Hello and welcome to this week's Practical IT Manager Tips Newsletter

This week's article
Do I use my own IT management tools ?

You bet I do. In this article I'll share how I prepare for my upcoming IT Manager Institute and how my project management tools save me lots of time and effort.


Read the article below

MDE NEWS

Join me Tuesday, October 12th to help launch the Help Desk Institute's OTIS program
Join me on October 12th at 1:00pm central US time when I conduct an online chat session to help promote the launch of Help Desk Institute's new program called OTIS. The topic - Motivate and develop your staff for improved performance
Anyone can participate so mark your calendars and bring your questions.

Click here for more information. Membership to OTIS is free.

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Do I use my own IT management tools ?

I no longer manage an IT organization in a corporate environment, but I still have plenty of opportunity to use many of the tools I developed over the course of my career. I don't use them just to say that I still use them. I use them because they save me time and make many of my tasks easier to accomplish. That's why I developed them in the first place, and that's why I still use them whenever I can.

Let me give you an example. In the last several weeks I have been preparing for my 4th IT Manager Institute to be held next week (October 18-22). When I conducted the very first Institute, I created a project plan that included the tasks and timeframes I needed to complete things in order to deliver a successful class. This plan makes all the difference for me.

Having a project plan helps you eliminate procrastination (one of my worst enemies) and allows you to focus precisely on what needs to be done. Bottom line is that it allows you to be much more effective and to prepare without the stress you might otherwise incur.

It also allows you to complete your preparation much more productively.

In this 4th Institute, I have never been more prepared this early before the class. The reason is simple. I had a guide with specific steps that needed to be accomplished and I got them done by following my project plan even though many other issues and projects were going on at the time.

I'm certain that I would prepare fairly effective without having a plan, but the plan guarantees I will "dot the i's and cross the t's" every time. It gives me a lot of comfort knowing that I've done what is needed to prepare for each class and it allows me to get "ahead of the power curve".

Take a look at the excerpt below from the simple project plan I use in preparing for the IT Manager Institute. It doesn't have to be complex to be helpful. One of the things I emphasize over and over is to keep your management tools practical and simple. The simpler it is, the better in many cases.

I use this plan to prepare for every Institute. It just makes the preparation simpler and takes the worry out as to whether we have everything in place. Eliminating worry and uncertainty helps you be more productive.

Having a plan in place also helps you deal with late surprises more effectively because you know you are on top of the plan and how much is left to do. A perfect example of this is that I learned of a conflict with my classroom just last week. With just two weeks to go, I had to find a new classroom for a 5-day class. I don't know if you have had to do this, but it takes time and effort. Had I not been "on top of" the preparation effort, this additional effort could have made it a very tense week or two. The plan and being right where I needed to be in the preparation effort made the scramble for a new classroom much more manageable which eliminated the stress that could have been associated with this little surprise.

In short, I believe in using tools to help me be more productive. I use them every chance I get and my tools are being used by thousands of managers all over the world. That's a pretty good endorsement, don't you think?

Get my IT Manager ToolKit free when you order either the IT Manager Development Series or the IT Manager Series "Combo" package. The ToolKit contains 80 management tools I developed for my own use as an IT manager and CIO.

Click here to learn about the IT Manager Development Series

Click here to learn about the IT Manager "Combo" package  BEST VALUE

Click here for information and a list of the 80 tools in the IT Manager ToolKit

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Best of success.

Mike Sisco
MDE Enterprises
3300 Stillcorn Ridge Road
Columbia, TN 38401
mike@mde.net
931-490-6932
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