nerd, geek, and gear herding: technical management techniques for managers v 2.0

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1 Nerd, Geek, and Gear Herding: Technical Management Techniques for Managers v 2.0 #12NTCNERD Grant Howe Stacy Dyer

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Page 1: Nerd, Geek, and Gear Herding: Technical Management Techniques for Managers v 2.0

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Nerd, Geek, and Gear

Herding: Technical

Management Techniques for

Managers v 2.0 #12NTCNERD

Grant Howe Stacy Dyer

Page 2: Nerd, Geek, and Gear Herding: Technical Management Techniques for Managers v 2.0

Evaluate This Session! Each entry is a chance to win an NTEN engraved iPad!

or Online at www.nten.org/ntc/eval

Page 3: Nerd, Geek, and Gear Herding: Technical Management Techniques for Managers v 2.0

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INTRODUCTION

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Your Partner in Dialogue

Grant Howe • Vice President of R&D w/Sage

• 15+ years in Software Development

• 30 years experience with Nonprofits Boy Scouts of America, Sig Tau Alumni Association Board Member

• Favorite food: Italian (anything with Alfredo sauce)

• @geekbyte if you want to tweet nice things

• @darthvader if you want to use the dark side

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Your Partner in Dialogue

Stacy Dyer • Product Marketing Manager w/Sage

• 8 years in Nonprofit Technology

• 15+ years experience with Nonprofits

Ballet Austin, Asolo Theatre, FSU School of Theatre

• Techie, Mom, and puzzle solver

• Favorite food: Coffee (TrianonRoasting.com)

• @stacydyer (if you want to talk #nptech)

• @helenalauriat (if you want to see cute baby pictures)

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Sage, 30 years of experience

Over 32,000 Unique Not-For-Profit Customers in North America

6.2 Million Customers Worldwide

3rd largest ERP solution provider to businesses worldwide

The Sage Group, plc. (London: SGE.L)

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“I wouldn’t do nothin’ else”

EDS “Cat Herder” Commercial

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What are we talking about today? Best Practices for:

Managing technology selection

Managing emergencies

Growing and rewarding technologists

“Crowd Source” your current technical

management issues

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Q&A Experiment at the end of the session

• Note cards on the tables.

• Jot down your real word Nerd / Tech herding

issues or best practices to share.

• Or tweet w/ #12NTCNERD

• We will collectively “crowd source”

suggestions and best practices.

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MANAGING TECHNOLOGY

SELECTION

“Paging Dr. Nerd”

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Paging Dr. Nerd

• Talking to a technical solutions specialist

is like going to see the doctor.

• Most people have a preconceived notion

of what the treatment should be.

• The best solutions usually come from

meaningful dialog about the problem or

task and a discussion of the “treatment

options”

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When to Call Dr. Nerd

• Are you first line of

contact for staff?

– “Hey Mom, my ear

hurts!”

• Recognize when to

call the “doctor”

– Scope

– Bandwidth

– Timing

– Risks of failure

Tip: When to

call the doctor

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A successful office visit agenda

• Tell me where it hurts.

• Tell me what your desired results

are post treatment.

• Discuss and choose a treatment.

• Take your medicine.

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Tell me where it hurts

• Focus your initial discussion on the

symptoms of your problem.

• Do your best to help me understand your

current state.

Examples:

• Performance of technical assets? How slow? When did you start noticing this?

• A capability you do not have in your environment? Tell me about the business processes and workflow and how this should fit in.

Tip: Prepare a

list so you

don’t forget

anything!

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What are your desired results

• “I want to play tennis three times a week

without knee pain.”

Examples:

• I need a collaboration tool for 20 users that are both on premise and remote.

• I don’t want to buy / manage servers anymore.

• I want users to be able to boot and login to the network in under 5 minutes.

Tip: Think big!

Dr. can’t help

if you don’t

ask for it.

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Discuss and choose a treatment

• “Your MRI shows you have a

slipped disc in your lower back,

here are our options…”

Lets discuss the top 3 options I have come up with.

Additional solutions we come up with are likely to be

flavors of the top 3.

Lets talk about these instead of emailing. Real time

discussion is important.

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Ask questions about each solution

• What will this cost (in time, resources and

money)?

• How does this solution compare to my original

desired end state?

• What other “side effects” can I expect from the

solution, good or bad?

• What is the risk of something going wrong or

causing damage? Is there a mitigation?

• What skills are required to implement and

have you done this before? How many times?

Tip: There are

NO stupid

questions!

Ask, Ask, Ask

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Compare the Solutions

• Write down the pros and cons of

each solution and compare them.

• Walk me through your thought process of making

the choice. I want you to be successful and if

you’ve forgotten to consider something, I’ll

discuss it with you.

• You are also entitled to seek a second opinion

and talk to others about the solutions. I

encourage you to do so.

Tip: A good

Dr. won’t be

insulted by 2nd

opinions

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Take your Medicine

• “Take these, 3 times a day…”

• Many people go through all this effort to make

but don’t follow the prescribed treatment.

• These people usually don’t get results and

neither will you if we don’t follow the plan.

• Solutions are holistic; often we see poor results

from not following the full plan.

Tip: This is

YOUR

responsibility!

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Most poorly performing organizations do

not suffer from lack of plans or strategy.

They suffer from lack of

consistent execution.

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LEADERSHIP DURING

EMERGENCIES

“The House is on Fire!”

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The House is on Fire!

When faced with a severe technical crisis (think mail server

down, fried DB server, website hacked) it’s important to

approach the situation methodically and in an organized

manner. When the “fire alarm” sounds, be the calm leader

in your organization.

Tip: DON’T

PANIC

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The House is on Fire!

Survey the Situation

Assemble the Team

Act Now!

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Survey the situation

• What is impacted and what is the current risk?

• What’s the possibility of it getting worse?

• What skill sets are needed for recovery?

• What level of alarm should be raised and

to who?

Tip: Reality

check!

• Volunteer firefighter example

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Assemble the Team

• Assemble the team. You’ll need the right resources to

investigate more thoroughly and come up with possible

solutions.

• What skill sets are needed for recovery?

• Where can you get them?

Tip: Not the

time for OJT!

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Act Now

• Get your team working to understand the problem right

away. While they’re doing that, you should be managing

the situation with the rest of the organization.

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Been asked these questions before?

“How could this happen?”

“Who is responsible?”

“What do we need to do to make sure this never

happens again?”

“Who do we need to fire because of this?”

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Get the Children out First!

• Focus all efforts on diagnosis

and resolution of the issue.

• Postpone discussions that could

either become emotional or will

not further crisis resolution.

• Promise that a root cause

analysis will be delivered to all

interested parties after crisis

resolution.

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Arson investigations are

performed on cold ashes

• Debrief the team post-crisis, documenting how the

situation began.

• Investigate and define operational changes that could

prevent the crisis from reoccurring.

• Compile a report detailing the crisis, resolution, root

cause, and recommended preventive measures.

• Insist that the preventive measures be

implemented. Accidents happen, but

shame on you if they happen twice.

Tip: An ounce

of prevention

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MOTIVATING AND REWARDING

TECHS

How can you win?

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The IT Situation It feels like you just can’t win…

• IT infrastructure and Software isn’t

thought of much unless its not working.

• When its not working, staff in general

have a low opinion of those who build /

maintain it.

• When the issue is fixed, few will consider

the effort successful because they were

impacted.

Tip: IT is like a

box of kitty

litter...

• Few staffers call the

support desk to report that

“things are working great,

keep it up!”

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Best Practice - Scoreboards

• Setup a public scoreboard in a highly

trafficked location.

• Track meaningful metrics:

– System uptimes

– Project milestones

• Make it clear whether the team is winning or

losing to the reader in 5 seconds.

• Update weekly or monthly.

Tip:

Everyone

loves a gold

star on their

paper!

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Scoreboard example

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Best Practice – Celebrate Winning

• Make success visible:

– Mail server uptime cookie celebration

– Project Milestone completion happy hour

– Public congratulations from executives

– High internet availability pizza party

Place more focus and visibility on consistently

winning than on occasional failures

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Best Practice –

“Motivation” for the cash poor

• Say thank-you often – Do not underestimate the value of

these two words.

• Spend more time talking about “did well’s” and less on

“next times”

Tip: Nurture

your team –

help them

learn to fly!

• Give paid time to learn between projects.

• Provide career growth advice and

mentoring.

• “Best Companies to Work for” example.

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Best Practice – Coaching

• 30-45 minute special 1:1 meeting every 8 weeks.

• Staffers submit two “did wells” and one “next time” 24 hrs to

manager prior to the meeting. Manager may add to the list during the

meeting..

• Staffer to discuss each “did well” and what the key factors were in

creating success.

• Staffer to discuss each “next time” and what should be key factors

for creating success next time are.

• Spend more time talking about “did well’s” and less on “next times”

The point is to have dialog with staffers about what they

think is important and listen intently!

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Q&A CROWDSOURCE

EXPERIMENT

Lets make it happen

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Q&A Experiment

• Note cards on the tables.

• Jot down your real word Nerd / Tech herding

issues or best practices to share.

• Or tweet w/ #12NTCNERD

• We will collectively “crowd source”

suggestions and best practices.

Page 39: Nerd, Geek, and Gear Herding: Technical Management Techniques for Managers v 2.0

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Grant Howe

[email protected]

@geekbyte

Stacy Dyer

[email protected]

@stacydyer

Thank You!

Page 40: Nerd, Geek, and Gear Herding: Technical Management Techniques for Managers v 2.0

Evaluate This Session! Each entry is a chance to win an NTEN engraved iPad!

or Online at www.nten.org/ntc/eval