High-Performance IT. What is it?
Managing IT is all about getting the basics right
High-Performance IT is a series of Health Checks that are performance and productivity improvement processes that cover all IT functions - turning IT pains into gains. This is done by conducting a Health Check of each IT team and then resetting the teams’ activities, reviewing things like process, standards, backlogs, delivery and more. The processes came about from my work as an IT Change Management consultant carrying out assignments ‘turning around’ underperforming IT departments and teams.
Best known as an IT generalist I have worked across the Insurance, Banking, Health, Transport, Retail, Superannuation, and Technology sectors. I have managed IT departments ranging from 50 to 700 staff. I have held all IT management positions, sometimes more than once, namely: CIO, Infrastructure, Applications Development, Technical Services, Service Delivery, Service Desk, Data Centre, Architecture, Project Office, and Communications. I have also been a DBA and a Systems Programmer, starting my career as a Systems Analyst and the building of an MVS Mainframe Data Centre as my first project.
This background has provided me with a unique perspective on how IT works, its management needs, its people’s needs, how to integrate its teams and functions and how to minimise costs. It has also taught me how to better manage unplanned and unexpected work and most importantly, how to do more with less.
1. The Causes of most IT Troubles
Over time, simply by opening the front doors and turning the lights on each day, all the IT Departments that I worked in suffered from a form of ‘IT entropy’ - a progressive decline in their overall effectiveness resulting in usually persistent and undesirable outcomes or IT pains. The causes of this IT entropy are.
1. IT management team stress and dysfunctions.
2. The rapid pace of business change.
3. The rate of introduction of new technologies.
4. Failure to maintain systems housekeeping.
5. Complex applications development environments.
6. Increased frequency of releases.
7. Legacy systems management.
8. Poor workload management processes.
9. Lack of due process and multiple sources of internal truth.
2. IT Pains and Gains
The IT Entropy causes listed above generate three IT pain points. High-Performance IT Health Checks looks at each of these IT pain points and puts in place processes to convert them into IT gains.
1. Executive Management and Team Management
Pains:
1. IT management team stress and dysfunctions.
2. Lack of business focus.
3. Poor business relationships.
4. Budget overruns.
5. Low customer and staff satisfaction levels.
6. Service Delivery issues.
Gains:
1. High-Performance Team training.
2. Set IT’s priorities as: Priority 1 – business, priority 2 – staff, priority 3 – technology.
3. Business joint ventures.
4. IT budget audit with lower spend.
5. Reduced staff turnover, increased retention of IT memory.
6. Improved customer and staff satisfaction levels.
2. Performance and Productivity
Pains:
1. Meeting business timeframes.
2. Managed Services providers.
3. Project delivery and cost overruns.
4. Technical Services rework, the volume of Production Support jobs.
5. Workload management metrics.
6. Unplanned outages (Infrastructure, Network, Applications).
7. Not meeting SLAs.
8. Resourcing, resourcing onboarding times, reliance on contractors.
9. Service Delivery failures, jobs backlogs.
10. Low staff morale, diminished sense of personal accountabilities and wilful blindness.
Gains:
1. Reduced risk profile.
2. Higher productivity and quality.
3. Workload management performance metrics, better resource usage.
4. Improved project and service delivery times.
5. Lower incidence of rework with lower costs.
6. Reduced Service Delivery backlogs.
7. Introduction of due process.
8. Improved staff job satisfaction levels.
9. Managed Services - less contract additional costs.
10. Resolution of wilful blindness. (Adverse effects that are known about but are hidden from management. e.g., data corruption, job failures, hidden costs, reporting errors, backup failures, invisible and redundant hardware, theft, and hacking.)
3. IT Standards
Pains:
1. Multiple standards in use.
2. Absence of good process.
3. Multiple sources of technical truth.
4. Scripts as a quick-fix panacea.
5. Volume of manual activities, lack of automation.
6. Poor systems implementations.
Gains:
1. Best Practice IT standards.
2. Staff training up to date.
3. Less Service Delivery failures and need for rework.
4. IT Intranet as a single source of truth.
5. Automation of recurrent manual activities.
6. Fewer system implementations are subject to guarantee.
7. Better hardware risk mitigation.
8. Removal of redundant hardware, systems software, utilities, and tools.
9. Cost savings.
3. Process Implementation
The High-Performance IT process is just that, a process of works as against a fully-fledged project. Firstly, each IT team uses a template to assess their current position, using the same template they then select their target position. From this, a gap analysis is produced in the form of a task list (SOW). Implementation is then managed by each IT team manager. For shorter completion times, tasks are usually project managed, for longer completion times, tasks are completed alongside normal day to day activities. The process completes with each IT team achieving the target position gains and having put in place a regular housekeeping regimen to maintain those gains. Ideally, this process of work should be undertaken every five years to maintain efficiencies and eradicate any build-up of the IT Entropy effects.
4. Process Steps
1. Current position assessment.
2. Target position statement.
3. Gap analysis producing scope of works.
4. Produce a project schedule or task list.
5. Implementation as a project or as normal day to day work.
5. Health Checks Scope
1. Executive Management and Teams Management.
2. Performance and productivity.
3. IT standards.
4. Managed Services.
5. Service Desk.
6. Infrastructure.
7. Applications Development.
8. Project Management Office.
9. Architecture.
10. Data Centre and Operations.
11. Technical Resource Management.
6. Shared Functions Scope
1. Training.
2. Quotations.
3. Workload management.
4. Service management framework.
5. Disaster recovery.
6. Security.
7. Change control.
8. Diagrams.
7. Process Requirements
The process is cost-effective and delivers quick wins. In respect of resourcing, some IT departments prefer to use existing staff spreading the SOW over a longer duration. Other IT departments, however, did acquire on average, two entry-level staff to release and back-fill experienced staff to complete the works over a shorter duration. In most cases, a Document Management staff member was employed if one was not available.