Season’s Greetings:

I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you a very Happy and Warm Holiday Season, and all the best for a prosperous New Year. 
As we close this chapter on 2009, a new chapter begins. Thank you for reading “A CIO’s Voice” and making it a success.

Do you surround yourself with “Yes Men”?  Is your staff afraid to ask questions or debate decisions?

If you answered yes to the above, chances are you do not have a high-performing IT leadership team.

It is a known fact that what happens in the CIO’s office ripples through the IT department. Behaviors that originate with the CIO and his/her lieutenants filter down and are repeated by the staff. The failure of IT in an organization can be traced back to the conduct of the CIO and the leadership team. The opposite is also true.  A high-performing IT leadership team breeds a high-performance IT department, which leads to a company’s success in business.

One of the reasons I credit my success as a CIO was the fact that I had an open door policy for my staff (all my staff) to be able to walk in and talk to me. No problem was too small and no topic too mundane. Being able to talk to your superiors makes a company more functional.

In addition, I would schedule a lunch every month with various to discuss and take the pulse of the department. It was a learning session where we discussed initiatives and made sure we agreed on the direction the department was going. As head of a department you take full responsibility for your department’s course. But in order for a department to be successful, your team needs to have a say in the direction it is going.

So how do you develop a high-performing IT team?

1. Develop unity and cohesion with all your staff. Break down silos that are so common within IT departments.
2. Develop interpersonal relationships. Everyone must have a chance to contribute, learn from and work with other members.
3. Develop common goals and visions. Individuals must have the ability to work together toward a common goal.
4. Ensure an environment where ideas and solutions can be freely contributed and information shared.
5. Have everyone recognize and respect differences in others.
6. Have everyone value the ideas and contributions of others.
7. Have your staff participate fully and keep to their commitments.
8. Create and environment where there is fun and everyone cares about the results. Strive for the “win-win”.
9. Create accountability through a working process. What tasks are prioritized and what are everyone’s responsibilities? How do individuals report back on progress and what metrics do you track?

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” – Thomas Paine

Most IT leaders talk about getting out and leading or want to be recognized as leaders. But if you take a long look at them, how many are really leaders? Yes, some are good implementers; some might be good executors; but what about good leaders?

A progressive CIO/IT leader should be out in front demonstrating the value of IT to the business and not selling to it. I have seen this too many times where CIOs feel they need to sell their solutions to the business. Why? You should be asking, “How can I help the business?”

Engage the business. Your world is not solely confined to IT. You have to engaged marketing, accounting, etc. Remember you are a service provider. Go out and provide a service. Demonstrate that IT is not just a cost center but can provide real value to the business.

It’s Friday. As CIOs clear down their inboxes and tie up loose ends before the weekend, it is time to take a break…

Here is a humorous letter from a CIO to Santa. Happy Holidays…

Here are links to blog postings that I found interesting this month:

CIO: Rebrand the IT Function by Ade McCormack

IT Planning is Broken by Chris Curran

CIOS – 2010 Predictions That Could Change Your Life…or Not by Fibol

The CIO and the fine art of vendor negotiation by Peter Kretzman

Total CIO – PMO becomes cornerstone of IT executive leadership by Eric Brown

How The Net Has Changed Our Life by Oliver Widder

The Power of Plain Speech by IT BS Watch

Role of a CIO by Oh I See (CIO Inverted)

Method CIO by Chuck Musciano

It is that time of year when budgets and project plans have to be submitted and also performance reviews. As managers we have to deal with employee performance reviews for our staff.

Let’s face facts, not everyone on your team is a superstar. And from a Human Resource’s department perspective every employee can improve (no one is a 9 or a 10). Evaluating your employee’s performance isn’t easy, but it can be an invaluable tool to get performance up to a level that is acceptable.

Here is an example.

A new manager just hired two new staff to be part of her team. Both are qualified, however they were not “pulling their weight” to meet critical deadlines. This frustrated the manager because as the department head, she has to answer for the overall success of her department. It got to a point where she was contemplating terminating both of them.

When she told me her situation I asked if she had set clear performance expectations for the department’s success? She answered no.

Here was my advice to her:

1. Set performance expectations for the department’s success. Make it clear that this is what is required for us to succeed.
2. Use these expectations to help employees develop accountable, productive, meaningful, participatory teamwork.
3. Quantify your employee’s performance level and not their personality traits. For example, you can measure the number of times an employee has been late to work, their absenteeism rate, the number of projects completed successfully, the number of coworker complaints received, the number of goals met.
4. Keep your performance reviews as objective as possible. Be candid about the areas of deficiency and the steps necessary to achieve acceptable performance. Do this frequently. Most managers feel they can only review once a year. Performance reviews need to occur constantly throughout the year in order to correct problems early on. Remember it is better to be proactive than reactive.

Use the performance review as a tool in your manager’s arsenal to improve employee performance. Doing so can effectively improve underperforming staff and lead to overall team success.

It’s Friday. As CIOs clear down their inboxes and tie up loose ends before the weekend, it is time to take a break…

With the 2009 quickly ending, I thought it would be nice to post something a little different this month. Here is an interesting video for those of us that like predictions.

We have all been there at some point in our careers. Maybe you are there now but have no choice. Jobs are tight and making a move right now does not make sense. But you go in and put your eight hours in.

You work in a toxic environment.

Big or small, the workplace is many times not a place of happiness. It can be a pile of daily frustrations, conflicts, hostilities, addictions, and egos. Sometimes it isn’t just one person or two; it is the whole place that is toxic. It is so infested with politics you cannot do your work. You may be working in a sick corporate environment.

How should you get through your day?

• Stay away from negative corporate cliques. In the workplace it is easy to find them. You know the group-the ones that get together at every chance just to gossip.  Don’t get involved.
• Establish boundaries and maintain them. While it maybe difficult to not socialize with co-workers, the less contact outside of business the better.
• Keep your personal life private. This simply keeps life simple, the workplace simple, and protects you and your family from being subjected to gossip. Consider this a form of privacy protection.
• Don’t feed into the negativity of the workplace. Don’t complain to others about the environment. If you cannot change it then you have to deal with it.

Remember work is work. Keep it all business. Yes it can be stressful but if you need to pay your bills then you will have to deal with it.

“The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.” -Scottish guitarist David Russell

“Never burn bridges” generally means don’t leave a relationship on bad terms recklessly.

Okay, I know you are going to say, “you must never burn bridges”. But knowing when to burn a bridge is an essential skill for any leader. Think about burning bridges as a tool in your leadership arsenal. There are many times that burning a bridge is not just beneficial, but absolutely necessary to accomplish your career goals.

Why?

There are only so many hours in a day. To be successful you need you need to be more efficient, get more things done, and prioritize. By keeping every connection and relationship you are bound to get unnecessary calls, e-mails, etc. that will eat up your precious time. Time best served directed at something to make you more successful.  If those connections help you, that is great but if they do not, it is time to strike a match.

Burning a bridge doesn’t mean you hate someone, it simply means you need to shut off that part of your life (perhaps temporarily) because it is not helping you in anyway or simply wasting a lot of your time. The truth is that some people weigh us down and separate us from our priorities. If we are to be leaders and have successful careers, we have to learn to cut the fat or just push it to the side temporarily. By doing this we can focus on priorities.

Of course, there are always ways to “rebuild” a bridge after it has been burned but that is another post….

It is not often you make new friends through the Internet, but I have made several, of outstanding character, over the last couple of months. Robert Pearl is one such individual. Robert reached out to me via this blog and we have exchanged a vast array of emails on several topics and talked about the state of affairs in IT. Robert owns Pearl Knowledge Solutions, Inc., a managed service provider of DBA services.

As CIOs, we must make smart budget decisions everyday that cut costs without impeding business operations. Database management is one such area where costs savings can be achieved. For those of us who have worked with databases, we know how difficult and costly it can be to successfully manage them. One way to help is to consider fixed cost managed database services, where we could save thousands of dollars and pay a flat-monthly fee, while the MSP (managed service provider) takes care of your database servers. Once such provider is Pearl Knowledge Solutions, Inc.

Here is more about Pearl Knowledge Solutions, Inc.

Pearl Knowledge Solutions, Inc. is a managed service provider of Remote DBA services and expertise, as well as their award-winning monitoring and alert solution – SQLCentric.

Our Remote DBA packages (proactive monitoring and preventative maintenance) offer the best most cost-effective way to maintain your DB infrastructure and secure your company’s most precious asset – your data.  We will customize our packages around your database needs, and/or just purchase a block of DBA hours to insure the stability and security of your database(s).  By offering fixed-cost managed services, you can plan your IT budget without busting it.

Who’s watching your databases?  Are you backing up regularly?  Are your databases performing optimally?  Is your data secured?  These are among the many questions you need to ask if you have one or more SQL Servers.

Let us manage your database systems, for a fraction of the cost of a full-time DBA or consultant, and rely on our several years of industry expertise to mitigate the risk of downtime, turnover, and corrupt or compromised databases?

In addition, do you have an immediate project need that your current resources cannot handle?  We can augment your existing DBA staff, or assist with your project needs, such as migrations, installations, configurations, upgrades, disaster recovery, SOX compliance, and more!

SQLCentric – our award-winning SQL Server Monitoring and Alert system with monitor your entire sql infrastructure, and send you alerts.  SQL 2008 is now supported!  l

What we will do for you?

• Establish a service level agreement (SLA) based on your company’s needs
• Document and Inventory your SQL Server/Database Infrastructure
• Provide 24×7x365 Database Monitoring
• Enforce standards, secure data and ensure adherence to industry best practices.
• Reduce overall down time
• Reduce time & cost of operations and management
• Address issues/tasks in the shortest possible time frame
• Improve overall performance of the database environments

So if you are looking for a fixed cost managed database service, I would recommend giving Robert a call.

In addition, Robert has written a very good white paper on Fixed Cost IT Management. A great read for any CIO trying to maintain costs.

Fixed Cost IT Management

By Robert Pearl, 10/15/2008

Has your company considered using Managed DBA Services? (Remote DBA)

Fixed cost IT management, remote DBA, managed services, 24×7x365 support, SLA – what do all these terms signify in the trend to having your technical infrastructure managed by an outside third-party vendor. Managed Services is the new buzz word that’s catching fire across all size enterprises – small, medium and large – as MSP’s (managed service providers) compete for your business and trust, to hand over the keys to your company’s kingdom, in exchange for expert services, 24×7 guaranteed support, rapid response and solid SLA’s. While we’ll talk about IT Managed Services in general, we will focus on the growing trend in the IT industry – the Remote DBA.

As stated in one article, a good primer on the SLA for the DBA, ‘Understanding Service Level Agreements’, in order to ensure that your systems are reliable, secure and available, one must understand the client’s requirements, which are conveyed through the SLA (service level agreement). According to the article, far too many DBA’s are NOT aware of the customer’s SLA, or if they can be met. Conversely, the Managed Service Provider, cannot conduct its business without executing an SLA with the client, nor measure its success. The very first thing that an MSP will do is establish an SLA based on your company’s needs, so that your expectations can in fact be met.

The MSP will promise for a flat monthly fee that they will take care of your technology while you take care of your business. They promise they’ll manage everything in your environment, remotely, from your network devices, appliances, servers, desktops, to your electric toaster – for the right price, offering a tremendous savings and cost reduction in the overall IT budget. Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum – no we’re not talking Olympics here; we’re talking what is the right package for your company in terms of managed service offerings. We’ll take a closer look and examine if indeed this is a viable option, a passing trend, or the wave of the future.

With increasing pressures on businesses to grow revenues while driving costs down, outsourcing has in fact become viable practice for many leading organizations. In many cases, managed services are becoming the norm in small and middle sized businesses, and no doubt that upper management has already heard the news and is very likely considering this as an option in some form or another. It can be a total overall managed service solution for one’s entire infrastructure, or supplemental services to assist in-house staff. There are several factors for considering managed IT services, and as always, a major consideration is the bottom line. How much savings can be derived from allowing another firm to manage your IT assets? If such services can obviate the need to dilute the company’s core business by hiring IT specialists, maintain an expert body of knowledge without worrying about knowledge transfers and turnover, or just spread existing staff thin, why not consider giving managed services a try?

One such company Mithril Technology, a managed service provider headquartered in Long Island, NY, prides itself on its slogan, “Let us take care of technology, so you can take care of business.” Indeed a catchy phrase (I think I used it earlier), but not at all jingoistic. Think about it, do you keep a plumber on staff to fix your “facilities”? Does the VP of Sales, roll-up his sleeves and grab a wrench? No, you call in an expert in the field to take care of the problem. It may sound a bit simplistic, but aside from the traditional break-fix model, MSP’s are seeking to offer you proactive services as an insurance policy before things go wrong.

With the advent of technology, especially the Internet, it is becoming a very popular and cost-effective way to manage your tech-infrastructure remotely. Many vendors are finding that this space offers a great way to expand their company’s business, as they are moving away from the traditional break-fix, reactive model, to a more preventive and proactive approach. Some vendors have been more successful at this transition than others. The ones that have succeeded have won their clients’ confidence as “Trusted Advisor”, a role coveted by all MSP.s Basically, being considered one’s “trusted advisor” gives credibility to the expertise demonstrated by the vendor, and the ability to deliver and meet SLA’s.

Since managed databases are an integral service component of managed services, and almost everything the DBA does can be done remotely, it seems a perfectly acceptable option for managing one’s database infrastructure. While there is rapid expansion in the data market, providing a Database Managed solution is not easily done. An MSP will need some level of senior Database Administrators (DBAs) to build and run the Managed Database service. Having a database practice for project work and consulting, as part of your business model will be a distinct advantage to becoming successful in the Managed Database component of any Managed Services practice.

So what is it that managed services providers offer in terms of remote DBA support? With the ability to log on via the company’s VPN, Citrix server or other remote means, the vendor can access the entire database infrastructure, collect data and statistics, assess and audit the environment, and finally make a determination on best practices. What are the some of the “goodies” that you will get from your Remote DBA vendor?

Some of the typical tasks performed by the DBA are monitoring database space usage, memory and CPU utilization, reviewing error logs and responding to alerts, verifying backups, ensuring the latest service pack levels and patches are applied.

More of the advanced types of DBA services include implementing high availability solutions, DR planning, replication, clustering, database design and architecture, SQL server consolidation, migrations, as well as audit discovery and compliance. Although this is more project based work, many vendors offer this on a consulting basis, but no doubt can be accomplished remotely.

As mentioned before, some offer the variety packages, such as Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, which usually include some combination of DBA support hours, monitoring, and maintenance. By far, this seems to be the most common and popular package.

Many offer a Monitoring Only option, which allows companies to supplement their existing DBA staff, and even free up their time to focus on more strategic initiatives and projects. With this option, the vendor will provide a continuous stream of monitoring, and provide alerts to the in-house staff. The package may include simple rapid response resolution, such as restarting a service, or failed job.

The “monitoring only” option may be a great way to build a trust relationship between the company and the managed service provider. In fact, at a recent client, who retained remote services for the first time, started out with this type of package, where the vendor would monitor the server estate, open tickets, respond to alerts, and provide daily and weekly incident reports. The company was so pleased, within a month they then had them do patching and service pack upgrades. Now, they use them on a regular basis and have engaged them in a full-service agreement.

Other types of packages, basically try to tailor different offerings and customize pricing around the client’s size and needs, such as the “per device” or menu options.

As long as the pricing and services are transparent to the client, and can prove the overall costs savings, the prospect of retaining an expert vendor to manage your SQL Servers’ environment is very enticing, as it provides great value and can demonstrate ROI in a short period of time.

You should also make sure that your MSP will provide daily, weekly, and monthly reports on the state of the SQL environment such as trend, performance and incident reports. This is key in demonstrating value of placing your database assets in the hands of a managed service provider. You also get a highly structured level of management and support, with DBA Expertise at your disposal.

Some vendors draw upon a pool of DBA resources. Many of the larger ones will assign a team of at least 2 or more DBA’s to your account. Often it depends on the size of your database environment, and how database servers you need to manage and monitor. You’ll feel confident that there is a primary and a backup resource. In addition, you’ll get to know and work these folks, who in essence become your DBAs, who retain the knowledge of your business processes and technology, that’s not vulnerable to internal IT turnover.

Today’s critical business systems depend on databases to be secure, highly available, perform optimally, and of course have good backups. Many small and medium firms often bring in expensive consultants to deploy their SQL Server systems and related applications, and then forget about them until something inevitably blows up.

Depending on the size of the company and IT savvy, they might not know or care if their databases get regular maintenance. Indeed, they should be aware of the costs of this type of preventative care, versus the potential huge costs of emergency support and repair to fix it. Think of Managed DBA services as an insurance policy well worth the price! But with this policy, you’re getting real tangible services. The last thing any company should want is to be in a desperate situation where fixing the problem at any cost (costs that are not within budget), when simple preventative maintenance could have avoided the situation.

This is why having a manage service provider look after your SQL servers is a definite advantage to proactively monitor and look after your company’s most precious asset – your data!

In this tough economy, small and medium size companies need to ask themselves what is the most cost-effective way to maintain and secure your database infrastructure? Sometimes the decisions to hire a full-time DBA is necessary – but if they cannot, why not consider a Remote DBA service provider to manage your database systems, for a fraction of the cost, and rely on several years of industry expertise to mitigate the risk of downtime, turnover, and corrupt or compromised databases?