Wallace Wisdom

If you work in the corporate IT world you’ve probably heard those words – or ones similar – before. It can be one of the most perplexing, aggravating, and potentially costly issues that folks in IT have to deal with.

Why does it happen?

If you’re working in IT departments that are the norm, you probably have some great monitoring technology. You have tools from companies like HP, BMC, IBM, CA, maybe some Open Systems stuff, that tells you whether particular elements of your environment are performing up to spec. You, your colleagues, or your team, spend time tuning the thresholds so you get alerted on system performance abnormalities.

Then why is it that when all the lights are green, you still get calls from your end user community telling you that the “freakin” system is slow? It’s because you don’t have any way to monitor the end-user experience. And, to coin an overused phrase, at the end of the day all that matters is what the users are experiencing. They don’t care if you have clustered servers, redundant SANs, and other technological marvels; they just care that when they click their mouse, what they expect to happen next happens, and immediately.

There is good news. There is now software on the market that helps you monitor the end user experience. There are software solutions that generate synthetic transactions and there are solutions that track the real-time activities of any or all of your users. They come from companies that you recognize; IBM, CA, HP, BMC, and they come from companies that you might not be that familiar with; Correlsense, Compuware, OpNet, and others.

Which is right for you? I don’t know. I do know there are folks out there (my company included) that understand this technology, and can help you build a business case so the next time the CEO yells “why is the freakin system slow”, you’ll know why and are probably already be taking corrective action.

I graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1977 with a degree in English. At the time the prevailing thought was English majors went to law school or went into teaching. I went into business.

Skipping all the boring details, let me just say that my English degree provided me with skills that my fellow business degree colleagues didn’t have -the ability to read, write and speak analytically.

The world is filled with very smart people, many speaking a language of their own. Unfortunately, when it comes to providing a written report, proposal, white paper, presentation, etc., if audience doesn’t speak their language, many are unable to communicate effectively.

My soapbox for many years has been that technical schools, and colleges and universities, are producing very smart technical folks who can’t write worth a damn. I was on a panel a few years ago at a local technical college. We, as business leaders with technology companies in my area, were solicited for advice as to the relevance of the curriculum to local businesses. The discussion was prefaced with the comment, “And we don’t need to talk about our graduates having better written and verbal communication skills, we’ve handled that.” I was left with nothing to contribute because I saw no evidence in their recent graduates to support that claim. Unfortunately, that is still the case, not just with their graduates, but in general.

If I told you my company provides, among other things, prescriptive best practice process definitions and methodologies, you’d just roll your eyes. If, on the other hand, I told that that just recently a client of mine saved a Full Time Equivalent (FTE) with one of our solutions, I’m guessing that you understand.

I’m old school – nothing happens until something is sold. Engineers (software or otherwise) have nothing to design if the organization has no customers. And, despite all the buzz about Sales 2.0, social media, and ambient intimacy, we humans are social. We crave person-to-person contact, we value relationships, and we do business with people we know and trust. Those in business development who can communicate have always been, and will continue to be, more successful than those that confine themselves to the language of numbers, formulas, technical specifications, and bits & bytes. As Sweeney says in T.S. Eliot’s Sweeney Agonistes, “I gotta use words when I talk to you”.

So all you Liberal Arts Majors, stand up and be counted. The business world needs you.

Last time I talked about golf and IT being more alike than you think. This post is about getting “fit”.

If you participate or compete in an activity such as running, biking, or golf, you know there is tremendous advantage in being properly fit. Not only fit, as in physical fitness, but fit as in having equipment that fits you. Who would go for a run with the wrong size shoes. The consequences range from discomfort to actual injury. Biking is the same way. To optimize your performance on the bike, you take the time to get professionally fit for your bike. Again, improper fitting can lead to uncomfortable rides or even all the way to serious injury.

Finally, a golfer who takes the time to invest in a professional fitting, finding clubs that fit his or her body type, swing speed and swing style will enjoy their experience much more than just getting an off-the-shelf set of clubs. Not only that, but all things being equal they will also score better.

When it comes to IT the same principles apply. When considering an investment in new technology – assuming the process piece (see Golf and IT – more alike than you think…) has been addressed – organizations need to take the time and make sure they are getting a good technology fit. With some organizations, this is something they can do themselves. Others benefit from an outside perspective. They key is making the investment to ensure the new technology solution meets your requirements, after you take the time to clearly understand and articulate those requirements. Just like the bike rider who admires Lance, buys the same bike as Lance, and is disappointed he/she can’t ride like Lance, organizations must discipline themselves to factor many variables into their technology decision making process. While I don’t advocate blindly taking a “best of breed” approach, I do advocate making an informed decision and not blindly moving forward with a technology solution simply because you have other solutions from that vendor.

It’s all about being properly fit.

As I was watching the FedEx Cup this past weekend I found myself thinking about some of the parallels between golf and my profession, IT Service Management consulting. Much is made in IT about the value of technology, or as we sometimes call it, the “tool(s)”. Much is also made in golf about the value of your tools, or clubs and ball. Technology is changing in both golf and IT on a daily basis. Yet, do the technology changes make you “better”?

Research shows that despite all the changes in golf technology, over the past 30 years the average handicap for male golfers remains about 16, and for women around 20. This is despite balls that fly farther, spin less off the driver and more off the wedges, hybrid clubs help get you out of the rough easier and with more control. If the technology is so advanced, why aren’t we seeing the average handicap go down?

One reason might be that there are more players coming into the game and with each beginner the average handicap goes up. However, given the technology improvements, you would expect the veteran players to see their handicaps go down. Overall, it just doesn’t happen. So maybe it’s not just the technology.

If you placed a 7 iron on the ground and had both Tiger and me hit a shot with that “tool”, I guarantee you the results would be vastly different. Tool is the same, so it must be something else. As a matter of fact, Tiger could probably play the whole round with just my 7 iron and score lower than me if I had access to all the clubs in my bag.

What does this have to do with IT and IT Service Management? Actually more than you might think. I see so many organizations who are struggling with their current technology, especially in the area of IT Service Management. They think that if they just had newer technology, they would become better at Incident, Problem, and Change Management (and more). Yet when they buy their new tool, they find they still have the same challenges, still the same inability to link outages to changes, still the same work effort to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.

Folks, it’s the process. It’s how you use the tool, or the golf club, that determines your success. In IT we have some great standards that provide starting points – ITIL and CobIT for example. We have some great technology from companies you’ve heard of – HP, IBM, BMC, CA  to name a few – and some companies you might not have heard of. However, it isn’t until an IT organization combines the great technology with best practice processes that they start to achieve operational excellence, start really saving money, and start getting some time to play golf!

image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/187143678/