In this case, a diagram is worth a thousand words so please look at these examples:

• PERT chart one
• PERT chart two

The simplest form of a PERT chart is circles for each step, with the name of the step and the estimated duration. Draw arrows that connect the paths related to dependencies such as:

• This step must finish prior to the next step starting
• This step can start at the same time as another step
• Both of these steps must complete before the next step starts

For example:

The most useful part, to me anyway, of a PERT chart is that you can identify the critical path. To find the critical path, first identify how many paths you can take from the start to the finish. Then, for each path, add up the duration of the steps. If there are 4 paths, you may end up with durations of, for example:

• Path 1 duration: 12 days (Task 1’s duration plus task 3’s duration)
• Path 2 duration: 11 days (Task 2’s plus Task 3’ durations)
• Path 3 duration: 10 days (Task 4’s duration)

In this case, path 1 is the critical path because if there is any delay at all in path 1, the entire project will be delayed. The other paths contain slack time so they can experience delays if necessary.

Be sure to read my two most recent blog entries about the Work Breakdown Structure and the Gantt chart.

Please post your comments on this blog.

The first step is to add more information to the WBS:

• Estimated duration for each step.
• Dependencies such as “the prior step must be completed before the next step can start” since some steps can be started simultaneously.

Then, software can calculate the estimated start and stop dates for each step, and then overlay that information on a calendar.

Here are two examples of Gantt charts:

• Gantt chart one
• Gannt chart two

The third item in this three-part series will be about the PERT chart.

Please post your comments on this blog.

The first part of this three-part series, which you may want to forward to your IT professionals, discusses a WBS. In its most basic form, the Work Breakdown Structure is a list made up of steps needed to complete a project. The steps are listed mostly in order and there are designated milestones.

The next item in this three-part series will be about the Gantt chart.

Please post your comments on this blog.

The flow looks like this:

1. IT makes suggestions to senior executives, making sure the executives understand the benefits, drawbacks, risks, likelihood, and the extent of possible damages.
2. Then, the executives reflect a summary back to IT so the executives are certain they completely understand.
3. The executives make a decision and written policies are produced or adjusted as required.
4. IT will enforce the policies and act on them accordingly.

The key, once again, is that the senior executives make an informed decision.

Please post your comments on this blog.

When asked, it turns out that IT professionals have the attitude, “Well, they asked me to do it, so I did it. Why should I have to tell them it is done? Why can’t they just trust me?”

This is indeed a trust issue. IT expects the user or executive to trust that it is done, and the executive or user trusts IT to tell them when it is done. For an IT professional not to report back reduces or even destroys the trust the executives have in them.

When the user or executive has to ask if the task was complete, the IT professional feels untrusted.

I hope you have the IT professionals who always report back that a task is complete. If so, then they clearly understand trust is something you earn. If they have a habit of not getting back to people to tell them a task is completed, instruct them to do everyone a favor and start saying when they finish! You will break the cycle and start increasing trust right away. This will help you and your organization as much as it helps them!

Please post your comments on this blog.

Fortunately for the CEO, after our conversation, he decided not to terminate the IT professional and keep him on board. The CEO will arrange management training for the IT professional.

In my experience, not all of the very best IT professionals are also excellent leaders and managers. Expecting all IT professionals to also be good at management reminds me a little bit of the flying cars, or amphibious vehicles. Those vehicles are pretty good at both, but not excellent at either.

Although I have met a few, should we expect IT professionals to be good managers? Many of the C-level executives I speak to feel this is a reasonable expectation. Please post your comments on this blog.

When CNN ran the story, Study tracks effects of interruptions on doctors, I immediately thought about the effects of interruptions on the “doctors” who take care of your IT—your IT professionals!

If you have seen me speak, or experienced an IT Vital Systems Review audit, you have heard my soap box spiel about how IT professionals all need at least one 45 minute period of uninterrupted time each day to accomplish tasks. My preference is that they get even more than one of those periods.

When solving an IT related issue, planning the next upgrade, or focusing on some other IT related process, it is crucial for the IT professional to be balancing multiple ideas and multiple subjects around in their brain simultaneously. One unnecessary interruption can throw the IT professional back to “square one” again in a nanosecond.

The CNN article says doctors did not even return to almost 20% of the tasks they were doing when interrupted.

Interruptions are dangerous to medical professionals in hospitals, pilots in aircraft, and IT professionals in your organization.

Save them time, and yourself money, by allowing them to work quietly from time to time.  If you have them on staff, IT developers are the same way. Writing code is a thought intensive process.

I was interrupted twice while writing this article. How many times were you interrupted while reading it?

For that matter, some of the CEO’s and other key executives that read these blog postings can benefit from some uninterrupted time as well!  Please post your thoughts on this blog.

I recently had a shocking conversation with an IT professional working as the sole IT professional at a company in the US. I encouraged him to apply patches to his network and his response was, “I do not need to patch the operating system or applications—I have anti-virus and that protects the network from all security risks.”

At first, I thought he was joking with me. He wasn’t! I asked, “What if a user writes the password on a sticky note and the cleaning crew logs in as them to access secure files—does anti-virus prevent that?” The IT pro said yes he was protected.  Several of his “IT advisors” told him anti-virus was all he needed.

I attempted to get through to him for almost 10 minutes with other examples, sent him links to articles on news sites showing reality, and he kept going back to “his trusted advisors told him not to worry about it.” I asked who the “trusted advisors” were and he didn’t want to divulge their identities but assured me “they are really smart.” I even offered to have a conference call with the IT professional and his advisors, but he felt that wasn’t necessary.

This poor IT professional totally believes his reality. He probably will until something bad happens—and at what expense?

I experience this to varying degrees fairly often with “IT professionals,” and frankly I find it unsettling because executives trust their IT professionals with the safety of their business. Executives need to trust their IT professionals.

Executives please make sure your IT department’s advisors are trustworthy as well!

IT professionals naturally, as most of us would, gain a great feeling of satisfaction when they swoop in to save the day. The real question I ask of the IT team during an audit is, “Why did the problem develop to begin with?” I’d rather there never be a problem and, when you see your IT professionals, it is to talk strategically about your IT systems rather than to solve another emergency.

Some of the IT professionals at the companies who’s executives bring me in to audit their systems say, “Thank you Mike. You taught us to drain the swamp so we could stop killing alligators. Once the swamp was drained, most of the alligators left.”

Some of the biggest encouragement you executives can provide your in-house and IT professionals are to focus on the following areas:

• Strategic—IT professionals who are too bogged down in tactics fail to discuss important decisions with executives. A perfect example is whether or not the company wants to use full disk encryption on some or all of your computers. Too often the first the executives ever hear of full disk encryption is when they learn it is not installed and they are about to have to mail a letter to all the clients since a laptop was lost or stolen.
• Automation—Servers can, when configured properly, do a lot of the work automatically that your IT professionals may be wasting time doing manually.
• Central Management—IT professionals can configure the network so they can use one quick tool on one computer to take care of every computer in your organization—without having to visit every computer. The money savings and increased security can be staggering.
• Metrics—IT can provide you with useful information such as most common help desk requests so you can reduce the causes, statistics on what web sites your employees visit most often so you can control bandwidth, and can sometimes bring information from two different programs together using business intelligence tools to give you important metrics related to your sales, processes, or even client demographics.

These are all a much better use of time and money than for your IT professionals to be fixing the same old problems they keep fixing every week.

The IT professionals can use tools like anti-virus, firewalls, application and OS patches, etc. Many IT professionals are not using the tools as effectively as they could, and frequently aren’t using them at all on one or more computers. None of the tools are “set and forget”—all of them have to be monitored.

I feel the executive’s real challenge is, “I don’t know how to help my IT professional fight viruses.”

Responsible executives:

• Provide enough uninterrupted time for the IT professionals so the IT professionals can get their work done.
• Allow ongoing training for the IT professionals to keep up with ever changing technology.
• Hold the IT department accountable for fixing issues discovered during an audit.
• Provide managerial support for policies that support security—such as forcing computer screen savers to lock after a period of inactivity.