Managing Staff Time

IT author and consultant Harris Kern advocates personal discipline or "performance-mentoring" for IT departments and individual workers, and even teaches it using an almost psychological or therapeutic approach.

Tackling the problem means understanding it. Kern has identified almost 40 key challenges for IT groups. Some problems are organizational: IT doesn't understand the business impact of its work, or people's roles are blurry. Other problems are personal: IT workers have a hard time balancing their personal lives with work. Sometimes problems are in perception: Executives don't understand or appreciate IT's efforts and problems. The last issue can be especially serious, leading to unrealistic expectations, which leaves technology staffs scrambling to manage several projects, rather than focusing on what it can efficiently handle. Also, management may seem to capriciously alter project goals, erasing progress IT has made toward earlier goals and forcing it to begin anew.

Kern coaches individuals to manage themselves. IT workers are bright--sometimes brilliant--but that doesn't mean they are disciplined. IT must mentor itself, Kern says, because the HR-driven "annual review" is useless for IT. In technology, a year is an eternity.IT groups and individuals must examine their process on a weekly basis. The goal is to improve self-management and time-management skills. Each IT manager should have a clear set of separate responsibilities and should set workers' priorities. Managers should then report back to the CIO about these goals. This weekly process keeps IT workflows nimble as projects change. It also demonstrates achievement to upper management and keeps IT workers focused. Managers will find they can assess staff goals through regularly planned meetings without constantly gazing over employees' shoulders.

Capgemini's Parkinson concurs. He advocates "short-interval scheduling" for IT work. If the project is expected to run only one week, work schedules should be updated daily. Corrective action, if necessary, can follow. "The idea is that if you look [at] where you are regularly, you can't ever be that far behind," he says.

IT groups don't define their work processes well, Parkinson says. Even adopting a general process model for IT projects can yield a recovery of half of IT's lost productivity. The Capabilities Maturity Models (CMMs) from Carnegie Mellon University comprise one such best-practices model available to IT groups. CMMs provide process improvement reference models, help build organizational consensus and harmonize work with standards. CMM training courses run about $1,200 for government IT managers and slightly more for corporate managers.

Bring in the Power Tools

Project-management tools, while often effective, aren't used well by IT departments. In particular, managers have difficulty designing KPIs (key performance indicators) that gauge how well their staff is carrying through on a project. KPIs should be built around the economics and mechanics of running a project and monitored frequently. They also should explain exactly how to spread those resources around goals. You have X amount of work to do, Y amount of dollars and Z number of staff. Estimating that a project will require 10,000 lines of code, for example, might mean X work hours from the department's two best code developers. Performance measures might change as the demands of a project change--if the amount of required code grows, for example.Collaboration tools can help boost productivity when IT departments are geographically dispersed, Parkinson says. Capgemini uses CollabNet, a distributed software-development tool that helps workers share information by logging into a project repository that tracks each staff member's progress. Other, free open-source collaboration tools are plentiful and popular, or you can use cheap or free vendor-made tools, such as Microsoft's Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), SiteScape's Forum or Vignette's Business Workspaces.

Allowing remote access can save precious labor hours, says Thomas Staight, information systems administrator at medical device maker NemcoMed. "Remote access cannot be understated," he says. "There is no reason why employees should be required to physically appear when the work can be done from home. I believe employees feel that a company cares when they focus on the work instead of face-time." NemcoMed opted to purchase a secure remote-access tool from Enkoo, and Staight praised the labor-multiplying impact of the technology. Such applications allow secure remote access to applications, files and e-mail on users' PCs or company servers from a Web browser. Staight says he recently was able to perform tasks including database management and software development for his U.S.-based firm while he was in Germany, saving thousands in travel and per diem expenses.

The Unsung CEO

Strong communication with business executives can save time on the IT side. Business managers typically aren't interested in IT project details, and they have a nasty habit of changing their expectations for projects without informing IT. Andrew Weiner, partner at IT project management publisher ITtoolkit.com and former IT director at New York's Madison Square Garden, advocates frequent liaisons with sponsoring departments so that IT managers know their departments are moving in the right direction rather than wasting labor time on goals that are no longer relevant.

Communication with IT staff is also important, but micromanagement is to be avoided at all costs, Weiner says. Hounding workers over details can sap IT staffers of their energy and cause them to be depressed about their jobs. Most IT managers were once technology people themselves, and this can lead them into the micromanagement trap. "It's a curse. You tend to think about the small things. But that's what you hire staff for," Weiner says. "You have to give them ownership."Free Vendor Labor

Small IT staffs coping with tight budgets should take advantage of their vendors as much as possible, Weiner says. Software companies can assist with updates and save time by keeping customers up-to-date on technology changes. Vendors also provide valuable training--often for free. Businesses that agree to evaluate a new software package usually get free installations, which reaps in-house labor savings.

Don Steiner, practice lead for infrastructure at consulting firm Lazorpoint, agrees. His firm is "quick to engage the vendors," he says. IT managers should call in representatives from carriers, hardware vendors and software providers simultaneously when problems arise. This way staff can avoid wasting time determining which vendor is the best expert for tackling a given IT problem.

"Getting the vendors involved can also be a time-saver--freeing staff to do other things," Steiner says. "I have seen very good technical people get bogged down for hours or even days before they call the carrier or manufacturer. ... We preach this heavily--find the expert!"

With the aid of project- and time-management products and executive and vendor support, IT managers can give staffers the power and freedom they need to maximize their productivity.Ted Kemp is a freelance business and technology writer in New York. Write to him at [email protected].

You know you can get more from your employees, but you also know they're not just sitting around playing Minesweeper all day. Managing an already overburdened staff is no easy feat, but it is possible to increase their productivity without enforcing an 80-hour work week or hiring more people. In this installment of Affordable IT, Ted Kemp provides some tips and tricks to coax more out of your team without resorting to operant conditioning.

We show you how to improve your staff's self-management and time-management skills. We cover training and project-management tools that help boost productivity and keep the time wasters to a minimum. And we highlight ways to get free help from unexpected places. With a few cheap tools and easy techniques, you can have a more productive staff, and maybe there'll still be a few minutes left for a round of Minesweeper.

You can find all our Affordable IT articles here.