IT Manager's Handbook: Getting Your New Job Done (49 page)

7.4 Standards

One of the classic jokes in this industry is the IT manager who says “yes, we're a firm believer in standardizing, that's why we have so many different standards.”

The benefit of standardizing on your technology is many-fold. It eases the support burden if there are fewer products for the technicians to know all the idiosyncrasies of. It also means that you don't have to keep spares for as many product types. For devices like printers, it means your inventory of consumables is simplified. And, it eases things for your procurement team and shortens your vendor list. Those features can lead to shorter delivery times and better opportunities for volume discounts.

As the discussion in the next section will show, there has to be some flexibility in standards, particularly where users are concerned. And it is important to periodically review standards—perhaps annually—to address changing costs, vendor offerings, requirements, industry directions, etc.

Issues That Users Care About

When personal computing technology first started to become popular, it was quite common for organizational users to ask for specific products like an “IBM Model 80,” a “Pentium processor,” or a “laser printer.”

Perhaps because of the ubiquity of technology, or the difficulty in keeping with the constant stream of new products and technologies, those days have faded. Technology that users can see has changed so quickly that users are now much less specific about what they ask for. There are so many new products coming out so quickly, it takes a professional (that is, someone in IT like you) to keep up.

That's not to say that users are completely uninterested in what they use. While users are less interested in the specific processor in the laptop, they may be very interested in the make, model, and operating system of their handheld devices. Of course performance is an issue, but it is not uncommon for end users to be more concerned about things that may or may not impact performance, and are often related to “technology envy”—the phenomenon of making sure your technology keeps-up-with-the-Joneses (or coworkers). Similarly, issues related to how the product impacts their daily life, as opposed to pure performance, are also important to users.

Items that fall into these categories include:

•
Cordless mice and keyboards (to eliminate some wires)

•
The coolest looking cell phone/handheld/tablet device (regardless of its capabilities)

•
Monitor size

•
The lightest and smallest laptops (for ease of travel)

•
Tower units to go under the desk (so that the valuable desk real estate is not taken up)

•
Desktop units (so that users don't keep banging their knees)

•
Privacy and antiglare screens (especially in cubicle farms)

•
Leather laptop carrying case vs. canvas

•
Preference for devices in certain colors

For situations like these, IT can have standards and still provide some flexibility for the users. For example, instead of insisting that all users use the exact same model laptop, two choices can be made available. One option can be relatively small and light, easy to carry, and functional enough for the user who just wants to do e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, etc. when traveling; the alternative is larger with a bigger screen and keyboard for those who prefer it.

For issues like ergonomic devices and anti-glare screens, the IT department should readily provide whatever the user asks for. No one wants an employee going to the HR department complaining of carpal-tunnel syndrome or eye strain because IT's standards prohibit these relief-offering devices.

Regardless of the standards you set, you can count on exceptions as a fact of life. No matter how carefully you selected your standards, it's only a matter of time before some executive asks for something that isn't a standard. Rank has its privilege, and it would be pretty unwise for you to say no. (If you do, expect to hear from your boss informing you that he “reconsidered” your answer for you.) However, before you say no, you can certainly have a discussion with that executive, asking him what features of that device are attractive to him, and showing him that those same features are available on the device that is part of your standards. He may not care all that much because yours isn't as cool-looking as the one he wants. But, it's a small sacrifice to keep an executive happy—and customer service is what IT is all about.

Issues That IT Cares About

While IT needs to offer greater flexibility to accommodate the individual needs and preferences of users, it has greater latitude in defining the technical standards that are generally beyond a user's interest or concern.

Because technology products have a limited life span (generally 5 years or less), and product offerings are changing so fast, it's unlikely you'll ever have a 100 percent standardized environment. But that doesn't mean you should just throw in the towel. In fact, the opposite is true: this is an important issue that you will be working on continuously.

IT should standardize on:

•
Hardware configurations (memory, disk, etc.).
Most of these items are now pretty modest in cost. Choose configurations that should last the life of the machine. The cost of an additional 1 GB of RAM is miniscule compared with the effort to do an upgrade after the fact (order, receive, payment, installation, interruption to user, etc.).

•
Operating system and application software (vendor and version).
The more consistency in your software set the greater the chances of full compatibility of files among users, and the easier the support and training burden is on your staff.

•
Software configuration (options, settings, directory and menu location, etc.).
It's not uncommon for application software to have over a hundred various settings (e.g., where to store files, how often to do an automatic backup). Users are unlikely to ever know about these, and less likely to deal with them. Let IT set standards so that software operates identically for all users. Again, it will pay dividends in the future in terms of support effort.

Standards for IT

In addition to technology put into the hands of the users, there are technology products that users are unlikely to ever see (although they may hear them referenced by IT). These include products like servers, routers, switches, storage solutions, gateways, and network operating systems.

IT'ers may have strong feelings about certain products in these categories, but they are unlikely to be swayed by secondary issues such as color or packaging. Perhaps that's because IT'ers deal with so much technology that some issues are unimportant while others are paramount. Nontechnical people are often surprised by the IT department's standards for using technological products, but they forget that people in IT not only have a deeper understanding of the core technology of the product, they generally have a longer history with the issue in general. IT people know what it means to purchase and install a new product from Microsoft versus one from a startup; the startup's product may have many more bells and whistles, but will the young company offer tech support, volume discounts, maintenance upgrades—and will it even be around two years from now? Is the product stable? And how well does that startup's product integrate with everything else in the environment?

It is generally easier to define these behind-the-scenes standards by finding agreement among some of your more senior engineers. If you have consensus at the top, the rest of the team will probably go along easily. Some may disagree (making a case that choice-X is a far better solution than choice-Y), but unless they feel quite strongly about it, they will readily participate in adopting uniform standards.

And, just like workstations for the users, infrastructure technology should have standards for configuration, setup, etc. In an environment that has a large volume of servers, for example, engineers should not have to hunt for the location of log files. They should know that all servers are set up identically (including naming conventions) so that when there is a problem, they can spend their time examining the log file, not looking for it. A comparable analogy can be applied to virtually all technology platforms and makes the case for standardization pretty evident.

7.5 Technology Refreshing

Different types of technologies have different lifetime expectations. Workstations may have a useful life of 3 to 4 years, as do servers. Networking equipment, like switches and routers, may easily last 5 years, printers may last even longer. On the other hand, laptops and handheld devices are on the shorter end of the spectrum simply because they physically take more abuse, are subject to being lost or stolen, and the technology for these products is still evolving rapidly.

Some organizations may set defined refresh cycles, while others may choose to use things until they simply won't operate any more.

Deciding which path to take depends on a few factors:

•
The cost of vendor warranties after a certain point.
A new server may come with a three-year warranty and service contract, but getting a contract for a four-year-old server may be cost prohibitive. To make this decision, you have to factor in how critical the device is to the environment as well as the cost of the service contract compared to the cost of a new device.

•
How easy it is to replace a device that fails.
If a printer fails, it's generally not that difficult to press another one into service. Replacing a server could require considerable effort and (down)time before the new one is up and running.

•
How Accounting depreciates IT assets.
Length of depreciation policies vary from company to company; work with your Accounting department to determine what these particular procedures are.

•
How your company views IT spending.
Some organizations see IT as critical and strategic to their operation and fully endorse having it remain current. Other organizations see IT spending as merely a cost of doing business (like paying the electric bill), or a necessary evil. See
Chapter 6, Managing the Money
on
page 161
for more information on the topics of IT spending and asset depreciation.

The most common point for refreshing a piece of technology often comes when the organization can no longer bear the cost of the existing technology:

•
Vendor support is unavailable, or cost prohibitive.

•
The technology is no longer meeting your needs.

•
The technology presents risks to the environment (reliability, security, etc.).

•
The technology is holding up other IT projects (e.g., the latest software from your database vendor won't run on your aged server).

As you can see, the costs are not always dollars and cents. It will be your job to assess these costs and move to refresh the technology
before
the cost of not refreshing becomes too high.

7.6 Further References

Websites

www.altiris.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.ca.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.cisco.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.dell.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.hp.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.ibm.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.intel.com/standards/execqa/qa0904.htm
. [Craig Barrett on the Importance of Global Standards].

www.ipswitch.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.landesk.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.microsoft.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.netiq.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.netsupport-inc.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.novell.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.opsware.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.peregrine.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.remedy.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

www.sunflowersystems.com
. [technology management solution vendor].

Books and Articles

Bansal S, (2009).
Technology Scorecards: Aligning IT Investments with Business Performance
. Wiley.