Managing Technology

 

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Some IT Leadership Principles for CEO's & Business Leaders

I recently was asked to participate on a panel of technology leaders presenting to a group of CEOs.  As I only had 10 minutes to give some advice and tips on how to effectively leverage technology, I did my best to pare down my thoughts to a short set of principles:

• First People – Then Process – Then Technology
• Never abdicate your responsibility for your company’s technology
• Have a solid, documented IT strategy
• Practice Rhythm of Review
• Know your total cost of IT
• Strive for simplicity
• Proactively manage security and risk
• Be a very tough, but very fair customer
• Know ALL your “IT people” – treat them as one team
• You get what you pay for – invest wisely and as part of a plan
• Be wary of tech trends

Definitely open to thoughts and input on this list and I plan to continually refine it over time.

Every company should have a Master Calendar

Rhythm of Review was one of the most important management concepts I learned while at GE.  Every manager (and most employees) knew the dates of the monthly financial closes as well as when the major strategy sessions with corporate were scheduled.  These were big events where success or failure was objectively measured and the future of the company was energetically planned.

Regularly scheduled rigorous reviews of results against plan (finance, sales, project status, inventory, etc.) are critical to ensure companies stay focused on their most important metrics.  In particular, your IT department needs this rhythm to align their efforts well with the business strategy and flow.

In my years as a consultant, I've been surprised to find that many companies of all sizes have no single calendar that shows when all their important management meetings are scheduled.  And often these aren't planned at the macro level at all, so there is no communicated rhythm of review in place. 

If you're doing everything ad hoc, then chances are you're missing some necessary disciplines around both strategic planning and tactical execution.

I've searched several times for a good calendar template and found none, so I created this Excel tool and have used it for several clients and my own consulting practice:

Download Visular - Company Master Calendar Example - v02

This example is populated with dummy data for demonstration purposes - feel free to customize to meet your needs.  Read on for instructions:

Have to give that uncomfortable bad performance review? Let your employee talk first.

No matter how experienced you are as a manager it's never fun to give a negative review to an employee, much less fire someone.

I recently gave some advice to a colleague who was lamenting going into a performance review for one of his people who was delivering far below expectations.  It was at the point where if major improvements weren't made soon he would have to be fired.  My approach helped and he just e-mailed me saying the discussion went much better than expected, so I thought I'd share the leadership tip.

When you sit down face to face with that problem employee for the dreaded bad review, before you go into your documented laundry list of their problems, weaknesses, and failings - let them talk first. 

There's a good chance they know that at least some bad news is coming and they'll feel better if they get a chance to articulate the problems right up front in their own words.  An intro like "Bill, before I go into the details of this review, why don't you tell me how you think you've performed over the past X months" is a great way to kick off this session. 

It will give your employee a bit of empowerment during an uncomfortable situation and may also give you some examples you can refer to later where you know they already agree with your assessment.  If you have a formal document with your feedback and scores in writing, turn it over face down on the table during this first part of the chat.  Then, when it's your turn to talk you can show the ugly details after the ice has been broken a bit.

Great Stuff - 3 Technology Leadership Development Quick Hits

Over the years as I've worked with various CIOs, CTOs, and other executives there has been consistent agreement on a great need for better Leadership Development in companies.  This is especially true for technology managers as they often possess solid technical skills, but have had much less if any of their training and education time devoted to leadership. 

In the current economy more than ever strong leadership is needed, yet unfortunately many firms can't afford the time and investment to develop a comprehensive leadership curriculum. 

In addition to the many free tools and references on this evolving blog, I've put together a list of some recommended quick hits for leadership development.  The idea is to help your company get some tactical “points on the board” without the overhead of developing an entire leadership competency structure. 

The first, in the spirit of shameless self-promotion, is my own offering.  The others are from fellow highly experienced consultants who I trust.

1 – Visular (Tom Wolf)  - The GE Leadership Values in Action

Download Visular-Workshop_Profile-GE_Leadership_Vaules_in_Action-v04web

This is a quick session on what I still consider THE best practice in company leadership.  Many of us former GE folks take it for granted, but it’s very useful for managers who haven’t lived through GE during the Jack Welch era.  I’ve had great feedback on this session and would love to deliver it to your team.

2 – Strelmark (Hilary Fordwich) - Career Critical: Business Development Boot Camps for IT Execs

Hilary is phenomenal at teaching technical teams the key soft or “human engineering” skills that the most successful business leaders need to master.  Her sessions are motivational, tactical and practical.   I’ve seen Hilary in action on two occasions so far and highly recommend her boot camps to help your team develop critical skills that are often lacking in the technology arena.  Her sessions include case studies; tips to build lasting, successful, beneficial business relationships; and human relationship truths to apply for gaining & retaining clients & employees in every situation.  Her list of clients and testimonials is more than impressive.

3  - The R Group (Myron Radio) - TriMetrix Leadership Style Assessment & Coaching

Myron’s firm is certified to deliver one of the better leadership style & coaching assessments I’ve come across.  Many of us have been through these types of exercises in our careers (Myers Briggs, leadership evaluations, etc.).  TriMetrix is very fast & easy to complete and provides a wealth of valuable assessment feedback beyond a typical behavioral tool.  It looks at three distinct views of an individual to get a more complete picture of “How”, “Why” and “What” they will do on the job.  Myron had me take the on-line test and gave me the coaching report personally and I was very impressed at the many helpful insights I gained.

All these are proven, quick, affordable offerings that can have a big impact on your existing leadership team and are also valuable for developing future leaders.

Feel free to contact me for more details, ballpark costs, testimonials, and direct referrals if you have any interest.

Goals for conducting a successful software vendor search

Finding the right software or other technology solutions to meet your needs is critical.  There are more and more options available to solve all kinds of business problems arriving on the market every day.  So many companies and managers still have an "old school" overly competitive mentality when it comes to dealing with vendors.  They tend to use the "I'm the customer" approach to a fault, driving such hard bargains and beating up tech vendors to the point where they are doomed to failure once the contract is signed.  Ironically these same folks often abdicate their responsibility to vendors for their own business processes and defining requirements saying things like "you're the experts in XYZ, you tell me how it should work".

As anyone who has seen me in action will tell you, I tend to hold technology vendors to an extremely high standard and can be pretty tough on them, especially when I find instances of a supplier being lax or unprofessional.  Fundamentally, however, I take an approach of setting up vendors for long-term successful relationships and am just as hard on company managers who don't take full responsibility for their business processes.  After all, it's their choice where to spend money on technology.

Here are my goals for conducting an effective vendor search:

• Find and evaluate as many vendors / solutions / options as possible - quickly and with minimal cost and effort
• Make your search process repeatable to save time (create clear documents so all you have to do is send the same stuff over and over as new vendors are identified)
• Educate vendors (especially your short list) for highly effective demos and proposals
• Enable vendors who are not a strong fit to self-select out early (saving time)
• Set up key vendors for success to build an effective long-term relationship and avoid surprises later
• Demonstrate your company's tech and business savvy throughout to encourage great vendors to want to work with you
• Be a very tough, but very fair customer

As you do your prep work to create a Request for Information (RFI), Proposal (RFP) or Quote (RFQ), keep these goals in mind and test everything you're doing against them.  I plan to post more vendor management best practices here on our blog over time.  Feel free to contact us for help in building the solid vendor relationships that are so critical to your company's success.

Great Stuff - Networked Insights is "Measuring the Social"

When I found out my friend Dan Neely was launching a startup I wondered about what his new company would be.  I only knew it had a marketing and technology aspect to it, which made sense knowing Dan's background and dynamic style.  Several months ago I got my first e-mail newsletter from his company  Networked Insights with an example of what they do.  I'm generally not a fan of e-mail newsletters only because there are now so many out there I can't keep up.  I have to say this one boldly stood out and I've never seen a single marketing publication so clearly demonstrate a new type of offering.  It perfectly explained what Dan and his team have been up to and I think their analysis of social trends is fascinating.  Check out what I saw in their newsletter looking at new vs. traditional ways of looking at TV ratings on their blog: Social Sights.  They have since done many more examples from measuring super bowl ads to the music charts.

A quick Team Assessment Tool

Attached to this post is a tool I designed to quickly assess the strength of any team I'm managing.  As a leader there is nothing more important to your success than building up a winning team.

Download Visular-Team_Assessment_Tool_v02

This tool is strongly influced by the GE leadership approach to managing people - focusing on A players and exiting C players.  It is NOT a substitute for a full employee management process (role documents, goal setting, performance reviews, merit-based bonuses, etc.).  Instructions for using the tool are included in the file.

Great Stuff - A "Viral Marketing" expert's free e-Book

My colleague Steve Ely recommended I check out David Meerman Scott an expert on modern "Viral Marketing" techniques.  I rarely send out unsolicited advice or "check this out" e-mails to colleagues unless something really impresses me.  I'm passing this one on to a bunch of people.

I highly recommend reading David's e-book The New Rules of Viral Marketing.  It's free and very quick to read and digest, yet very valuable to help understand and brainstorm ways to leverage this fascinating new trend in marketing.  It's also introduced me to this new style of book - an "e-Book" which to me is like cross between a great PowerPoint presentation and a white paper.  MUCH easier to get through and more to the point than typical business books.  Very dynamic and fun to read.

At first I thought the concept of Viral Marketing would mostly apply to small companies with limited markting budgets.  But the examples Scott uses, such as IBM using YouTube and getting a huge response, helped me understand this new approach can be used in many ways.

Startup Company Planning - Questions to Ask

I've consulted with many people who were either considering starting their own business or had already done so recently and were planning their next steps.  I realized that I end up having the same conversations with potential business owners over and over again, so I began to capture all the questions I'd ask to help them plan in one document.  I've shared this with many people over the past 5 or so years and it constantly evolves - I'll keep the latest version posted here.  Comments are welcome and I'll use them for future updates.

Download Visular-Startup_Planning_Overview_v05

One caveat - I'm not a multi-millionaire from my own high-tech startup that I launched before Visular, or I probably wouldn't be working as a consultant or writing this blog, so alot of this is in the spirit of "learning from your mistakes"! 

Back to Basics - Meeting Agendas (and more importantly - Objectives)

When you think of the salary (or hourly rate) of every person sitting in a meeting, even the smallest are quite expensive to any organization.  Why is it then that so many meetings happen with no stated objectives or even a simple written agenda?

Attached is my basic meeting agenda format that I try to use for all my meetings.  Many of my colleagues have found this template valuable.  Feel free to customize it as necessary for your needs.

Download Visular-Meeting_Agenda_Template_v03

The most critical elements for an effective meeting are clear, documented objectives, a detailed, timed agenda, and the right attendees in the room.  I also find it helpful to identify the key inputs required in advance so you're not all sitting around saying, "why didn't anyone bring the sales figures?".

Objectives - Many people will jump to preparing an agenda without first thinking through the actual objectives of the meeting.  This can lead to a meeting that finishes on time, but doesn't accomplish what the owner wants to get done.  Worse, participants can end up sabotaging the meeting because they have their own objectives that are different from yours.  The very worst cases end up in a complete breakdown with arguments because there is no group buy-in to just what you're all doing there.