Citrix offered VNUnet some guidelines to creating a healthy business – a business detox which forms part of the new years resolutions for the business. I’ve added my own comments on there:
- Ensure that the approach to IT is understood and consistent
This is the hardest one to tackle to be honest. It requires having a very “can do” attitude around your clients. They have to feel that their latest wacky idea is going to be given due consideration, e.g.
A developer asks for permission to install both routing software and a second IP stack on a raft of machines for their work. The standard answer from IT according to the book is “No”. Developer calls his manager, his manager calls your manager and you get browbeaten into doing it anyway. But the other option is to tell them why (because the network is the most important part of the infrastructure) and then spend a few minutes creating a separate LAN for these routing, dual-stack machines so the developers can continue with their work. With modern devices it only takes a few minutes so why not do it?
- Stop carting around more devices than are needed
Buy a job lot of a convergence device (Blackberry, iPhone, other smartphone) and give all staff the same model. Don’t pick a shitty model to save bucks, you’ll just piss people off. Apart from the fact that they can swap devices if someone needs one and it’s dead but everyone will have a charger for the damn thing. And keep a couple of spares. This is accompanied by the concept that you should provide the right devices for people to carry. Don’t give a 24×7 support person a Blackberry when he really needs a laptop with VPN and IP softphone. Don’t expect a support person to maintain a Windows PC at home so you can have him install shitty VPN software onto it to allow him to VNC into some generic machine. Just give him a damn laptop with your standard build and all the tools he needs to do his job.
- Reduce the threat of data leaks
Why are people keeping data on these devices anyway? If it’s on a device it needs to be encrypted (one of the biggest criticisms of the iPhone but this should be a function of the apps. Use Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets to manage data and then there’s no data on the machine anyway! Give them a fast and light webmail client that works well.
- Reduce ‘work miles’ and business travel
Considering my home broadband is quicker than the offsite link at most companies in Belfast, I feel I should stay at home to work. It doesn’t really matter where I am physically as long as your the VPN concentrators aren’t overloaded and your datacentre pipes are nice and fat. I’ll gladly save you the cost of a desk, canteen, maintenance, toilets, air conditioning, heating and on the ground security if I can avoid an hours commute twice a day. Of course, if you gave me a laptop rather than a sodding Blackberry I’d actually be able to work anywhere.
- Align IT goals with business goals
I have never been a fan of IT leading the way. The function of IT is to allow people to work, to take some of the burden of the day away. It’s actually nice to have the time to see to the enhancement requests rather than just firefighting.
Are you standardising the build on every PC to make your job easier or improve the experience for the customer? Does it help you to not permit people to have useful tools like Desktop Search? You think people get a kick out of the piss poor search facilities of Outlook? Why wouldn’t you let someone VNC to their own desktop easily? If you have IP hardware phones on the desks, why not give everyone the softphone software so if they have to stay home to mind a sick kid they can still likely attend meetings? Does it really pain you that the accountants want to play computer golf at lunchtime? Why is that? One real pissant of a Wintel admin removed the Run command from the Start menu, prevented anyone from changing the system time (but didn’t install a NTP daemon to keep the time correct), stopped everyone from changing their desktop picture or moving or altering their start bar, and didn’t bother configuring the sound cards. He was, without a doubt, the worst IT guy I had ever encountered.