Career Watch

Ask an IT Leader
Name: Scot Klimke
Title: Vice president and CIO
Company: Network Appliance Inc.

Klimke is this month's guest Premier 100 IT Leader, answering a reader's IT management question.
If you have a question you'd like to pose to one of our Premier 100 IT Leaders, send it to askaleader@computerworld.com and watch for this column in print and online.

I'm a new IT manager within a department of a local government agency. I have walked into an IT infrastructure disaster! How do I navigate the situation and the politics to put together a new and effective IT infrastructure? Your letter was light on details, but I will assume that your position affords you the opportunity to be a change agent.
First and foremost, a complete, thorough, unbiased assessment is needed. Because many of your co-workers/staff were probably involved in creating the "mess" you describe, it is difficult for you to rely on their evaluation. There are several outside firms that can conduct these assessments. The cost may be higher than you might like, but the assessment becomes the rationale for changes you will propose.
Second, I suggest that you boil down the findings to a few key problems. Show the assessment and short list to senior business leaders in your organization. In addition to gaining potentially good input, this process helps establish you as a knowledgeable, can-do person. Building credibility with these folks will be very beneficial when you undertake the changes you envision.
Third, engage your staff. Give considerable thought to potential emotional responses and push-back. Then, offer a draft agenda of the concerns you have identified based on the objective, unbiased assessment. Balance this with your vision of what the environment will look like down the road. The discussion should be less about why the IT infrastructure is lacking and more about what it could become. Establishing a shared vision with your team is critical because the buy-in of the team is necessary to drive the changes you propose. I can't stress this point enough.
Finally, after getting your agenda through your staff and management, it's time to start the hard work. Going from a conceptual plan to a real action plan is the next step. Be judicious in your selection of projects. The projects should be of very short duration, with clear benefits to both the IT group and the business. Keep the team focused.
Here are a few suggestions:

• You can't have enough communication; talk to anyone who will listen. Make these meetings valuable: Be a take-charge person with an agenda, and stress the benefits that will result from changes. Be realistic about risks, but balance risks with benefits.


• At the very least, adopt the rudiments of solid project management. Have a budget, a project plan and a governance structure along with a list of expected downstream benefits.


• Provide regular feedback to the implementation team. Keep the shared vision alive. Build the team's personal objectives around the initiatives on which you've elected to focus.


• Resist the urge to take on more than you can handle. I'm sure there are a hundred things to fix. But having too broad an agenda dilutes resources; results take too long to notice and the outcome can be disastrous. Less is more.