#05 Our Technology Direction: Just For the Techs
Most of the military, corporate, business, and larger educational institutional organizations I've worked with spent "boo coos" of time and effort TALKING IN MEETINGS about strategic planning, doing SWOT analyses, goal writing, and planning. They drug in everyone from the second highest general to the bathroom cleaning contractors. Sometimes the bosses even brought Krispy Kreme donuts for the first seven or eight meetings.
Now, I'm sure there was some value somewhere to someone (near the top) in amongst all those long meetings and paper forests of dead trees. But, in reality and 25 years of technology management spread over nearly 2/3 of the globe, I never met anyone "working in the trenches" (including my dad who worked in Burlington's "trenches" for nearly 50 years) who said, much less believed, the strategic "meetings, pomp, and/or circumstance" was worth half the:
- Time it took them "off the floor";
- The price of the paper it was written on;
- The millions of dollars of new computers and software installed.
In summary, every "frontline" group I ever worked with used different words but , they all had the same basic messages for me:
- Ask for and listen to our opinions early and throughout a process
- Call few short meetings, have them near where we work, and bring food.
- Remember that our experience "in the field" shows us a lot of things that rarely seem to be seriously considered by the overpaid "Front Office/Headquarters" GURUS and contractors sent to the "trenches" to tell us what to do--that ain't a good habit and it wastes a lot of time, effort, and money.
- Tell us what you want; get us what we need.
- Then leave us alone and we'll get it done!
With all that said, I'll drop more words and cut to the chase. Here's the technology world I'm asking you to create over the next couple of years:
In general:
a. Do all things neatly (cable dressing, new/old equipment storage, etc) .
b. Keep David and each other informed about where you are and what you're doing BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER you do it. Live proactive lives and tell me when I make that impossible for you.
c. Keep your cool when others lose theirs and politely refer the jerks to me
d. Give people smart technology tools to know what's going on in the areas for which they have responsibilities
d. Work as a team but be as independent as possible; don't send two people when one can do it. Self-test your own skills individually and make the technology tie you together--virtually.
e. Follow the chain of command or inform your boss if you're skipping links
f. Work from at least a weekly planned project schedule to the degree it makes sense. When you get called to "pull off"one job to "run to" another, David should be able to tell me what and where we're giving up to fix this "emergency"
g. Use technology to make normal people powerful from where ever they are. Get VPN access to as many folks as will ask for it.
h. ALWAYS learn new stuff and NEVER use what you know for job security. In technology, there are too many new things happening too fast to rest on what you know. Doing that will one day make your knowledge obsolete.
i. Be willing to debate and support your position--don't just roll over. But, when the dust is settled and the decisions are made support them like you're getting a paycheck for what you do.
j. Take, plan, and fight for the time to do it right the first time and call for help when you get to the end of your ability.
k. Pick projects that can be finished in a realistic timeframe and supported by a school district budget
l. Do what David asks you to and, do it BEFORE he asks.
m. After air-refueling came along, Air Force guys always joked that an aircraft carrier was an incredibly powerful weapon that circled the oceans in protection of--ITSELF. The same can be said of networks that are incredibly secure but don't deliver service to the people who need it--in our case, teachers. It's a no-brainer that we always have to work within a balance of law, security, cost, and usefulness. Lean in the direction of usefulness--but don't break the law.
n. Once you decide/have to eat an elephant, plan the meal one bite at a time. When stuffed, put the uneaten portion in the 'fridge' but don't leave it in there too long. Rotting elephants stink--even when refrigerated.
o. Keep your sense of humor, I'm bound to do dumb stuff you can laugh at.
- Gain the ability for at least 50% of the staff to :
a. Carry out Port and Packet level analyses of network traffic
b. Understand network design principals and create subnets using a subnet calculator
c. Quickly configure routers using ACLs - See that 75% of our switches and routers are:
a. Bought and installed as managed switches/routers
b. Configured for Layer 3 Routing/switching when it makes sense - Fight for 100% of our switches and routers:
a. Automatically Email or page a staff member if it runs into trouble
b. POE - In LAN/VLAN Designs/Implementations
a. Subnet down to individual wiring closets in each facility
b. Do all things neatly
c. Label things consistently and clearly
c. Rack everything as soon as it can be racked
b. Dynamically configure VLANs into functional management groupings
c. Include options for DMZs that provide easy third party temporary access to our Internet Resources - Training
a. Create a small In-house R&D Lab for Desktop/Servers/Switchs/ Software/Firewall/ Router-lab w/i the next 6 months. Use it to train the staff without worrying about taking down the house in the process
b. Dedicate at least a couple hours each month to real OJT training
c. Name someone to lead each main tech area and a backup; hold them responsible for leading our knowledge in their area. Ask for volunteers then draft; if you like I can do the draft based on the input I got from all the staff during my one-on-one meetings last month.
d. Get Robin in the field and get someone else trained to back her up.
e. Choose and plan your formal training requests carefully and coordinate it with David who should coordinate it with me - Technology Management
a. Get everything you can to the same physical location
b. Make key equipment "talk to you" consistently and check it the same way
c. Get all the data to places that are easy and simple to backup.
d. Really test backup tapes once a month; can they be used AFTER they are restored?
e. Load all the applications you can on racked servers and not the desktop where possible (check out Citrix, thin clients, and remote terminal solutions.)
f. Beat and extend USEFULLNESS out of ActiveDirectory; talk to people who fight with it daily. But test it in small chunks first.
g. Do remote control and remote assist; Tech guys can't walk through a crowd without someone pulling your arm off to fix some glitch a in room somewhere. Prove that only your mind and a good network connection is all that is needed to fix a lot of their problems. - Fear not, this is not the end, I'll keep adding stuff for ya'll to do.
*Guys. When I use the term guys, I always use it generically. So it includes males, females, and dogs and cats if need be.
posted by rtechy @ 9:21 PM
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