A lesson in service

On Thursday night, my wife and I celebrated 15 years since our first date with by best-man and his girlfriend. We went to the Clarendon in Chandlers Cross, Hertfordshire, had a great time and experienced levels of service that are very rarely found and should be a lesson to everyone in a service industry, I'll explain...

We arrived early, but our table was free. The manager told us we were welcome to be seated and if we ordered immediately we'd be served quickly, but then he had a busy period of around 20mins after which at 8.30pm when we were supposed to sit down at our table it would be quiet again so we had the choice of either ordering immediately or waiting. We chose to wait. Fantastic just to be informed properly of our choices, I don't recall that ever happening before in a restaurant - the first example of great service.

Shortly after 8.30pm, we ordered and also talked to the waitress about wine. My friend had had a glass of house wine and commented how good it was. Our waitress agreed with us and told us about how much effort had gone in to getting a good house red and recommended we go with it. At £14.50 a bottle, we thought it worth the risk and it turned out to be a great decision. The second example of great example of customer service.

The food came promptly and was absolutely superb. I've never experienced a better Fois Gras nor Fillet Steak, the fat-chips were to die for and the cheese with eccles cakes was just divine. All washed down with more bottles of that really good house red.

Now, the third example of service pushed things through the roof, but it's worth providing some background: That night, the predicted snow came. When we got to the restaurant, it hadn't started, but by the time we left there was enough for it to screw up the roads. We had booked a taxi for 11pm, but it didn't arrive and on calling the taxi-firm I was informed there was no chance of a taxi. So, 5 miles from home, in a blizzard at 11pm with a baby-sitter at home looking after the my sons and the girls in shoes far from suitable for a long walk. This was a stressful moment...

So, there we were, the four of us, without a taxi and very few options. The manager and his staff had the time to think of a number of options for us, but we concluded that the simplest was to walk home. The staff produced spare shoes for the girls and we prepared to brave the snowy blast. Then one of the staff decided to really go that extra mile, literally. Jasmin decided to take us as near to home as she possible could in her Mini, it wasn't even on her way home and she had to return to the restaurant. The roads were now covered in compacted snow, the route home had hills and narrow back-roads, this was not going to be an easy journey, but Jasmin was game. Wow, what a fantastic offer, we accepted.

So, the journey home was easy at first, but then we took a wrong turning round which gave us our first "stuck in the snow for the night" scare, but we extricated ourselves. Then everything was ok until we hit the hill on the road up to the outskirts of the village. Everyone out of the car helping Jasmin get the car up the hill. With a few halts and scary skids we eventually got tho the top. Jasmin turned to go back to the restaurant via the M25 having done us the greatest service anyone could ever have done that night. She didn't have to, she didn't need to, but she did. What a staggeringly fantastic attitude, I'd have someone like that on my team any time and it should be an example to anyone who wants to understand what going the extra mile really means.

Thank you Jasmin, along with your restaurant you made our night. The walk across the common to home was done with high spirits and quite a bit of enjoyment and it was all because a some people went the extra mile. This is an example I shall use many times in the future when people ask what going the extra mile really means. Certainly my wife and I, my best-man and his girlfriend will always remember that night as a fantastic experience, but it could have had a very different outcome, but due to the wonderful service we received particularly in the face of adveristy, we will look back on the evening with great memories.

Thanks Jasmin!

Doing Energy Saving Properly

I stumbled upon a very simple chart today, one that gives us an interesting analysis of energy saving and the best way to do it. It's a chart published in the Financial Times to go with an article called "Advantages of Frugal Fuel". It by McKinsey & Co and shows the green effectiveness of a number of common green energy technologies. Any technology below the zero line shows a technology that not only reduces CO2 emissions, but will also save you more money than it costs over its lifetime.

It clearly illustrates that using energy efficient light bulbs and insulating walls is the best, cheapest and most cost effective "green stimulus measures". Forget the solar panels, the wind-power or even geo-thermal. Just change your light bulbs and insulate your walls and you're doing far better than investing in any other technologies.

Should we be spending massive amounts of money on new power stations, wind-farms or just ensuring that we all get more energy efficient by changing our filament light bulbs and insulating our walls. Amazingly, the money should be going on bulbs and insulation! And almost astonishingly, the EU recognises this; Andris Piebalgs, the commissioner in charge of energy said "Energy efficiency is the cheapest and most effective way to reduce energy policy risks".

So, for all of you planning green data-centres, virtualisation or thin-client desktop rollouts think again, you should actually be just planning to swap your light bulbs, insulate your walls and make all your friends do the same. I'm kind of joking, but it does make it very clear that you shouldn't be taking such measures for altruistic reasons alone, it needs to significantly improve the company's bottom line!

Cloud? What Cloud?!

On Wednesday evening I was at a conference/dinner. The prescribed topic of conversation was how to reduce costs and complexity within technology. This is central to what I'm working on at the moment, is an interesting topic to debate and worth finding out what other senior IT professionals think, particularly during this economic period. And to make it very interesting, Paul Colby, British Airways' CIO was there to talk about how he had managed costs down and reduced complexity over the last 8 years. All good, nothing bad

But, why do these things always degenerate in to a discussion about "The Cloud". Every time I've been to one of these events, and I do mean every time, whatever the official topic of conversation we end up arguing about "The Cloud", what it is and whether we need it. Why are we so obsessed? It's all marketing fluff anyway so why can't we leave it alone?

I think I know: it's because no-one really knows what the cloud actually is, whether it's useful, cost effective, safe, capable, reliable or anything else. It's another technical emporer's new clothes and that makes it a gift for the salespeople and consultants! A few years back all the alleged Cloud functionality was already available, just defined separately: Software as a Service, Hosted servers (dedicated or shared), GoogleMail/GoogleApps, Grid Computing, Utility Computing, etc. etc. But now for some reason it's all got bundled up in this Cloud reference and people think we've got a new technology. Well, no we haven't, it's the emporer's new clothes, it really is. And so we argue and we argue and we argue.

Unfortunately for the CTO or IT Director, whilst we argue and ponder and disagree on what the cloud is, the salespeople and consultancies gather around our CEOs like bees round a honeypot and suddenly it doesn't matter what we think about the cloud any more because you're on the back-foot watching your grip on the IT strategy disappear as the CEO derails it with consultant-led fanciful ideas of saving millions by investing in the cloud.

Now, I never like being on the back-foot and I sure don't like surprises either from my team or from the board so this where we need to proactively manage upwards. Some time back I blogged about the CEO needing to trust the CTO and this is a great example of where that trust is needed. If the CEO trusts the CTO to keep him informed about emerging technologies and trends then salespeople and consultants will be redirected to the CTO rather than be listened to because the CEO knows the CTO will be on top of it already.

Building that trust and ensuring the CEO knows you're on top of it needs to be a priority. Briefing the CEO regularly on new technology or the trend-de-jour within the IT world is pretty important. By briefing the CEO, you're more likely to keep things on track, reduce the number of surprises coming from above and have more time to properly decide whether to invest in these new-fangles technologies as part of the IT strategy rather than as a reactive requirement from the CEO which is never a good place to be.

In the meantime, if you fancy a lively discussion on the smoke and mirrors that is the cloud, give me a shout

A Recommendation

This is completely off-topic, it's not about leadership or technology or anything like that, it's actually a recommendation. As a busy leader it's often very easy to forget to take time out and relax and I am notoriously rubbish at taking holiday, I mean real holiday - somewhere foreign in a hotel - because for me holiday means "not at work", but for my wife (a full time, fantastic mother and housewife) taking holiday at home doesn't work as holiday for her. So, after a lot of negotiation we agreed to properly go away leaving the boys in charge of my mother.

A 3rd party recommendation isn't always a reliable one, but we took a flyer and booked 5 nights in a boutique hotel in Marrakech and boy did it pay off. Dar Zermora really is a boutique hotel with 2 suites, a chalet and 3 other bedrooms, that's it and that's what's so fabulous about it. It's a few kilometers out of Marrakech, but the taxi-transfer was there waiting at the airport. Our suite was spacious and cosy at the same time. The hotel is sited in just over three acres of tranquil, calm and lush grounds and has a private house feeling. The gardens were right next to our patio and the decent sized pool just another few yards away. Breakfast on the patio, lunch and dinner in an outside dining area. It was just so easy to relax that it took me completely by surprise, we lounged by the pool, swam, read books, soaked up the sun (in mid October) and slept. We wanted for nothing!

Yes, Marrakech with the souks, madina and many sights and restaurants was there and we went a couple of times, but relaxation was what this holiday was about and the hotel gave it to us in buckets and we didn't waste a moment! Even the thunderstorm on the last afternoon just seemed to fit in and enhance the holiday rather than detract from it. On our final morning in the taxi back to the airport, the sad bit was knowing that we were going to be back in London in a few hours time - the flight is only around 3 hours - and that we'd be driving back round the M25 in rush-hour. Ah well, at least now we know that we have a place to go if we need real, unadulterated r&r, although it's not suitable for kids so we'll need to work on my Mum again if we're to get there again any time soon.

Regardless, if you want some genuine time-out that really gives you the relaxation you need, no-one should pass up the opportunity to stay at Dar Zermora.

ByteNight is here again!

On Friday, 2nd October, ByteNight comes round again. This is the second year I've done ByteNight and the second time that I've been in a team that's successfully raised £5k. Woohoo & Phew!!

Actually this year, raising the money was tougher than ever, mostly due to the economic climate and people being less willing to part with their cash. Regardless, we got lucky - we had a load of redundant IT kit when we moved out of an office earlier this year and selling it to people in the Technology team gave us a real boost towards our target.

Obviously I'd be delighted if we raised more money, so if you'd like to donate, please go to our Justgiving website - click on the Donate button on the Justgiving widget on the right hand side of this blog.

Here's hoping that it'll be dry, last year it was dry, but very, very cold. However, that's preferable to rain!

£5k enables Action for Children to achieve a lot, and even in this economic climate I understand that ByteNight is on track to beat previous records with the regional events being significantly larger than last year. Last year's ByteNight raised more than £450k altogether and with very low overheads the vast majority of money goes straight to Action for Children initiatives.

Anyway, please keep fingers crossed for decent weather!!

A Conundrum

I have a conundrum at the moment, I'm doing a lot of stuff that's incredibly interesting at work and in many ways I would love to blog about it and talk about the issues, difficulties, excitement, challenges and outcomes but this blog is in the public domain and the vast majority of what I'm doing will have an impact on people within my company. There are also commercial sensitivities that need to be taken in to account.

That impact is not necessarily going to be seen as positive by everyone that it affects. Whilst I believe that all I'm doing will be very positive for the business in the long run I need to have a duty of care to those who may or may not be involved and read posts I put on this blog.

So, it is interesting times at work and maybe at some point in the future I'll blog about them, but for now I'll be having a think about other topics that I can blog on rather than what I am dealing with at work.

At the moment I'm working on a presentation for a conference in September on being a great leader in challenging times. When that's finished, I'll post something along those lines. In the meantime, please excuse the lower than normal levels of blogging!

Team Morale

I was coming back from the supermarket at lunchtime and overhead the following conversation between a young dad and his grizzling toddler daughter: "What's wrong? We're supposed to be having fun, man, what are you crying for? Why can't we just have fun?" The joys of having uncommunicative off-spring with unfathomable agendas. I knew exactly how he felt in more ways than one. I have young boys myself and I've always been amazed at how fragile their mood is, but it started me thinking about team morale and his exasperated questions sounded very familiar in the work sense too. Team morale is as fragile as a three-year-old's, but unlike my sons, team morale cannot be fixed through the application of a strawberry ice-cream.

"Why can't we just enjoy what we're doing?" will be a phrase often thought, if not expressed out loud by many a leader struggling to understand why morale is low. Unfortunately it's not usually one thing or another that is afflicting the whole team, but a whole spectrum of little issues associated with individuals that manifests themselves across the whole team killing off morale.

Individual morale issues can be addressed, but one sure-fire way to kill off morale across the team is to keep people in the dark about change. In today's environment where change is the norm and job security is at an all time low people really want to know what's going to happen and yet it may be impossible to provide the detail that satisfies the craving for knowledge. Unfortunately whilst it is understandable that leaders want to only convey finalised decisions the rumour mill will mean that those kept in the dark will have already made 2 and 2 equal 5 and their conclusions will be spreading like wild-fire through the organisation. This is not good. So, why not treat people like adults and tell people about on-going decision-making?

Giving people the opportunity to know about incomplete decisions sounds risky, but surely it must be a positive thing in the long run. Most people like to know what's going to happen or may happen and will grab any passing snippet of information they can in an attempt to rationalise their future. By involving them in the change process, rumour and conjecture will be removed and whether the messages are positive or negative at least people know where they stand.

Recently I witnessed this working when a new senior manager bluntly told a team what they already knew, but hadn't been officially told. Everyone was releaved, everyone felt better, even though the message was not very positive at least they now knew. They could then get on with their work knowing their future even though in 12 months time the system they were working on would be no more the communication gave them an opportunity to make sound decisions for themselves on their own future. On this occasion it worked. On another occasion it didn't - promises were made about a new office which never came to fruitition, but it only didn't work because no-one was brave enough to stand up and give an adequate explanation of why the promises never came to fruititon - leadership were scared to get up in front of people and say "we screwed up".

If leaders communicate on-going change, then the teams need to get on board too. There needs to be acknowledgement that communicating decisions or strategy prior to being finalised means they are at risk of changing. The leaders need to be prepared to stand up and explain reasons for change and the teams themselves need to be prepared to hear these changes in direction and cope, to do anything else will ensure morale will be as bad as ever.

At a senior leadership level, ambiguity and uncertainty are ever present and it's a world we're all familiar with and yet at the grass roots level, there is a preference for a black and white world with no ambiguity. It's the leaders job to ensure that the amibiguity s/he lives with every day is translated in to something that the teams themselves can cope with and understand. Treating people like mushrooms is not an option so somehow we need to communicate these ambiguities in ways that people will feel comfortable with. As yet, I don't think I have a complete answer, it's a work in progress, but I have found that more communication is better than less and listening carefully to what the teams have to say is also important.

Oh, and one last thing: Never, ever view the budget line-item that provides pizza to the team once a month as optional, maybe the morale re-boot with food does still work as well on adults as with children!

ByteNight 2009

ByteNight 2009 will launch on Tuesday 30th June. This year it will take place overnight on Friday 2nd October, nearly 400 IT professionals will be sleeping out under the stars in central London raising funds for Action for Children. I took part for the first time last year in a team pulled together by silicon.com (The Silicon Comrades) and between us we managed to raise around £7,000 with the whole event raising in excess of £450k. This year, I was asked to join the ByteNight board and I've also managed to persuade some of my work colleagues to join me in a team. We've just kicked off our fundraising efforts for this year, with the team aim of raising at least £5,000, but the overall aim is to exceed the last year's total.

I've added a widget on the side of my blog to show how well we're doing raising the cash, if you are reading this and feel you can help, just click here and give us some money. If you'd like to know more about ByteNight or even want to take part, then go and check out the website and also take a look at the Action for Children website too whilst you're at it.

Green Shoots? Cost Cutting...

A recent CIO Jury article asked whether there were signs of green shoots appearing in industry. The jury voted "No". I was part of the "No" vote and like many IT leaders, I am still looking at my costs and continuing to trim even though now the bone is starting to show through. Unfortunately I don't see the pressure to reduce costs easing at any point in the near future.

So, in these times of continuous cost reduction, what can be done to preserve appropriate service levels? IT is still seen by many as the a high-cost, low-value area where savings can easily be made, particularly if it's not understood or trusted by the board. Immediately cutting costs at the request of the board shows weakness and that homework was not done. Instead being transparent over costs, how they are incurred and providing a variety of options for reducing costs along with the impact of cost reduction in terms of productivity, business risk and revenue generation will help show value as well as provide options for the board to agree where costs should be cut further.

It is also a time when the partnerships that have been grown and carefully nurtured with other departments in the business can be exploited - having a director of another department stand up for technology and the services it provides demonstrating how their department is enabled through technology to do the work that directly increases revenue is invaluable in putting forward a case to manage further cost reductions.

Additionally, ensuring that all parts of the organisation know exactly what they're getting for the IT budget is important. Acknowledgement that the service level is appropriate and that further reductions would impact their ability to deliver will help strengthen any case to keep services at existing levels. However service levels appropriate a year ago may be way out of line now and they should be flexed accordingly.

When reviewing and adjusting service levels, senior management also need to understand any changes to the level of risk the business is being exposed to and what additional risk might be present were further cost savings to be made. Not having out of hours cover for the email system may be one thing, but not supporting the on-line portal 24/7 may well be seen as too much risk to revenue streams.

So, publicise those service levels, ensure they are appropriate and demonstrate business acumen by managing business risk appropriately. Provide intelligent, thought through options for further cost cutting, but make sure the board understands the consequences of such cost cutting. Then the exercise becomes a well thought through, inclusive process rather than a series of random cuts in services with not a lot of thought for the consequences.

Where Technology Fails

Last night, I wanted to play my wife a single track from a Lily Allen album. It was pertinent to what we had been watching on TV. I could have found the CD, fired up the CD Player and Receiver and played it, but I thought I'd save time and use technology. So, I fired up my Linksys DMA2200, it's a solid-state Windows Media Extender that sits in the living room linked up to the TV and went on to completely fail to play the track I wanted. This is exactly why technology so often fails in the home and why people will continue to be content to use a radio or their old CD player rather then modern equivalents that offer so much more.

So, I powered up the DMA2200, but then realised my PC upstairs was off. The DMA2200 needed to communicate with my PC to access the files so I had to go and boot it up (5mins wait). Then the DMA2200 connected and the main interface showed up (another 2-3mins wait). I navigated to the music part (sluggishly, but this is normal). It told me I had no playlists, and then refused to navigate to the albums themselves (10mins fiddling trying to sort it out). It's not done this before. I checked the connection, I navigated (sluggishly again) to the videos section, they played just fine (10mins watching some home videos). Back to the music, nothing, nada, no luck. Rebooted, tried again, nothing. More than half an hour after starting, I gave up.

It's played music just fine before, now it seems to be refusing to do so. I have no idea why and I'm relatively technical. I bought a solid state device to save electricity not use more. It can't play ripped DVDs like Windows Media Centre on my PC can, instead you have to wrap the actual film file in a proprietory format to make it play (I found that out via an internet search). It responds sluggishly and takes a reasonable expert to set up. What I find really annoying is that it's not even the first generation of this kind of equipment, I had a Kiss 1500 for a few years and got used to the eccentricities of that one (it only played files of less than 1Gb, but at least it would play files from a server) so I expected the next generation to be able to deliver what the customer wanted, but no, not a bit of it.

This is symptomatic of home-based technology and it's time the suppliers sorted things out. How many wireless routers have a way of enabling people to set up a secure wireless LAN without having previous knowledge of how to do it? How many devices actually support all the formats that we really need? How many interface with each other seamlessly and effortlessly? Probably none. Interestingly, the digital TV set-top-box systems from Sky or Virgin Media are probably the only modern-day computerised device that actually work properly in the home that can be used by non-technophiles. If only more systems emulated the digital TV set-top-box system perhaps more devices would get mass market penetration, but they need an interface that just works and provids all that the customer needed at a touch of a button first.

In the meantime, perhaps I'll go back to the CD-player, it's just so much quicker...

Change is not scary

How robust is your change control process? How many incidents are as a result of change? When a significant change goes in to live do you worry about what's going to happen? A robust change process is often seen as a business blocker, but when implemented correctly, it will provide a return on investment.

Since my team implemented a robust change process and actually got buy-in from all affected parties, the volume of incidents associated with releases and significant system changes has all but gone to zero. The ITIL based process is the underlying reason why we've seen this step-change, but just as important is that it's a process that meets the business need and is seen by all to enhance the chances of success so adoption became a no-brainer. Recently, we even managed to get a 3rd party to use the process and they had one of their most successful version upgrades ever.

Often change processes stumble around the need for a change advisory board (CAB) which typically runs once a week or some set time period. This is never timely and most people find incredibly dull and therefore don't attend. A non-working CAB will always kill any attempt to maintain a successful change process so there is no CAB, instead all changes are signed off electronically with the Change Manager maintaining a forward schedule of change and making intelligent scheduling decisions. All the required documentation and information is associated with the change ticket and is therefore available for review by the relevant stakeholders. Workflow and the Change Manager ensures the ticket is only available for sign-off once it's ready and only those who are interested in the change are notified making review and sign-off as fast as possible.

By removing the CAB obstacle, stakeholders outside IT are willing participants knowing that they will only be involved when it is pertinent and their opinion really means something; "No" really does mean "No". Negotiation is obviously possible, but the only way the workflow will allow a change to go ahead is when all checks and sign-offs are completed.

Two to three incidents per release used to be the norm, but in the last 6 months, the norm has shrunk to no incidents per release, having an incident post release is quite odd now and it's reduced our incident workload considerably meaning we can put further time in to the quality of releases.

I thoroughly recommend a change process, but to make it work, make sure you have a strong change manager who is a great communicator and who lives and breaths successful change.

The .tel TLD secret

Whilst, I admit, I'm sure that my readership is small, what I am fairly certain of is that probably none of you will have heard of the .tel domain name, what it does and how it is apprarently going to become the next "must-have" top level domain name.

Anyone? Anyone? Nope, I didn't think so. Sadly, this interesting new development is a very well kept secret. I only found out about it after stumbling over it on the nominet website. A bit of research later and I realised that it was a good idea and I bought myself steveclarke.tel. Click on the link and it'll take you to a page that shows my public contact details. Essentially, my business card now just needs the simple tag line: steveclarke.tel and that's it. It'll never go out of date, it'll never cease to be relevant because I can update the information on steveclarke.tel easily and simply. It's not even stored in a webpage or in html, it's all stored in the DNS information which should make it harder to hack (here's hoping).

My name is unfortunately very common, googling my name reveals lots of "Steve Clarke"s, famous and otherwise: A Chelsea football coach, a Times writer, a Scottish International Footballer, a Photographer, a Devonian car-dealer, a Norwich based French Polisher, an Author, a DJ... I could go on. These all come up before a single search result shows one that refers to me. So I thought I'd better get in quick and this was when I realised it was a well kept secret because much to my surprise I managed to purchase steveclarke.tel in the landrush prior to general availability. I thought it would have been well gone. I also found that clarke.tel was also available as were many famous names and after trying a number of different name combinations, the lack of current take-up was obvious.

Is it going to take off, this .tel thing? Yes, I think it will. I for one am fed up with continuously having to update details of people when they move or change jobs. I suppose people might be anxious about having this kind of detail in the public domain, but equally the system allows for people to control who can access their information via a simple control panel. Once a few people have their new-fangled business card out and about, people will start to take a real interest and the domains will be snapped up. It plugs in to Outlook, it works on the mobile, managing the data is simple and quick.

Already, I'm using it on my linkedin headline and when I need some new business cards, I'm hoping that I can pursuade Facilities to just put steveclarke.tel on it. We'll see, that might be a step too far for facilities!

General Availability kicks in tomorrow, so if you want to land-grab your .tel and are worried someone else might get it, you need to move quickly!

Desktop Security and Flexibility

A friend recently complained to me that he had been unable to work effectively because the tool he wanted to use wouldn't work. It wouldn't work because his technology function had set his rights to his own laptop too low for the software to operate. His IT function was unmoved even in the face of escalation. If it didn't work within the standard configuration, it wasn't going to be used. Security and stability were used to justify their stance.

The irony is that my friend eventually exposed his company to a greater security issue by bringing in his own laptop, installed the tool on it, connected to the work LAN and used it to get the job done.

This is an IT department acting as policeman and divorced from the rest of the business. Their users can't be trusted, they must be controlled and only allowed to operate within a specific walled garden for their own safety. In my opinion this uncompromising and ineffective approach is outdated and gives the IT function a bad name that will once more have CEOs looking to outsource, potentially jumping out of the frying pan and in to the fire - outsourced desktop contracts will always be constrictive!

IT departments must treat users like adults and allow them the flexibility to get the job done and it's a good start in partnering with the business. Security and stability can still be achieved within these environments, it just takes a little bit more thinking about, innovation and collaboration with the customer. What a scary thought!!

Risk Management and the art of Motorcycle Riding

Risk-based management is an under-developed capability within many managers armoury, but if leaders ignore it businesses are exposing themselves to failure in both minor and major ways. Indeed, a lack of risk-based management is one of the reasons why the world is now in deep recession.

When I talk to people about risk-based management, I use motorcycle riding as a good way to describe what needs to happen. I ride motorbikes, I have done for the past 10 years or so. Bikers survive by having risk management at the heart of everything they do both prior to riding and during the ride and this is the lesson that leaders need to learn.

Today’s car drivers are highly protected and insulated from the world they drive through. This can be seen by the activities other than driving that drivers undertake: eating, drinking, talking on the mobile, reading, doing make-up, etc. I remember riding past a car once going 60mph and seeing the driver reading a magazine as they drove, I was gob-smacked. If drivers felt at all at risk, these activities would be shunned in order to ensure full concentration in the task at hand. This is how bikers feel, the world is highly visceral and the risks are there to be seen, heard or felt. It’s in your face, and at every moment there’s a chance that something horrible might occur, but a biker’s risk management strategy is the coping mechanism that enables them to enjoy the experience.

Most people in business are like the car driver, insulated from risk. The company will be here tomorrow like it is today; they’ll still have a job tomorrow as they do today. They feel insulated and isolated from risk and that is why panic ensues when an incident does occur – unlike the biker they have no coping mechanism. Thus risk management is deprioritised and in extreme cases we end up with the type of scenario the world finds itself in today. So, business leaders need to get out of their car and on their bike, heightening their awareness of risk and managing it sensibly on an on-going basis.

There are two types of risk that bikers are aware of, and again this is the same for business. There are risks that are ever present and then there are transitory ones. Systems to mitigate ever present risks need to be implemented whilst strategies need to be developed to manage the transitory ones so there is readiness should they appear.

From the biker’s perspective having a well maintained bike mitigates the risk of mechanical failure whilst a biker will deal with the transitory risk of a blind bend by using a pre-practised strategy, for instance looking for the vanishing point, slowing down and going wider. Businesses should have a similar coping mechanisms. For those ever present risks systems should be implemented that mitigate the risk. For transitory risks implement specific, well-understood and practiced activities that either deal with the actual risk or can be used to determine the risk, it’s impact and develop the coping mechanism there and then. Once these strategies are in place, the next step is practice. Practice, practice, practice. For both bikers and businesses practice helps perfect the coping mechanism and makes risk management automatic, just what both bikers and businesses need.

Unfortunately however many mitigating strategies are at hand, there will always be a circumstance where nothing helps and the risk becomes an issue. For the biker, this is the part where they have usually parted company with the bike and know something painful is about to happen. At this stage, it’s a bikers preparation that will have ensured the impending pain is minimised – a helmet to reduce head injury, decent armoured clothing to help protect arms, legs and chest, crash bars and mushrooms help protect expensive fairings. Businesses should be looking to protect themselves in a similar manner, by implementing standard process, policy and putting in place other business tools such as regular auditing, critical reviews of proposals, clear lines of responsibility, financial transparency and responsibility, etc, etc.

So, if you want a business that will exist in a few years time, get out of the car and ride the motorbike. Risk management needs to be central to the business and thinking like a biker is the only way to ensure that it becomes a core value. Oh, and riding a bike is far more fun, fast paced and thrilling than driving a car, and I think the same experience will be found when running a business in the same way.

Sourcing and the Helpdesk

In a previous post I wrote that CEOs don’t think technology is value for money and generally they don’t understand it. As a consequence the CEO will view technology as the obvious candidate for outsourcing. Outsourcing happens most frequently to things that are thought to be expensive, lack value for business or are not core to the business. It’s not surprising therefore that frequently the CEO sees technology ticking all three of these boxes.

Most CTOs would be mortified if they knew the CEO thought the technology function was not value for money or core to the business. Unfortunately CTOs are often stuck at the coal face and don’t have time to get that helicopter view because there’s always something that needs fixing. So what, if anything should a CTO do about it?

Outsourcers prefer to speak to CEOs rather than CTOs because they can talk about bottom lines and cost savings rather than quality and effectiveness. There's good reason for this, is impossible to do it all, reduce costs and make a margin. Therefore it's important for CTOs to be aware of the wolves prowling round outside. The CTO needs to either get in bed with the outsourcers before the CEO does and make good decisions based on quality and effectiveness rather than on costs or keep the wolves at bay by ensuring the CEO understands how reliant the business is on technology and how cost effective it is already for the company.


One of the "easy" targets for outsourcers is the Helpdesk. A traditional candidate for outsourcing where the outsourcer can demonstrate cost savings whilst allegedly improving service and throughput. However, these are incompatible and this wonderful picture demonstrates just how incompatible they really are.

So, with the outsources telling the CEO that they can achieve the impossible, what can be done about it?

Outsourcers would have you believe that the Helpdesk is all about statistics, processes and procedures, ITIL, service levels and first time fix rates, and they’d be right, but they will most likely forget to mention that the main reason why a Helpdesk is successful is not because of its stats, but because of the people on the Helpdesk. Their experience, wisdom, knowledge of the business and most importantly the relationships they build with customers are what makes a Helpdesk successful.

Now for the shock. The Helpdesk is where every individual within a business forms their opinion of the technology function. The technology function will only be as good as the last call somebody made to the Helpdesk and how that call was handled.

Outsourcing the Helpdesk is a bit like outsourcing your own character. People form an opinon of you through what you do, how you do it and what you say. To give away control of the single source of opinion for technology, how the service is being provided or what is being said to your customers is unforgiveable.

Given that the Helpdesk is the character of technology, how should it be staffed? Again traditionally, the Helpdesk has been the nursery where fresh-faced newbies get introduced to the technology function, spend 6-12months answering the phone and then rush off to something allegedly more exciting or technically challenging. Giving responsibility for technology's customer satisfaction to the most junior employees is madness. Instead, utilising experienced, technical people with very good telephone skills and a passion for helping people who love working in a stressful environment makes sense. It costs more, but again, what price do you put on technology being held in high regard?

Outsource the Helpdesk and the face and character of technology is lost, someone else is in control of the technology function's destiny. Technology's value to the company rises and falls on public opinion, not service level attainment or cold hard facts. This opinion inevitably bubbles up to CEO level who will naturally be asking what people think of technology so the CEO can also form an opinion. When asked, people won't remember the recent successful infrastructure project or resolved data issue, it'll be whether their desktop PC is fast enough and what happened last time they spoke to the Helpdesk. If a CTO is to deliver value, start with an insourced, highly competent Helpdesk, it will also ensure the right person is in charge of the future direction of technology sourcing - the CTO!

Snow enforces Working from Home

When Britain suffers extremes of weather, we reveal our infrastructure to be unprepared. This doesn't surprise me, but today with snow being dumped all over the capital it brings the whole thing to a grinding hault. Even in the recession, London is still one of the main financial centres of the world and yet our buses, trains and underground have failed to cope. My normal mode of commute was out, motorbikes are never good in ice & snow and yet the Metropolitan line was also shut, I couldn't get in to the office even if I wanted. So I'm in a similar situation to hundreds of thousands of other people, unable to get in to their offices, but should this bring business itself to a halt? No, absolutely not, in today's technological world we should be able to work anywhere and yet how many businesses have invested in the infrastructure to enable such flexible working? Surprisingly few and I'm sure we'll have lots of articles in tomorrow's press about how much the snow has cost businesses*, but it shouldn't, it really shouldn't.

Out of my fifty strong team, four managed to get in to the London office. Did this lack of presence matter? No, not at all. Why? Well, we have the systems in place that enable any employee to work from anywhere and have whatever level of functionality they require. Fundamentally, we have a Remote Access Server which gives full access for anyone with a corporate laptop. For those without such mobile technology we have Webmail, Instant Messenging, remote file access, mobile phones and we can stand up voice, video and web conferences whenever required either on mobile phones or on the internet. All our systems can be administered remotely and our data-centre never needs to be visited. All in all, the team is independant of the office if needs be and today, with the conditions meaning very few people managed to get in to the office, the systems and services function as normal with a full support capability, meaning the majority of staff can continue as normal as long as they've got broadband and a computer.

This isn't rocket science, yet for many it seems to be. It doesn't take a lot to achieve, it isn't even very expensive, it just requires a bit of fore-thought and a small implementation project. RAS is the expensive bit, particularly if SecurIDs are used, but to enable a business to continue to function in the sort of conditions we see today, it's got to be worth it. When London's infrastructure recovers from the snow and ice, my company won't have lost any productivity, in fact we might have been a bit more productive than normal because people weren't having to undertake the daily grind of getting in to the office.

This forced interruption in public transport should be an object lesson in enabling flexible working and the ability to work from home, improving productivity and generally hauling the working environment in to the 21st century. Office-based working is so last century!

*UPDATE: As predicted, business groups have predicted the snow costing £1bn!!

UPDATE2: Silicon.com picked up on this and a re-worked version of this piece is now up on Silicon.com

Never Eat Alone Gets Real

Back in the summer, my coach told me to read Never Eat Alone. So I did. It's a great book, it simply spells out how to start, develop and maintain a network through social interaction with the idea of creating that network through generosity and passion which means you not only getting what you want, but you make sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too. I'd already used some of his techniques to start to expand my network, but recently the author - Keith Ferrazzi - set up an on-line social networking site that enabled people to connect and thus develop the techniques outlined in the book.

Recentl,y, I joined the site and also the newly formed London group. Last night, we went out for our first meal; we met at a bar in Paddington Street and then went on to Hardy's Restaurant. Time passed quickly, conversation swayed this way and that, it felt like we'd known each other for years. Passionate conversation, a mainstay of Keith's book, was very evident and I got to know 5 new people who I want to meet again and I'm sure we'll be able to help each other in the future. This was Keith's book in action, and it was great to see.

Get the book, read it, join the website! Start expanding that network!

CTO Requirements from the CEO

I found the following article on silicon.com incredibly interesting. By coincidence I also had the opportunity to spend some time with a CEO the other day so I had the chance to ask him a couple of fundamental questions: What are your requirements for a CTO? And how does a CTO do well?

Immediately, right at the top of the list was trust. It's so fundamental that if trust isn't there, the relationship's over and the CTO's on his bike. This is the case for the whole C-suite, but in particular for the CTO since they hold sway over a massive area that typically the CEO has little, if any knowledge. Thus trust is key to the on-going relationship. No wonder it's important for a CTO to take the time to build relationships across the whole board if trust is the main reason for a CTO to retain their position!

The CEO then said that the CTO needed to be like a goal-keeper. Typically getting little, if any thanks for keeping a clean sheet, but being able to recover quickly should issues occur, have an explanation for what went wrong, how it was resolved and what needs to be done to ensure it won't happen again in the future. This I fully appreciate, I've always been of the opinion that technology in a company should be like the light-bulb. When you switch the switch, the expectation is that it'll light up and do what it's supposed to do and no more. This is also the expectation that CEOs have for their company's technology infrastructure: Make sure it does what's required and no more and be stable and available. It's up to the CTO to ensure it does.

In addition, high on the list was innovation. However this was not about innovation through new technology, this was innovation that enabled things to happen. Specifically the CTO needs to be able to respond to board-level requests with "Yes, and", not "Yes, but" and certainly never "No, but". CEOs have an on-going need for the CTO to get a quart in a pint-pot. The CEO acknowledged this, but was not prepared to compromise! On top of that, ensuring quality whilst at the same time providing clear value for money was expected. This is a tall order when the technology function is often the largest underlying, but least understood cost. The CEO made it clear that by enabling things to happen was the best way of demonstrating value and gaining that much needed trust and respect.

Probably related to the first point on trust was an expectation that the CTO would be a good communicator. I cannot imagine not being good at communication at the C-Suite level, but the ability to discuss topics from a non-technology perspective with other members of the board is essential. If a CTO is viewed as a technocrat rather than an equal to the other board-members, they'll never get or retain their place on that board.

Finally, the CEO I was with said that it was essential that the CTO came from a technical background, but it didn't matter what type of technical background. In the view of the CEO, the technical background ensures that vendors and internal teams alike won't be able to pull the wool over the CTO's eyes and thus value is more likely to be maintained and innovation is more likely to happen.

In the end though, it is all about money and one of the hardest things for the CEO appears to be understanding why technology costs so much both in terms of capex and opex. If the CEO thinks that the CTO doesn't have a grasp on the techology and why it's being used then the CTO can't know whether the costs are reasonable. If the CTO doesn't know the costs are reasonable, then they themselves can't be trusted. Lack of trust leads to a relationship breaks down and we're back to the first point.

It was a very interesting session, certainly one that has given me a lot of food for thought. I wonder if these views are similar to other large company CEOs out there? I think I'm going to have to find out.

Gordon's missed a broadband trick

Gordon wants to invest in the broadband infrastructure of the UK by getting fibre to the cabinet. According to the CIO Jury, this has a resounding no-vote from the 12 CIOs asked. However, I believe if Gordon changed the way the money could be spent, he'd get double-bubble for his money.

Nearly 1/3 of housholds still don't have internet access let alone broadband. If the money was put in to enabling those households to get broadband internet access, the cash would pass from the government to the new customers and on in to the ISPs where at least a good proportion of the revenue could be used to re-invest in the broadband backbone. The major ISPs (BT, Carphone & Virgin) are already investing in a fibre network, but all would dearly love more customers and with the additional 1/3 of households coming on-line they'd need to beef up call centres, system capacity, back-haul capacity, etc, etc. All this would lead to new jobs, new capex spend and new opex spend, exactly what is required in this time of economic gloom.

So, not only do the government get their investment in the broadband backbone, they get to have the highest on-line percentage of any country to boot! Double bubble!! What's to lose? Am I wrong?!

Leadership lessons from Pietersen

I can't say that I'm upset by the news that Kevin Pietersen has been forced to step down as captain of England. My last post was in fact about why I felt KP was not the right person to captain the side and I think my view has now been verified. In the metro this morning David Lloyd is quoted as saying

"You have a star player in Kevin Peitersen [...] but do you have your best player as captain? I don't think so, Brian Lara, Ian Botham, Geoff Boycott - don't put them anywhere near the captaincy; keep them as your star player"

Totally right, I could add Freddie Flintoff to that mix too. Looking back at who the modern-era good captains are, the majority come from the Top 3 or 4 in the order: Vaughan, Atherton, Gooch, Gower, Hussain, Stewart, Gatting and now Strauss. All top order batsmen. The one long-serving captain that doesn't fit the mould is Brearley, but then he was a genius with a cricketing/psychology brain the size of a small planet so it didn't matter that he couldn't really bat or bowl. Why this trend? I think it's because of the type of person you need to be to succeed as a top order batsmen; it's not just brawn, it's brains tied with tactical and strategic thinking. These are also the skills required of the captain, so it's not really surprising that the such a trend exists.

However, I've titled this entry as "Leadership Lessons from Pietersen" because I think Pietersen underdid himself through naivety in his off-field management of his team and those above him and it's a lesson that all new managers should take to heart. KP failed because he failed to manage adequately both downwards and upwards relying on his ego and charisma instead. A quote from Nassar Hussain, again in today's Metro:

"Kevin should have gone about this in a much more professional way. You can't just sit on safari in South Africa and issue ultimatums."

I'm sure more detail will come out over time, but at the moment, it appears that KP didn't have the full support of his team for his actions and neither did he have the support of the ECB. Surely as a manager who wants to get things done, those are two things you need and to undertake a strategy that alienates both your workers and your bosses isn't desirable or sustainable. This is where KP could have done with external adivce and guidance from a personal coach where he could have shared concerns and issues in private before airing them in public and be helped with formulating an appropriate strategy. With back-room activities, discussing the issues with individual members of the ECB board and gradually gaining concensus for his opinions would have been far more likely to produce a positive outcome and had he pursued such a strategy he might well have still been holding the captaincy.

Having said all that, KP should never have been captain in the first place, Strauss was always the natural successor to Vaughan. I'm very pleased he's got the opportunity again, let's hope he can hang on to it this time.