I just got around to reading your column " So Much For Helping Morale ." I was especially interested in the subject of the column, because a similar thing happened to me.I took a new position as a programming director and thought I had the full support of my boss (the VP) and my managers.

After a while, I could see that the managers were undertaking their own agendas and not necessarily the one I laid out. Similar to your friend in the article, I thought I had my boss's support, but when I requested his support in helping me get these folks back on the program, he chose to let me go it alone. Finally, after a rift developed between me and my managers, he let me go, in almost as bad a way as in your friend's situation. I think a key part of this problem is that the managers used to work directly for him, and he decided to add the layer of management (my position).

I have often thought back on that experience and wondered what I could have done differently. What should a director do when he feels his managers aren't supporting him and his agenda? Any suggestions?

Sincerely,

Billy Murphy

P.S. I really enjoy your column.

Dear Billy,

In textbook terminology: When there are prior relationships between your boss and the people who now work for you, it is important to be sensitive to potential communication channels that may be established or maintained.In plain English: If you're in a new job where your subordinates used to work directly for your boss, be careful of end-runs.

Think back as to whether you discussed your plans thoroughly with your boss, or approached him saying, "This is the situation, will you now back what I have done?" Consider whether you did all that you could have to win these people over to your objectives and methods. If you feel that the answer to both these questions is yes, then stop worrying about it and just resolve to be more alert to the signals the next time around. If the answer is that you should have sought more buy -in from your boss and the troops, you've learned a valuable lesson.

Allow me to introduce myself. My friends call me Dino. I am a college student attending DeVry Institute of Technology in Phoenix. I have been reading your columns for several months now, and I have a few things to add regarding the one on trade shows.

First, let me say that you are a great man. Your insights within the information industry and business management are priceless; it has been a cornerstone of my career. We share the same values and, possibly, the same thoughts. It is a blessing to have you in the industry.

As a college student, it is difficult to get salespeople to discuss products at trade shows, or to ask what exactly the product does, and when it is to ship to market. Even more so, to have a chance of receiving a demo product requires that I have a business card. I do not have purchasing authority, nor do I intend on spe nding money.

My first priority is to obtain as many free gifts as possible. My next priority is to visit all the vendors whose products I have ever owned. There, I can receive the latest drivers, view the latest versions of their product, enter my name in for that free whatchamacallit, and talk shop with some of their techs. Now, that is the way I should be treated.

Look forward to hearing your comments. Keep writing those columns!

Dino

Dear Dino,

Have you thought of a job in sales? You should be selling, not seeking, trinkets.

Thanks for your letter; it brought a smile to my face. If you cannot figure out how to get more free stuff at the shows, at least continue to read InformationWeek whenever you can get your hands on it. It contains a lot of very useful technical and managerial information.

I see lots of job ads for senior IT te chs with 5 to 10 years of experience. It's the 10-year end of that scale that I don't understand. Now that I'm at that point, what should I be thinking about in terms of my career path? Why are IT shops stopping at the 10-year mark in their ads, and what should I make of it? What's wrong with someone with 10 to 20 years IT experience, or 13+ years of experience? What is the reason for this, what are the rules of engagement, and generally, what are possible options for me at this point?

Respectfully yours,

Dave Wright

Dear Dave,

There are two answers to your questions. Take your pick of the one that feels best:

1. Most employers ask for five to 10 years experience because it is a convenient range that expresses their desire to have a person with good, solid knowledge in the field.
2. Most employers ask for five to 10 years experience because it is a convenient range that expresses their opinion that the rate of technology c hange makes anything we learned before that worthless (with the exception of COBOL programming to fix year 2000 problems).

Thanks, Herb, for your "Serving Food For Thought." I have shared it with many of my friends and associates who have expressed the same viewpoint.

If you think the Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay is good, try their Legacy. It's pricey ($50) and hard to get, but definitely worth it. (Can you tell that I used to work in their PR department?)

Francie

Dear Francie,

Thanks for the tip on the Kendall-Jackson Legacy Chardonnay. Haven't tried it. Very difficult for me to enjoy a $50 bottle of wine if I am paying for it myself. Obviously, no vendors as of yet have shown the good taste that you seem to have.

I manage a small (350 mixed Mac & PC) network which has six NetWare 4.11 servers and seven remote offices on our WAN. Our total node count on the network is around 450 devices, including the desktop computers.

Is there any accepted method of quickly determining what the staffing level for help desk, end-user support and network support should be? Number of staff vs. nodes, desktop units, servers? Any information that you could provide would be very useful.

Thanks,

Charlie

Dear Charlie,

There are lots of statistics around, but not a lot of agreement on what they mean. Your can see numbers that say you need one support analyst for anywhere from every 25 to 100 end users. Likewise, the number of operations people needed to support the network itself has another set of metrics that depend on who you ask. To get some numbers, you can talk to any of the big consulting firms or specialists like Gartner Group or Giga Information Group, among o thers. So far as to whether the numbers are useful, I think that depends on whether they show you are overstaffed or sorely in need of more help. Hint: The numbers that show you are understaffed are more reliable.

I enjoy regularly reading your column in InformationWeek. It's very insightful and grounding.As an IT director, I often feel like a 10-handed man at a dike with, at anytime, 8 to 15 holes to plug -- plus carry 4 eggs, which I can't drop and juggle batons for the royal court. Usually I succeed, however, lately it is beginning to wear on me. My conclusion is that I just don't have enough resources (I bet you've never heard that one before).Do you know (or can you point me in the right direction) what are typical industry standards for: percent IT operations budget vs. total revenue; percent IT capital budget vs. total revenue; or percent total IT budget vs. total revenue.

Many thanks for you time and assistance!

Ira M. Bellach

Dear Ira,

I am fascinated by the image of you with the eggs, those batons, and the plugs for the dike. Why waste your time in IT when you have a great future coming up with ideas like that one?

However, since you asked, you can find the type of statistics you want from several computer magazines, the consulting groups, and the standard industry research firms.Practically all of these sources publish annual surveys that contain what you want. On the other hand, you probably can do just as well by doing an Internet search yourself.

The problem you will find, however, is that there is no guarantee of consistency in data collection or definition within an area used to generate the statistics. For example, you might see a number for operations costs, but some of the respondents might have included dedicated data lines, others dedicated data lines but not user modem lines, and still others something else. Therefore, frequently the results are not terribly useful.

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