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Navigating the Business World for Sysadmins
Carolyn
Rowland and Mark Burgess gave their tutorial on A Sysadmin’s Guide to
Navigating the Business World this Tuesday morning. Sysadmins generally
got into this gig because we like to improve the world through our mad
technical skills, as you do, and that path doesn’t always include the
completion certificate for “how to convince people that you know what
you’re doing and you should be listened to.”
Mark
and Carolyn gave a solid road-map for getting to that place. It takes
people skills, and knowing the answers to a series of questions.
- How are IT decisions made?
- Who makes decisions?
- Who are your customers?
- How do you bring value to the organization?
- What is the social status of IT in the organization?
- How do business/end-users view IT?
- What kind of business are you in?
- What does business want from IT?
- What regulation constrains your job? HIPPA, SOX, etc
- What is the relationship between sysadmin and value creators (dev)?
The
answers to these questions will give you an idea of where to start. The
big challenge IT groups face is proving their value to the overall
organization. Once value is established, convincing the decision makers
that your options should be considered is a lot easier.
Another
method to help elevate the view of IT is to productize the group.
Change the mindset of “Carrie the email admin” resolves problems, to
“the Messaging group” resolves problems. This makes IT, not just
exceptional individuals, known and taken into account. It also resolves
overload issues as end-users stop mobbing the few highly visible IT
workers who get a reputation for solid trouble-shooters.
But
as a person, not a group, what can you do? Sysadmins are often not the
managers of groups, which limits their ability to act at the higher
decision-making levels.
But
sysadmins do have contact with other business users across the
organization, both end users and work suppliers. They may not be the
actual people who make the IT spending decisions, but they are people
who compete for resources, or can act as advocates for IT initiatives.
These contacts are worth grooming.
Get
help in making those contacts. Your line-manager can get you an
introduction to some of these potential allies, so ask. Or maybe ask
that one person in the department you work with all the time.
Once
you have that introduction, get to know what motivates them. What are
their primary concerns? How much do they know about the topic? How
engaged are they? Communicate at their level, don’t condescend to their
level, and use approachable language.
Building
these relationships improves IT’s overall social status in the
organization, and it’s something you can do as a non-management worker.
Carolyn
and Mark covered much more than this, though. What makes good
communication. How to take Q/A. Strategies other than simple financial
cost to convince upper management (hint: risk-management is a good thing
to know).
There is a reason this class is offered a lot!