Here are some tips, mostly from the IT department of a small company; we will call the MCO that is whooping the pants off larger competitors. I had the pleasant experience of participating in my client’s acquisition of a similarly sized company, both in the business
of managing workers compensation claims. Interestingly the acquired company had purchased several companies and at one time was much larger.
IT seems to have been their Achilles heel. Though my client is one of the smaller players in the market, they are consistently ranked number one against their competitors, and I suspect they are one of the most profitable. Excellences in all areas are responsible for this success, including their home grown software, which has proved to be a strategic
asset. We have been following an old school path, and that has turned
out to be a winner so far.
My first observation on working for this company - it is a lot more fun to work for a company where the IT department is more than just a cost center. One would think that software companies are the place to work if you want some respect. But in this case IT was crucial for providing the flexibility for integration with the operations of their main business partner, the state of Ohio. In a crowded market, IT missteps can easily be enough to do a company in. Eight years ago, a change in the way the state of Ohio handled workers compensation caused about 30 companies to enter what was then a new market. About half survive and the number of survivors is expected to eventually reach a handful. It appears that the companies that relied on packaged software were the ones that didn’t make it.
What I can say authoritatively is that 3 principles drive the management of the IT function at this company and that the weapon under the covers is a MutliValue database. Living in the MultiValue world, we tend to have similar beliefs that at times fly against conventional wisdom. Maybe you'll relate to some of the ideas below.
* Service Users Directly
Have no middle man, no paper work, maybe no cubical wall, between the users and the programmer. It works at the MCO because we respect each others time and we share the goal of keeping everyone productive and the company profitable. It helps that people like working there and that they see the company prospering as their best avenue for a fulfilling work life. At this company the "work/change order" tracking system is just a spreadsheet. I have worked in a department that has a more formal system but they not require users to fill out a form to get help or request a change. The IT staff fills out the request because it is a tool for IT to manage itself. In that company the manager does set priorities and direction but usually puts the programmer face to face with the user. Users are the source of ideas of how to streamline processes and that's what IT is all about.
What about the potential loss of programmer productivity if they are highly available? For one, unless the programmer is working for a software company he is not producing income as directly as many other employees. And two, people wasting other people’s time, if that problem exists, is a company culture problem. If a user describes a problem saying "the computer is broken", which is probably the most common abuse of IT resources, I will usually walk through the problem with them, talking out loud so they can see the process of elimination used in diagnosing problems. I often use the words "you can..." stressing the “you”. I might also talk about how accurate communication helps me get my work done. The conversations can be touchy but it is better than the usual approach of isolating users from IT.
* Simplify Everything
Fewer machines, fewer operating systems, fewer software products, fewer dependencies, fewer layers…less is more. Less is more is one of the hardest places to stand because it will pit you against vendor/consultants looking for places to use their hammers, and programmers who might want to do resume driven development. You will find yourself fighting "conventional wisdom" left and right. I remind myself that some IT professionals come from a different planet, one where lots of stuff and people are good things. For example, I find myself defending that my apparent disregard for internal network security is do to the fact that our users call IT when a menu bar seems to disappear when they docked it, and so would rather budget for some training than defend against a spoofing attack from them.
* Don't Throw Technology at Problems
Did Bob Marley sing "Computerize it"? No he did not. While computerizing processes brought huge gains in the past, the easy stuff is done. What's left needs to be weighed against the dependencies, support and training burden computer solutions entail. Document imaging? You're probably going to have to upgrade staff to save space in the file room. And when you have a problem, your summer high school hire will not be able to fix it, and almost assuredly more than one person will be stopped from doing their job. Projects like this are not necessarily a bad idea, but make sure benefit to TCO is sound.
Another situation I've seen that can result in a bad project is one where a manager is facing a personnel issue he doesn't want to deal with. Appreciating the talent in the IT department he suggests a project he hopes will simplify things to a point where a narcoleptic monkey will be able to run it. Unfortunately the need for attentiveness and accuracy usually increases when a process is more automated.
* Conclusion
There was a recent survey of CIO's by Robert Half where a number of CIO's said not only that they were increasing IT staff and training in the coming year, but wish they had spent more on beefing up internal capabilities in the past. The strategic advantage that a dexterous IT department will deliver is the ability to refine your processes. The payoff is in the accumulation of savings from many small gains. "Sandy no longer has to key in orders that arrive by fax." "John no longer has to enter numbers from three reports into a spreadsheet to close the month." I suspect that the technology story of many winners is not sexy - not something you'd read about in Wired Magazine. We need to keep in mind that the n-tiered applications, the service oriented architecture, the virtualization just about everything, have the common simple goal of saving someone a little time.
Jim Paul is a free lance consultant/programmer living in Cincinnati. He can be reached at JimPaul at fuse net.
