cost to provide these services.

In order to reflect IT support usage, companies sometimes charge the non-IT departments a percentage of the total IT cost based upon how big they are. It’s called an “IT chargeback”. I’ve seen this calculated by department revenue, by number of employees in the department, or just flat percentage rates the company imposes.

What accounting will do is spread the total IT expense out to all the departments of the company, , , until the “net expense for IT shows $0.00. It’s only an internal accounting procedure to spread support costs out to the organizations using the support.

Usually when a company decides to do this, they add budget dollars to non-IT departments who will receive these allocations. If the IT department spends exactly what they budget for, there will be a zero budget impact to the non-IT departments.

If your company plans to implement a chargeback policy, be prepared for some push back by the non-IT departments. They don’t like it.

They view their department being charged for things they don’t do and it possibly affecting their financial performance. In reality, it won’t affect financial performance at all because the non-IT department gets additional budget dollars added to their budget to cover it, , , but I can tell you firsthand there will be resistance from the department heads.

When implemented well, all organizations gain a better understanding of the costs associated with IT support and have more incentive to manage their IT support need.

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Yogi said it

Posted on May 28, 2011 | 1 comment

Some of you may not know who Yogi Berra is. Well, , , he was a famous baseball player who played for the New York Yankees from the late 1940’s to the mid-1960’s.

He was a great catcher and was voted Most Valuable Player of the American League three times and hit the most home runs for a catcher by the end of his career. His New York Yankee teams played in 14 World Series winning 10 times, a record at that time for a player.

He was a very successful baseball player and one of the most quoted people in the world. But, it isn’t his baseball that made his so famous.

What Yogi is more noted for are the press quotes he was famous for saying.  They are unique to say the least.

There were many, , , so many there is a book titled, The Yogi Book. One of his press quotes is on the cover, “I really didn’t say everything I said.”

Here are just a few. See if you have heard any of them:

“It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

“90% of the game is half mental.”

“You can observe a lot by watching.”

“Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded.”  Talking about a restaurant.

“A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”  One of my favorites!

“It’s deja vu all over again.”

“90% of short putts don’t go in.”  After missing a putt in a charity golf event

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Another favorite of mine

“We’re lost, but we’re making good time.”

“Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise they won’t go to yours.”

“Pair up in three’s.”

“It’s not too far; it just seems like it is.”

“You’ve got t be careful if you don’t know where you are going ’cause you might not get there.”

“The future ain’t what it used to be.”

I have a copy of this book sitting in my office and pull it out ever now and then when I need a break from the work. Yogi took his profession seriously but he wasn’t so serious to forget about the fact there are other things important in your life. He was successful and had a sense of humor.

Wouldn’t you have to have a good sense of humor if you said these things?

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MDE Enterprises highlighted in Profile Magazine

Posted on May 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

Our company was highlighted in the May/June edition of Profile Magazine. Check them out at www.profilemagazineonline.com.

Lots of interesting articles.

Read the article.

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A company album to be proud of

Posted on May 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

Remember when you were in school and they created a class yearbook? They are great for retaining memories for a lifetime. One of the things I wish I had are some of the memories of my professional life. I have a few but not as many as I would like.

Right now, you may be experiencing one of the best times of your entire career but don’t yet realize it. I can remember three specific situations that I consider to be the “best of my career”. Unfortunately, I have only my personal memories.

It would be nice to have more photos and memorabilia from these special times.

Have you ever thought about creating a company album? I’m not talking about a photo album where you insert photos in plastic pages, , , I’m talking about full color high quality “coffee table” books made up of whatever topic and design you choose to create.

The publishing business has turned upside down with the innovation of technology, , , I mean completely upside down.

In a matter of a few hours, you can create a high quality photo book of any subject you like and have it sitting in your office in a few days, , , and at an unbelievable cost. All you need are the photos or images and your creative imagination.

I did this one of my son in less than an hour.  I wasn’t trying to be very creative, , , we just wanted a hard copy of a few of his photos to share with friends. It made great Christmas presents. CLICK HERE to view.

With digital photography, it is simple and easy to do, , , and extremely economical. Plus you can make your book available online to anyone for free, or they can order a real book for themselves.

My wife and I have created 5 or 6 of these “photo books”, and they are very special to us. My brother created three books about his 2-week trip to Italy. I’m about to create another for a very special gift to my wife. In fact, creating one for a Christmas gift is what got me interested in them.

I have one to remember my IT Manager Institute classes, , , a very special time in my life. CLICK HERE to view the book I created for the first five years of the program. At the end of 2012, I plan to create another for the next 5 years.

I wish I had one for each of the great company experiences I’ve had in my career.

Check out the book we created about our Buffalo River camp we call Camp Liberty. CLICK HERE

Why do I tell you all of this?

Our friends are amazed at our ability to do some of the things we do, , , like create nice photo books we can share with them. They don’t know how to even start to do this but would really like to.

As an IT organization, your clients and users are often in the same predicament as my friends, , , they don’t realize what can be done and even if they did, they wouldn’t know where to start or would be too intimidated by the technology to do it.

I tell my friends, “If I can do this, the technology can’t be that difficult.”, , , but because they know my IT management background, they think I’m very technical. It’s the farthest from the truth, , , the fact is, they are intimidated by technology so they don’t try.

Your CEO might be very interested in something like this as a way to create company cameraderie or give as a gift to employees, , , or to sit in the lobby for guests to browse through.

We use MyPublisher.com, but there are many to choose from. Simply do a keyword search on “photo books” and you will find several.

I chose MyPublisher because of the creative flexibility with the layout and the price. They are always promoting special discounts and that’s when we usually order. For example, they are running a Father’s Day special right now that would cut the cost of my IT Manager Institute book by two-thirds.  It’s a 96-page, full color hard bound book with dust cover, , , my price to reorder would be about $40.00. Now that’s a great bargain.

The other great thing is that when you publish a book for yourself, they give you a link to share the online version with your friends. They do this to advertise their service, but what a great deal. Who knows, , , this concept might even be a promotional idea your company could use.

When people view an online book, they can view the entire book for free or order a hard copy for themselves if they wish. This is nice if you don’t want to be in the order taking and fulfillment business.

A product like this would have cost $500.00 or more ten years ago. Today with the innovations in the publishing industry, it’s very inexpensive.

Take a look at the albums I shared with you and consider developing a Company Album, , , it might go over extremely well with your senior managers and marketing people.

You have to see one to believe how great the quality is, and it is a treasured product that will last a lifetime.

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Personal Inventory – time for reflection

Posted on May 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

I was asked to participate in a project with IT Business Edge to create a project guide for a new product offering they are developing.  My focus was to create a project guide for “Creating a Professional Development Plan for Yourself”.

First, a few questions for you:
1.  Do you have a career plan?
2.  Have you defined what you really want in life?
3.  Are you investing in yourself to achieve success?

Hopefully, the answer is “YES” to all of these questions. If not, you will want to take a look at the project guide when it is completed and released. As soon as it is, I will post an announcement on ITLever.

When I started to think about this project, the first thing that came to mind was the need to do a “self-evaluation”. It’s important to know “where you are” and “what you want” before you try to plan anything. If I were to create a professional development plan for myself, I would start with a bit of self-analysis.

Sooooo, , , this is exactly where I started with the project. I developed a simple tool called the Personal Inventory tool.

It is time to take an introspective look at yourself, , , and when you do, it will help you develop a plan for yourself.

CLICK HERE to download the tool.

The tool includes 5 sections. The information you provide will tell you or someone else quite a lot about you and what is important to you.

I.   Goals and objectives
What do you want to achieve in life. It could be anything, , , money, power, position, certain style of living, a happy family, , , it’s an endless list of things, but what is important is for you to identify it for yourself.

II.   Strengths and weaknesses
People do better with their strengths and weaknesses can hold us back. Depending upon your answer in Section I, you may need to do some work to eliminate or minimize certain weaknesses. You also want to take advantage of any strengths you have.

III.  Likes and dislikes
People tend to work harder and with more interest on what they like and avoid their dislikes. Sometimes, you may dislike something only because you aren’t very good at it or don’t know enough about it, , , many of these things can be overcome with knowledge and experience.

IV.   My passion in life
What makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning and rush to work because you love what you do – anything? Find a true passion for something and be able to work with it, , , and it won’t seem like work. Time will fly by because you love what you do. Find it and your career will take care of itself.

V.  How I want to be remembered
Have you ever thought about how you want people to remember you? What will they say about you when your name comes up? Your legacy is important so this part is important to think about.

This Personal Inventory tool is simple like all my tools, but it will give you a practical method to understand what you want in life and begin to develop yourself to make it happen.

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Are you a leader or follower?

Posted on May 21, 2011 | 1 comment

Do you prefer to take the lead and put yourself out front and willing to take a risk if what you do does not succeed?

Or do you prefer to avoid taking risks and follow someone else’s lead?

It is OK to be either type, you know, , , even in a management position. Some managers are better executioners of project initiatives than being able to develop strategy and getting senior managers to buy in.

It can be due to a lack of salesmanship, , , lack of confidence, , , or just not knowing how to go about it. A follower can become a leader if he wants to.

Becoming a leader is simply a matter of learning what to do, how to go about it, , , and having tools that help you lead.

Confidence comes with knowledge, , , and knowledge comes either from gaining experience or by investing in learning from others who have the experience.

Leadership traits are not something you just flip a switch and “turn on”. We wish it could be so easy.

What I believe happens is that you start investing in your knowledge and learn about leadership techniques and traits of leaders, , , and as you begin using this new-found knowledge in your work, , , you wake up one day and you are leading instead of following.

It’s not magic, , , it just happens as you begin doing things that leaders do.

Others are following your lead, , , and no one knows when the change took place in you although everyone realizes you went from following to leading.

Some people make the transition faster than others. I don’t know that there is a time line that matters.

The key here is that to become a leader, you make a decision to become a leader, , , you invest in learning how to take the lead and start doing things a leader would do and begin using tools that helps you lead.

It is always your decision in the long run, and like I said earlier, , , it is OK to be a follower, even in a manager role. If you decide to become a leader, , , invest in a mentor who can assist you in your transition.

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Should you care about employees browsing the Internet?

Posted on May 14, 2011 | 1 comment

Technology developments make us more productive than ever before – right?

Well, let’s consider a few things and think about this from a management point of view:

Pros
–  Information about virtually anything is much more accessible via the Internet.
–  Ability to communicate with one another is much better via e-mail and cell phones.
–  Every company can afford computer equipment and more productive processes.
–  Work is completed faster and easier with innovative software and equipment.

Cons
–  People productivity is reduced by so many distractions.
–  With greater communication accessibility comes more interruption.
–  Many people are not disciplined to avoid non-productive distractions of the Internet.

Great technology can be a double-edged sword, , , advantages that also come with many disadvantages. So, what this means is that it all comes down to how you manage technology in your company.

Do you have an Internet Usage Policy in your company?

Should you have one, , , or do you really want to manage the use of the Internet in your company in that way, , , by telling your people what they can and cannot do with the Internet at work?

This can be a delicate issue.

My sense is that you want people to be focused to do their jobs when at work. How they get the work done, I’m not so sure I really care about  as long as they accomplish our organization’s goals and objectives.

Well, here is the rub. Maybe your team is great in supporting your client but if they are seen playing solitaire or browsing the Internet on their PC much of the time, , , it sends the wrong signal to the client.

Even if the client does this as well, when they see an IT person “goofing off”, it’s a bigger deal to them.

One of the earmarks of a successful IT organization is professional conduct. Playing games and simply browsing the Internet is not professional conduct. No matter how good your IT organization is in supporting your client, , , there are positive things you can do in supporting your business if your people have lots of spare time on their hands.

Lots of spare time would at a minimum suggest you are probably spending too much money in IT staff, , , and that’s a negative.

As a manager, I don’t care that people browse the Internet as long as it is work related and something that benefits their efforts to support our client. The Internet in this regard is a tool to help us succeed.

What I do mind is when people are distracted from our support work and browse the Internet or play games that don’t benefit our company.

This again is a double-edged sword. IT professionals do things in their non-work hours that benefit the company and often use the Internet to help them in these efforts. It is difficult for me to be bothered if they are not 100% productive at work and expect them to do things outside of work to improve their skills and support our client.

What would be great would be if we could create very objective measurements as to whether IT people are successful in doing their jobs like you can for a salesman.

In sales, it is cut and dry. The salesman makes his monthly sales quota and we are happy, , , he doesn’t  and he fails in his job, , , it is that simple.

We don’t care how the salesman spends his time as long as he achieves his quota. In fact, management might even look at such a situation that if a salesman can make his quota and work only 10% of a normal week, , , we would be happy.

The key with sales  is that we can create a specific quota objective and hold the salesman accountable. What makes him more accountable is that he doesn’t get paid unless he sells. He either succeeds or the sales management process and how we pay a salesman weeds out the losers.

It’s more difficult in IT to develop such clear cut objectives, , , but what this says is that we need to develop very objective performance plans that include specific goals and objectives and hold our people accountable.

In reality , you don’t really care how an employee spends the day as long as he is successful. The problem develops if your client perceives members of your team are “goofing off”. This really is an issue to be concerned about.

Coach your employees on the “proper use” of the Internet, phones and other technologies that help their productivity but are quick to take them out of productive work mode.

Remember, client perception is a big deal when you are a support organization, , , no matter if you are the IT Organization or Human Resources.

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Friday the 13th

Posted on May 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

Today is Friday, the 13th. It is supposed to be unlucky so be careful.

Are you superstitious?

I never have been but some people are, , , even some on your IT staff are truly concerned about certain things happening that might cause them bad luck. My belief is that you create your own “good luck” by working hard and preparing for what you need to do.

Athletes can be very superstitious, , , especially baseball players. Are any of your people superstitious?

Here are a few superstitions people worry about. Got any from your part of the world? Leave a comment to this post and let us hear them.

Black cats crossing in front of you – Not an issue in our house. Our cat, Boo, is as black as can be and she only brings us good luck.

Walking under ladders – I can see how this could be unlucky. My Dad once tried to move a long extended ladder that was leaning on the side of a cabin and forgot he left his hammer hanging on the top rung. It nearly knocked him out when it slipped off and hit him in the head. Bad luck?

Break a mirror and it is 7 years bad luck – I’ve broken a mirror before and didn’t experience any bad luck, , , but who knows, , , it might have cost me millions of dollars.  🙂

Step on a crack, , , break your Mother’s back  –  This is a weird one I’ve heard all my life, , , not sure I understand it fully.

Have a great day, , , maybe this is your lucky day!!!

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Can you identify Mike Sisco?

Posted on May 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

I have an analytical challenge for you. Can you pick me out of the baseball team photo from my youth? Take a close look at the photo, decide, and answer the poll before you scroll down to see the answer.

1962 Lewis County Dixie Youth Baseball Team

Take a guess in the poll and we will see how many get it. Three clues follow to help you zone in on me. Click on the image for a closer view.

Three clues
First of all, , , a current photo of me is in the right-hand panel of this page, , , it should help you find me on the team photo. Surely, I haven’t changed that much in 49 years.

Got another surprise for you. My brother, Larry, who is 11 months younger than me is also in the team photo and there is one player sitting between us.

Need another tip? I’m wearing a baseball cap and Larry isn’t. This should give you the answer.

Make your best guess in the poll above before scrolling down to see the answer. I’m really interested to see how good your analytical skills are.

, , , , , , ,

, , , , , ,

I’ve had people stop me in an elevator, , , in the airport, , , and in a hotel and ask me if I was “Mike Sisco”. It usually catches me off guard until I learn they are headed to the same meeting as I am.

Got your answer submitted yet?

The answer is below, , , answer the poll before looking, , , no peeking!

, , , , ,

, , , , ,

, , , , ,    here we go , , ,

The red arrow points to me and the blue arrow points to my brother, Larry. I was a little guy as you can see but made up for it by hustling and working harder than the bigger guys. Even my brother who is a year younger always seemed bigger than me.

Don’t wear glasses anymore, , , eye surgery took care of that nuisance.  Sorry for throwing you off track by mentioning the photo on the right-hand column, , , couldn’t help myself.  🙂

Larry is driving up from Florida to visit for a couple of days and thought he might enjoy this photo so I printed it and others I received from an old friend to give him. Terry Jones made these available and is the guy sitting between Larry and me.

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Hundreds of free IT Downloads at IT Business Edge

Posted on May 12, 2011 | 1 comment

Do you know about IT Business Edge (www.itbusinessedge.com)?

Have you seen their IT Downloads section?


If not, you are missing one of the best values and IT manager resources in our industry, , , hundreds of free IT tools and templates downloads.

Lots of informative tips, insights, and tools, , , and easy to find what you are looking for with a search. Search by keyword or browse through the Type or Topics lists. You can even see what the most popular downloads are and what people are downloading.

I have provided several downloads for ITBE’s site including the following:

  • Cost of Downtime Calculator
  • IT Initiatives Portfolio
  • Annual IT Accomplishments
  • Annual IT Survey
  • Client Rescue Guide
  • , , , and many more

IT Business Edge has been a great partner since 2004. This week, I agreed to work on a special project for them as they launch a new product to enhance the content on their site, , , look for an announcement soon.

ITBE is a free subscription and offers the IT manager community a significant amount of insight and tools to help you manage your business.

Check ITBE out at www.itbusinessedge.com.

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