Plan and Test Early

I was reminded this Saturday of how important it is to plan and test things before any initiative or event hits production.  In this case, my trip to our UK office was the “project” in question.  I had made great plans to set up a semi-relaxing trip to meet the UK staff, get in a ton of reading and project work, and take in several pints of wonderful beer the whole week.  Unfortunately, I left out a key element of the plan and testing – the passport.

First, I have a valid passport and am not completely clueless.  However, it was locked in my safe in the garage and I didn’t give it any thought until I went to check-in online for my flight that morning.  I then realized “Oh I almost tried to go to LAX for my trip without it”, simply because I was running around all week on other projects and getting ready for my trip.  No problem.  I just have to pop into the garage and retrieve it – good catch where my planning fell short, but the go-live still left room for error on this one.

So I go into the garage and stop suddenly trying to remember the combination.  Uh oh – this could be a problem.  In Project Management speak (why not) this would be a missed risk, now issue!  So I spend the next hour trying all different combinations I can remember, and tearing my house apart to find the document.  We’ve only been in the house for a year, so I still am trying to find things lost in the move.  I have accessed the safe several times since then, so know I have the combo.  I finally get to the point of a “Go-No Go” decision and with the costs of changing my ticket to a Sunday departure well over 2.5 times the original cost, I decide to cancel the trip.  Go-live cancelled!  Twenty minutes later, I find the safe’s documents and combination.  The last ten times I went through this game should have triggered me (read: clued me in) to store the combination electronically somewhere, but I failed that test each time.

I had brief hopes that I would still make the flight, when I read the document and saw I did know the combination.  I tried it again another fifteen times, with mixed speeds of the dial, a gentle or rough touch on the handle, and an endless array of vile commentary.  Still a no-go.  Here’s where proper testing or recurring access would have possibly prepared me for such an event.  The safe was not opening with the correct code, and my trip was now certainly doomed.  I have opened the safe several times in the past few months, but for some reason, it will not budge now.  Perhaps it is a security measure with all the improper code attempts, but I am doubtful since it is a simple dial mechanical combination lock.

So just like the technology project rolled out with minimal testing and trials, I experienced a wonderful dead in the water feeling in place of a nice cool pint of draft in my hand.  Lessons learned here were just like that IT project – plan, test, identify risks and ensure the bases are covered.  Is it any wonder why my first professional training on Project Management used a vacation to Florida as the project (thanks to Mr. Andy Kaufman, PMP).  I learned well from that training, but overlooked how well it would apply to even the simplest things in life – like a trip to another country.

Blig Blag Blog

How do you find time to do this?  I need two brains, six eyes, and 72 hours in a day to keep up with all the blogs coming in these days, do my work, exercise, play with the kid, and stretch my mind.  Maybe I’m a jack of all trades type that tries to cover too much at one time, while others focus on little slivers and lather, rinse, repeat.  Life is short, and there is so, so much to take in.

Yet I really want to find the time to “do the blog”.  I know I have things to share.  I sometimes think what I know is so obvious and intuitive that no one would find any use to hear me babble about it.  But if I look at that in the context of communicating in my job (the never-ending quest to communicate the true value of Information Technology to the business), I find that I get caught in that same trap.  So perhaps it’s time to babble after all, and just let it flow.  Surely someone will find value, since I always hear back from former employees (the good ones that is) about how I helped their careers in some way, or from former employers some comments on how well things still run.  I must have done something right…

OK – time to babble!

Learn to Sell Mutual Funds or IT Solutions!

Yes! You can make millions! Well, maybe not millions of dollars or Euros, but perhaps many fans of your work and presentations.  In a previous blog, I mentioned communication skills as one of the most critical personnel development areas IT folks should pursue.  Within that domain, most have had the pleasure of delivering training or presentations to groups of all sizes.  We’ve all seen some really well done presentations and some really bad or even horrifying sessions where a coma would be preferable to sitting and enduring the presentation.

So how does selling mutual funds fit in here?  Well, for starters, there are several transferable skills one gets learning to get rich on a tiny sales commission selling funds or anything for that matter.  I tried mutual funds and other insurance products right after getting my Bachelor of Arts degree.  While I only earned a whopping $735 over a 7 month period, I gained many great skills that would have a huge payback later in my career.

Let’s look at just four of these skills that are actually very simple to acquire while learning to sell mutual funds (or whatever), and then we’ll highlight a few notes on how this helps in IT:

1. Building rapport – nothing is more of a challenge than cold calling someone to talk about investing.  Trying to get people’s contact info at seminars or conventions is a close second, and both require you to learn to establish rapport with someone unfamiliar very quickly.
2. Presence, confidence and appeal when speaking/presenting – Monotone droning, full of “ums” and “uhhs” will close the door for you rather quickly, so we worked on this endlessly.  Being able to speak well with a good flow and remain interesting was critical.
3. Listening skills – When you are in an oversold market trying to pawn off front-end load funds or insurance, you absolutely have to listen well for the nuggets the client may let out to demonstrate need or the desire to invest/insure.  You actually have a listen to talk ratio of 2 to 1. This is hard to master but a great skill to have.
4. Confidence out of the closet – I was always a geek inside and found it difficult to reach out to strangers and push some of my ideas and goals.  (One of my dream jobs was sitting in a cozy office or cube in the CIA analyzing photos and transcripts  – in  my closet doing my job.)  Instead, I had to fight to put gas in the car and food on the plate by earning a % of a small % fee doing something I seemed to really hate with a passion – selling.  I had to really push myself hard to get out there each day with passion and do this to survive (plus I had some help from a friend).

So if you are still wondering how these apply to an career in IT, let’s review each point.

Building rapport is essential in IT, in order to gain people’s trust whether you are answering the support calls or consulting with them on a new ERP solution.  This is the human side, the soft skills many in IT never obtain.  Find interest in the customer first and then explore how you can help (the help desk tech may follow a different path of course such as morning visit to customers like mentioned in this great resource).

Presence, confidence and appeal in speaking and presenting is probably the easiest of the four, especially if you have a sense of humor and thick skin.  Being able to sell a new VM solution or other deeply technical topic to business folks is much easier when you can capture their interest and keep them there through a passionate and well delivered pitch.  This also has great benefits for teams dealing with conflict and discussion problems, since speaking well under pressure is the core skill.

Listening skills should be understandable enough, but we are all guilty of speaking at people about technology or their support issue instead of really listening to them.  While it has great benefits for Tier I support staff, this really enhances higher level tech staff’s ability to understand the customer’s needs and pain points, while leading them to the right solution.

Confidence to reach out to the customer and be passionate about helping them better utilize technology is like walking around with a golden halo.  Learning to overcome introversion and gaining passion to help someone can open many doors.  Many business folks see this as a huge shortcoming of technical folks, even when they exhibit the same behavior.  You absolutely have to get out of the cube and passionately sell or support your business teams and technology solutions.

In my next post, I’ll go over some specific exercises and group tasks to help develop these skills so you can foster huge improvements in your IT communication capabilities.  Besides gaining some much needed skills, your team will have some fun and it’s virtually free!

Better IT Personnel Development

When management discusses personnel development of technology staff, this usually drifts towards certifications and technical training. I do see value in a very few select certifications, mostly around security and project management, but focusing on non-technical areas is a better strategy.

One critical area IT staff consistently struggle with is communications, and this is one of the most beneficial areas to focus on in personnel development. Basic writing, grammar, listening, negotiation, and presentation skills provide better returns for staff and organizations than almost any certification or specialized tech training. These five dimensions alone will reap huge benefits from a project and support perspective and they can be nurtured through modest investments of your time alone. In future posts I’ll cover some creative and inexpensive ways to develop these skills, and other tips to influence them to develop.

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog!

This is not the first blog, but the only living one now, and I hope to grow it into a prosperous and productive tool to share knowledge and enhance my reach in the fields of technology and business.

Constructive comments are always welcome, and thanks for reading.