InformationWeek

I am curious how you handle this type of situation. The polls and information that I have seen say techies would rather take less money and work a normal week than make a killing and have no time in which to spend the money they are making.

Dale B.

Dear Dale:
I know of more than one information technology expert who has quit his or her job because of the unrelenting pressure to work a ridiculous number of hours a week. As surprising as it may seem to some executives and managers, even technical people want to have a life.

I had one former boss tell me that I was complaining too much about the extra work my staff was having to do and to stopping worrying about them. He went on to explain that technical people are used to working all sorts of hours and that, indeed, they expect to do it. Given that he didn't know which end of a keyboard was up and that his knowledge of computer systems came from old Star Trek movies, I made it a point to ignore his advice.

What I try to do is to shift the priorities of the shop as much as possible (see the letter below) to limit the stress and the crazy hours that people have to work. Since I cannot always be successful, I have very little problem if a good employee wants to work at home one day or take a day off (without charging it as vacation) to do something with the family. If I see that someone has to work long hours for an extended time period and can't take the time off that he should, I will suggest that he take his long-suffering spouse or significant other out for dinner on a Saturday night at a nice restaurant and put the bill on his expense account as a small thank you from the company. It isn't as much as I would like to do for them, but it has kept the turnover in the organization down to a reasonable level--and also permits me to look myself in the mirror each morning without cringing.

You've taken an approach I'm trying to apply in my everyday work. Instead of saying "I can't do this" or "I can do this, but I don't have a clue how," you basically said "I can do this, but this is what it will cost us and what we have to delay." If Phil is a competent leader (and I'm certain that he is) he will have difficulty not assisting you in keeping your "integration experts," and Kratmeyer will have a slightly increased difficulty in pulling this stunt again. You did all of this without losing face and while having a good chance of getting the job done by his deadline, thereby possibly increasing your standing in Kratmeyer's mind. That's going to be some lemonade from Kratmeyer's lemons!

Now, if I could help keep my new MIS director from losing our star Windows NT/hardware techie. . . . .

Regards,
Rob S.

Dear Rob:
Thanks for the compliment, but, in fact, I am just doing my job. It doesn't make any sense to burn out people or treat them as future roadkill. My objective was to get the job done, make sure that the staff was kept intact for another day, and see that they were treated properly. The key to it all was shifting priorities to handle the hot project--and also letting every other executive in the place know that Kratmeyer's acquisition had top priority and that their own project might slip from their original schedules. The grumbling at him and the peer pressure on him to avoid causing such a problem in the future was a pleasure to behold. What was even better was that Phil was happy that we got the project done on schedule and that he came through with almost all of the bonus money I requested.

I have now been given the tasked of selecting and implementing a new enterprise resource planning system for this organization. I fear the worst, but hope for the best. Luckily, money will not be the biggest obstacle.

Any suggestions? Should I run this project with people primarily out of a group other IT (like finance or operations), or should I just run?

Thanks,
Jay

Dear Jay:
If you are dealing with an IT department that doesn't believe in standards and documentation, and whose only process for handling production problems is determining who is screaming the loudest at the moment, you have found people whom you do not want as a partner on a massive new system. On the other hand, how much can you rely on a finance or operations organization that puts up with this quality of service?

You have a serious problem. I can't think of an enterprise resource planning system implementation that was successful without a competent IT department. And you need users in finance and operations who care about making the ERP system function properly. Without their sweat equity, you have little chance of succeeding.

There is an old saying, "If you can't win, don't play." If you want to flourish in the job that you have taken, you need to change the players or the playing field. Run, do not walk, to your boss (whom I assume is a senior executive) and see what you can do to resolve the situation. Then run, do not walk, to the nearest exit if your boss doesn't give you meaningful help.

The purpose of Fidnet is supposed to be "laudable." If so, why was the report labeled "For Official Use Only?" Why not spread the word and get the unanimous backing of the voting population? The document identified only three industries for government monitoring: finance, transportation, and telecommunications. Doesn't sound very laudable to me.

• Monitoring finance lets the government know how much money you have and how you spend it.

• Monitoring transportation lets the government know where you go and how you get there.

• Monitoring telecommunications lets the government know who you talk to and what is said.

You know, if the post office announced tomorrow that it would open and scan into databases every letter that passed through the mailbox, or the Federal Communications Commission stated that it would record every personal phone call for later data mining, folks would get pretty cranky, real fast. Even if such announcements were under the guise of battling global terrorism or child porn or income tax evasion, they would meet serious resistance.

I believe that the fight to retain some degree of privacy and individuality as a people is the greatest battle Americans will face in the foreseeable future. Remember, if they really ARE after you, you ain't really paranoid.

And in closing, take care and know that we readers out there appreciate your words.

Good luck with your day job,
BillOnTheBeach

Dear Bill:
Thanks for your note. I think that we are struggling with understanding the impact of the computer and the Internet on personal privacy. Recently, I wrote that the major issue of the coming year, and perhaps the entire decade, would be personal privacy ("Who's Monitoring My Crystal Ball?"). I have seen nothing in the last few months to change my mind.

Any sort of governmental monitoring or control is a double-edged sword, open to abuse as well as benefit for the people. Speaking of getting the population behind you on such matters, it's interesting to see how people react to questions as to what is acceptable government regulation versus control. Take any question, such as, "Are you in favor of the government monitoring telephone network traffic to protect people against crime?" and rephrase it as "Are you in favor of a government employee monitoring your telephone calls to find out if you are a criminal?" I'll bet that these two identical propositions would elicit strikingly different approval ratings in any poll of our citizens.

We are in uncharted waters when it comes to deciding the boundary between what information should be available to others without our knowledge and consent, and what information is personal, private and inviolate. It will be an interesting and extremely important journey.

Herbert W. Lovelace is CIO at a multibillion-dollar international company. Herb practices his day job under an alias and has changed the names of colleagues to protect the guilty.