IT Manager's Journal

When Lena L. West contemplates the IT-related challenges her company must deal with in 2008, she specifically mentions online collaboration and mobile communications. In fact, IT analyst firm Gartner, there are 10 primary strategic technologies to be mindful of in 2008, including green IT, metadata management, virtualization 2.0, social software, mashup/composite applications, and more.

When Lori's "mission critical" software development project faltered after considerable time and budget investment by her IT team, Lori moved on and another manager was brought in to try and salvage the process. A post-project review revealed that Lori and her team had not done very well in their up-front understanding of crucial project timing, specifications, and vendor capabilities.

IT projects often fail when an IT manager does not consider that the people affected by IT efforts are likely to have conflicting concerns and priorities. Take George, for example. He manages the IT Department in a medium-sized Midwest consulting firm. After considerable expense and effort selecting and implementing an "improved" project tracking system desired by the firm's managing partners, George found that the company's field consultants failed to appreciate and use all its wonderfully capable features. George had neglected to realize that, while the new system could provide the partners with important information, it placed a considerable time burden on its users and detracted from the consultants' billable client hours. The result? After a lot of grief within the organization, this expensive new IT system simply faded away.

An IT manager must take steps to consider the social side of IT issues because failure to do so will hinder the success of your organization's projects and activities -- and maybe even your chances for advancement. There are several things to consider if you want to avoid having your next IT project tripped up by social issues.

As a new IT manager, you may not be expected to be some sort of "super-techie" but you will be expected to lead your team and stay on top of work projects effectively. Though you may be informally granted a short grace period to get up to speed, becoming a new (or transitioning) IT manager means you must assertively take the leadership reins. That can be unnerving if you're used to working behind the scenes, but once you become a supervisor there are some things you can do to get started on the right foot.

Working well with the boss is an all-important work priority and a failed relationship is a tough cross to bear for any IT manager or supervisor. In sharp contrast, good boss-subordinate relationships breed confidence, support, information sharing, assistance, resources, mentoring, advancement, and a host of other good things. Unless you are absolutely convinced you work for the boss from hell, there are some things you can do that will help improve your most vital work connection.

Though uncommon just a few years ago, today many workplaces employ satellite workers in various capacities -- from traditional workplaces with employees who work one weekday at home, to businesses staffed and managed entirely by workers in their pajamas. While some tasks, such as coding, can often be accomplished by an invisible workforce with minimal guidance, other types of work require rethinking what kinds of IT-related services can help organizations manage people. Surprisingly, some of the savviest tricks are also fairly low-tech and one of the simplest tools of all, instant messaging (IM), still reigns supreme.

Keynote speakers at the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston suggested IT managers should begin to plan ahead for the impact that emerging Web-based technologies like wikis and mashups are going to have on the work environment. They say an increasing number of employees are already using these tools at home and expect them to be available and accessible during work hours as well.

"Not another staff increase?" "We can put off that upgrade for awhile." "There are no more budget dollars for implementation training. Period!" Do comments like these sound familiar? Like it or not, as an IT manager, you play the persuasion game every day. Many of your staff, peer, supervisor, customer, and vendor communications are keenly focused on persuading people to accept a particular point of view. Whether you're a natural-born persuader or not, there are ways to make your next job-related message a more persuasive one.

When IT managers in the non-profit sector are asked about their strategies for survival, most agree that there a few unique challenges and pitfalls to watch out for, but their passion for service helps them find solutions to their challenges. If knowledge is power, then the first question to ask is: Who makes the decisions?

Everyone knows that Napoleon's invasion of Russia failed because it ran into the Russian winter, right? But the truth is, saying that is as incomplete as saying that the cause of every death is heart failure. The winter may have been the final blow to Napoleon's grand design, but it need not have been. The campaign actually failed because of difficulties in scaling, combined with poor management by Napoleon himself. His example provides a case study on the pitfalls of planning a large project, making it an object lesson for the modern corporate world.

Both IT folklore and current events are full of examples of institutions that fruitlessly expend enormous energy and financial resources to create or improve some element of their information technology. As an IT manager, it's your responsibility to help preserve institutional resources as well as add organizational value with IT projects. In many cases you can do this by facilitating selection of the most worthy projects, then insuring their successful implementation and management. Consider these tips to avoid scheduling your next project for failure.

Good, strong, repeatable processes can be the cornerstone of successful IT projects. Processes can make the pieces of the project puzzle fit together. Knowing that things are done the same way every time gives project team members and customers confidence that nothing is missed and that the results are trustworthy, useful, and usable. But at the same time, processes can be a pitfall when they are overly rigid, poorly structured, or have a negative impact on cost, schedule, or quality. Here are some common-sense ideas about how to make process work for you, not against you.

Good project management -- is it art, science, or just dumb luck? It's actually a little of all three. There's plenty of room for creativity and flexibility (the art), but there are some good rules to follow (the science). And to be successful requires at least a little good luck most of the time. I can't really help with the art, but let's go back to the science. Here are 15 guidelines or key principles that, if followed, will give project managers a higher probability of success.

Meet Lynette, a seemingly super-charged IT supervisor. Her assigned turf is network administration, but she is often the first to pitch in on special projects, can habitually be found providing requested extra staff guidance and generally sets a highly motivated personal example within her unit. Thus, Lynette routinely displays certain highly desirable leadership characteristics which add more value to, and have greater impact on, unit performance and outcomes. Lynette is a value-added leader similar to several you can likely identity within your own organization.

New or otherwise transitioning IT managers often find themselves facing novel organizational circumstances along with technology-focused challenges and responsibilities. They may also encounter a host of new players with whom they must work, each of whom may present fresh demands and expectations. All these transition issues put pressure on anyone who hopes to perform early and well. Here's a set of common-sense politically oriented activities that can help new or transitioning IT managers get it right the first time.

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything is one of the first efforts to explain open source and Web 2.0 to the traditional business community. This goal is revolutionary enough for the book's dust jacket to be covered with enthusiastic blurbs from major corporate executives and business academics. However, your opinion of the book is likely to depend on your familiarity with the subject.

Have you ever felt there must be a better way to keep up with the tasks that overwhelm project managers as they wrangle projects to completion? Do you find yourself pulled between managing your team and their issues, managing your sponsors, and keeping up with communications? The hectic pace may just be part of the nature of managing the unknown, but here is one approach that may make your pace more tolerable.

The "World is Flat" mantra has become almost clichéd in the business and technology world, thanks in part to the bestseller written by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. The implication for project managers is clear: we are increasingly being expected to articulate and deliver on corporate sourcing strategies by managing delivery of globalized projects. Managers focused on information technology (IT) and business processes and transformation must be distinctly aware of the impact of globalization on the practice of project management.

Organizations sometimes avoid adopting project management standards because they fail to recognize their practical application or fear unnecessary overhead -- until it becomes painfully clear that standardization is necessary. However, you can create an environment that makes following standards easier than not. Here are some practical tasks that will make it easier for you to adopt a project management methodology and deliver quality products and services.

Getting Things Done is a set of practices for making people more effective in work and life. If you are looking for a task manager based on the GTD system, you have several to choose from: MonkeyGTD, ThinkingRock, d3, and even GTDGmail. These are all fine applications, but if you need something more lightweight and user-friendly, take a closer look at TaskStep, a personal task manager that implements some of the essential GTD principles.