Computerworld - At 10 a.m., the boss called the entire IT security team into a meeting room, but without the line manager. He said that the line manager had been sacked.
There had been no warning, just an empty desk when the team came in that morning. The situation got worse when the boss informed everyone that a new line manager had been selected and would be starting tomorrow. A manager they hadn't even met and hadn't been involved in hiring? This didn't look good.
That scenario wasn't presented to me, however. I am the new line manager. I've changed jobs and been dropped into a shocked and surprised security group. I'm now at a much larger global finance organization. It's a step up for me, so I am very happy, but I worried a little at first about how the team would react.
It was a shame to say goodbye to my old place, but I'd been there for many years and was starting to get stuck in a rut. So I've jumped for a new challenge.
Far From Perfect
I spent my first week getting to know everyone in the department, which has had six managers in the past few years. I don't know why there has been such high turnover, but poor morale and a lack of strategy might explain it.
I'd heard that things were far from perfect before I arrived, but I'm confident that I can make a difference.
I wonder if my predecessors said the same thing?
My getting-acquainted period ended abruptly on Day 2, when we had a virus outbreak. A virus that spread between computers on our network had affected some development systems. It was shocking to see the limited tools that my new staff had at their disposal. Nonetheless, they knew what they were doing and dealt with the incident effectively using what they had.
To find infected machines, they had to scan computers for the changes that the virus made and then disconnect those systems from the network. They had no way of detecting the virus' attempts to spread, so by the time they found each infected machine -- a 30-minute process -- the virus had often infected others.
Their efforts kept the virus from exploding onto hundreds of systems, but they could have cleaned it up faster if tools were available to detect and report infection attempts. I'll be working hard to get the staff those tools.
The Agenda
My most important task will be to lift the staff's sights from
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