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As an IT manager, one of our responsibilities is to help our employees be more productive in their day to day support efforts. The way to do this is to coach them on how to do things better and that create higher productivity in their efforts. A fact that we sometimes lose sight of is that "just because we know how to do something doesn't mean everyone else does". In fact, I'm constantly amazed at how something that seems so basic is a brand new concept to others.
Our capabilities are a culmination of experience, education, and coaching from others. In an IT management role, it is smarter to assume your employees don't know how to do something until you verify that they do. Let's look at a simple example.
There are thousands of Desktop Support technicians that are very good at their job but who could improve their productivity and the level of client satisfaction immensely in their company by doing one simple thing. These resources are some of our "front lines" of support to the client (internal users of technology) and can create a significant perspective of how we approach the job of supporting technology in our company.
Most of these employees approach the work in a single faceted manner. They receive a call for support, they go to the scene of the problem, diagnose the problem, fix the problem and leave. If they were to take this one step further it would have a dramatic impact on those they support. If they look at every problem situation in a bit more depth and try to determine the source of the problem in order to provide insight that prevents the problem in the first place it would make everyone feel better about IT support.
Little steps taken in the right direction can have very big impact.
That's easy to say but not that easy to do, especially for an entry level employee who may have very little IT support experience. That's where we as managers come in. Our role is to do several things as we coach the employee for improved performance:
1. Make the employee aware that it's more important to prevent problems than to solve them. We have to be able to "fight
fires" but it is far more important to be in the fire prevention business.
2. Teach the employee how to determine the source of problems and how to communicate these ideas to the appropriate
people in the organization in order to start preventing problems faster.
3. Offer to work with the employee to review and analyze situations in order to help him/her become more productive and
to do things that improves client satisfaction. Emphasize the fact that it's quite all right that the employee not know
everything, but it's vitally important for us to constantly work as a team to improve our support capabilities.
When I assume responsibility as a company's new CIO, I assume the IT organization is not using a proven project management methodology until I discover they are. As I mentioned earlier in the article, I continue to be amazed by the number of people, even large organizations that simply "wing it". Do you wonder why more than 70% of all IT projects fail by either taking longer to complete, exceeding budget, or missing the needs of the client? It's because most organizations still do not follow a project management process that ensures a successful outcome.
Your employees need to learn how to manage projects well. It is a key part of achieving success as an IT manager. This is something you can teach quickly and you have an obligation to everyone around for your employees to implement projects successfully. Improving your organization's ability to implement projects successfully is one of the best examples of "working smarter". We all know how much easier and less painful it is when we do things right the first time. It is also a huge productivity boost.
Step back from your day to day activity for a few moments every week and think about what you need to accomplish. It takes fifteen minutes at the most. Find a quiet place and jot down a short list (two or three items) that are important for you to accomplish this week. Write them down and decide how and when you will focus energy on these objectives to get them completed. Finally, make a commitment to yourself that you will get these objectives completed as a personal commitment to yourself. Above all, follow through and don't let yourself down.
Organizing your objectives and making commitments to get certain things done every week is a powerful asset we all have, but it's often an untapped opportunity. Keep a record of these weekly initiatives and you will be amazed at the end of the year how much you were able to accomplish. Teach your employees to do the same. It will increase your team's output results by 20% and will simply amaze you and the team if you begin reinforcing this approach with one another.
Working smarter all comes back to a few simple points:
- Focusing on the right things that make a difference and provide value to others
- Doing things right the first time
- Being thorough so that when the job is completed it really is
- Focusing on preventing problems more so than in solving problems after they occur
As for me, I plan to get more help in my company next year. I've been proud of the fact that we had no employees, but the business has grown and there are more important things to do than ever before. It's time for me to get some help in areas of marketing, accounting, and administration. By working smarter, we expect to be much more productive in 2005.
Best of success.
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