Posts Tagged ‘Working With IT People’

 

Can you trust your IT professional’s answer?

I had the pleasure of performing an audit at a company recently where the lead IT professional was shocked to learn that his e-commerce system needed to be secure in order to keep credit card information secure as part of PCI-DSS compliance.

Continue reading ‘Can you trust your IT professional’s answer?’


Do IT and management skills coincide?

I recently spoke to a CEO who was incredibly frustrated with his IT professional, who is incapable of managing his IT assistant successfully. In fact, in these times when organizations are having difficulty recruiting qualified IT professionals, this CEO was considering firing this professional who is enthusiastic, knowledgeable, devoted, and highly skilled technically—even though he is not the best manager.
Continue reading ‘Do IT and management skills coincide?’


Provide distractions to Gen Y at work?

If human multitasking is a fantasy, why would anyone give Generation Y employees access to distractions at work?

Continue reading ‘Provide distractions to Gen Y at work?’


Do you believe in human multitasking?

Can you, or your workers, really be productive doing more than one task at the same time? Checking e-mail while talking on the phone for instance?

Continue reading ‘Do you believe in human multitasking?’


Interruptions destroy productivity

We live in this modern world of e-mail, text messages, and social media and the constant interruptions can be devastating.

Continue reading ‘Interruptions destroy productivity’


CEO expresses frustration regarding IT professionals

Recently, a CEO sent me a message saying about executives, “We don’t know what we don’t know, and we depend on the IT department for answers. They could tell me aliens fried their Wheaties on the backup drive for breakfast and how am I to challenge that?”

Continue reading ‘CEO expresses frustration regarding IT professionals’


Executives, does your e-mail address end in AOL?

Three different highly respected business professionals communicated with me today and each of them made comments along the lines of, “Oh—that CEO is so far behind in technology that their e-mail address ends in AOL!”

Continue reading ‘Executives, does your e-mail address end in AOL?’


Is IT security pushed to the back burner?

Due to a number of problems in organizations, IT security too often gets pushed to the back burner. After a breach happens, IT often blames management, and management often blames IT. A wise friend told me many times, “It is not about fixing the blame; it is about fixing the problem.”

Continue reading ‘Is IT security pushed to the back burner?’


When you outsource IT, stop paying them by the hour!

To help ensure your IT projects are finished on time and in budget, pay IT outsourcing a flat fee. Do you realize that when you pay outsourced IT companies by the hour, unless you put some other restraints in place, you basically reward them for taking longer?

Continue reading ‘When you outsource IT, stop paying them by the hour!’


How to know if your IT professionals are good

Executives often want me to answer the question, “How good are my IT professionals” be they in-house employees or outsourced IT professionals. The first thing I say is, “If the IT professional is like a knight in shining armor, riding his horse in to save the day every time there is a problem, that’s not the best situation at all.”

Continue reading ‘How to know if your IT professionals are good’