Kimberly FlossPepsiCo

Session 601

DBA Team Management – What I Wish The DBAs Knew, And Could Do, To

Improve All Our Lives

Speaker Qualifications

• Manager, Enterprise Database Services– Support Oracle, SQL Server, Teradata, DB2

• Former President, IOUG• Instructor, Moraine Valley Community College• Columnist, Oracle Magazine, Select Journal• Speaker at IOUG, Oracle Openworld

What will we cover?

• 32 ways in which we could all be better DBAs, and better employees– 32 ways that the DBAs could make their manager’s life

much easier, and make manager’s much happier– And if the manager is happier . . . .

1) Status Reports

• Make sure you get credit for your work• Tell everyone how valuable you are• Be on time• Use business words, not just tech words• Metrics are important – things roll up!• Highlight what’s really important

– Issues resolved, or needing resolution– New things you built– Customers you’ve helped

2) Timecards / Timetracking

• Chargeback for customers?• Comparison with outsourcing firms?• Collect the info on your own, so you have it

when you need it• Don’t be late• Ask how budgeting is done

3) Self-evaluation

• Toot your own horn• Get credit for your work• How did you help your company?• How did you do something better / faster /

cheaper than others?• Make sure its measurable• Use this to feed a resume

4) Training

• Its your career – you need to manage it• Technical and soft skills• Conferences and classes• Reading material, user groups, magazine

subscriptions• Always know what you want, so when you are asked,

you can answer quickly• Know when the training budget is funded, and when it

ends. If it gets cut at year end, take training early.

5) Volunteer!

• Show initiative• Volunteer to take new work on, follow up,

summarize, etc.• Internal and external

6) Be proactive

• Don’t let your manager be blindsighted in the hall

• Let everyone know• If you are up all night, send a note or voice

mail before you go to bed

7) Be flexible

• Are you willing to pitch in on anything? Do you happily accept new assignments?

• Anything new can be a challenge• Great resume material• Learn multiple DBMS’s and OS’s if you can• Learn different applications

8) Cross-training

• Do you have a backup?• Vacation coverage?• What if you are hit by a bus outside? • Or is this your job security?

9) Timeliness

• Always reply promptly when your manager sends you something that needs a response

• If you need to clarify a due date, please do so• Don’t make someone chase you down

10) Outside interests

• Somewhere to funnel energy when work isn’t going well

• Help broaden your skillset with skills that will help you at work, but that you may not get at work

• Don’t let work be your whole world

11) Network

• Make connections• Who can help answer questions• Web postings• New online sites• Facilitate partnering / sharing meetings with

peers and partners an customers

12) “Fun Facts”

• by DBMS (if you have Oracle and SQL Server, count them separately)

• by Operating System• Production vs. Non-production• # instances / databases• size in GB or TB

13) Make sure you can access everything• You need to be able to access every instance

that you have – Licensing / auditing– DBA’s leaving the company– DBA’s joinig the company– SOX password changes

14) Make sure we are recoverable!• Job#1 for any DBA – make sure we can

recover• Exports vs hot backups• Same box and different box• A DBA is only as good as their most recent

recovery attempt!

15) Highlight any SOX vulnerabilities• What are those auditors looking for? • As DBAs – we know what databases are wide

open • If you know of exposures that will come to

light, make sure your manager knows the exposures before the audit finds them.

16) Self-improvement books – read them!• There are many books out there to help YOU

improve YOU • Examples:

– Learning and leveraging your inner strengths– Understanding your personality types and others– How to interact with different personality types

• Take something away from each

17) Learn the next release

• Be sure you are up to speed on the new features in the next release.

• Even if it is just reading the doc• Download it and play with it

18) Balance quality vs. time to deliver• These two need to be balanced. • Track to a project plan and highlight where

things are off, and why (even if its just in Excel)

• Don’t have a 2-year project with no interim deliverables

19) Understand the applications and provide value to them

• Be responsive to folks – let them know request received and acknowledged, and when you plan to get to it

• If your customers were asked to provide anonymous feedback about your service to them, what would they say?

• Treat your application development PEERS as CUSTOMERS. Try to exceed their expectations at all times (yet still stay within corporate standards, etc.).

20) Off-hours ‘on-call’

• What are your off-hours responsibilities? • Do you even have backup coverage? • Are you ever NOT ‘on-call’? Is there ever an

ok time to be without a pager? • Communicate with your management, peers,

and customers for time out of the office / away from home.

21) Sharpen your Excel, Word, and PowerPoint skills• There will always be a need for Excel, Word,

and PowerPoint skills. • Performance or space management charts• Slides thanking folks for working on a project• Slides for a training a new hire • Slides for the new CIO on what does your

team do

22) Are things broken?

• Fix ‘em – don’t ignore them. • If there are things that you do all day long that

are just ridiculous, raise visibility to them and see if something can be done. (the trick here – you have to offer to be the ‘fixer’)

23)Leverage ‘big shop’ vs. ‘small shop’ advantages• There are advantages and disadvantages to working

in a big shop vs. a small shop. • In a big shop, you typically do one thing – Oracle

DBA, SQL Server DBA, DB2 DBA, one Application, or whatever.

• In a small shop - you do lots of things – maybe 1 DBA covers all 3. Maybe the DBAs and developers are the same. Maybe the DBAs are also the Unix administrators. Maybe they allocate their own storage too.

24) Learn how to handle conflict well• A person who handles conflict well is in-

valuable • Knowing how to diffuse it, how to handle

difficult conversations with ease is a beautiful thing.

• It takes a special knack to know how to not take things personally, or as criticisms of YOU or what’s been done in the past

25) Look for and be aware of team cohesiveness issues• Do you have issues within the team? • Managers don’t always see what’s going on

between the people on the team, and they need help to see this.

• Be the one to speak up, but be sure you bring with you suggestions to help

• Try to bring the team together as a cohesive unit

26) Highlight your problems, with suggestions• Don’t ever present a problem with no

potential solutions. • Show that you put some thought into it, and

into what should be done. • If you want to brainstorm, that’s ok too, but

you might be sorry you asked

27) Assume Positive Intent

• Most people don’t wake up in the morning, and decide to come to work for the sole purpose of making someone else’s life miserable.

• Try to keep a positive spin on the situation • Don’t attack others for doing something to

you, when you describe what happened. • I am sure the same goes in personal life, but I

am still testing the theory.

28) Do you have a peer who is a backstabber? Or trying to take credit for your work?• This can’t happen if your manager has your

status report • ‘He who gets all the credit, also gets all the

blame’ • Make sure that your manager knows what

you are working on

29) Do you have a person who does nothing, and expects you to do it all?• Issue a joint status report • You provide your tasks and status, and they

do the same

30) Be able to support decisions that you don’t agree with.

• You won’t always win every battle• Pick your battles, and not everything is worth

a big battle • ‘Die on your sword’ – but not every time

31) Build your confidence – what will it take?• What will it take to build your confidence in

your job? • Technical – 20 recovery scenarios?• Soft-skill – public speaking?• Make a plan to get there

32) What motivates you? What rewards are good for YOU?• Figure out what motivates you and make sure

your manager knows. – Money– Training– Cool assignments– Flexibility– Public appreciation

If only I could do all these things . . . I bet my boss would be really happy . ..

Questions?

Thank You

• Please complete your evaluation form for:– Kimberly Floss, Session #601– DBA Team Management – What I Wish The DBAs

Knew, And Could Do, To Improve All Our Lives

• Questions? Drop me a line at kimberly_floss@quakeroats.com or kimberly.floss@pepsi.com