Retention, Retention, Retention

So you've finally built a great IT team / department and now you can't sleep at night because you are worried that everyone is going to leave. Well guess what, you're probably right -- everyone will eventually leave; however, how fast they leave depends on you. The IT field has a rich history of job hopping and even in today's lean times, this has not changes. Unfortunately it's your most valuable employees that will be most likely to hop because they have the talents & experience that your competition is looking for. What's an IT manager / HR manager / CIO to do?

IT workers are a unique breed. If they like what they are doing, they will stay. One of the first ways to ensure that this happens is to make sure that everyone's connected with the mission of the business. Note that this is easy to say, but can be very hard to do. The larger the firm, the more disconnected most workers feel. Please keep in mind that the mission of the business can never have anything to do with money (i.e. "Grow profits by 20%") because unless you work in accounting, you can never get excited about that.

Next is to make sure that IT management is open with the staff about business wins, losses, and hiring plans. When was the last time that you sat down with your staff and talked about where the company is going? For that matter, do you even know where the company is headed? If everyone feels as though they know what is going on, then they will better understand how their job is helping the company get there. Once again, please note that saying that you have an "open door" policy is really just so many words. Your actions will speak much louder than these words.

Promoting from within can be a key tool for getting folks to stick around. If everyone knows what a career path looks like at your company, then they will know where they stand and what their chances of moving up are. If you are constantly hiring from the outside to fill upper management positions, then the team will lose heart and move on.

Finally, be very careful when it comes to team building activities. IT staff are notorious for not wanting to participate in these events and if you are not careful, it could turn into something that looks like a scene from "The Office" TV Show . Instead, creating a challenge that requires a team to work together in order to win a prize or reward that has visibility (big trophy displayed in the office) or has a clear social value (donation to a charity in their names) can make a lasting impression.

One of the things that makes an IT so valuable is its creativity ("innovation" in modern speak). If you use this same creativity to actively work to create an environment in which the IT staff wants to keep working and looks forward to what comes next, then congratulations -- you've succeeded.

Fix It & Forget It? Nope, Doesn't Work For IT

If, like me, you actually enjoy reading the 100+ business books that get published every year then you are probably well aware of what I like to call "the silver bullet syndrome". In any given business book, the author generally describes a problem, documents the approaches that had been tried to solve the problem, and then finally gets around to describing the solution that finally saved the day. You can pick your favorite management strategy: TQM, Black Belt, Just In Time, etc. and there are multiple books that basically tell the same story.

That's why when I was leafing through the Theory & Practice section of the Wall Street Journal, my attention was caught by an article by Phred Dvorak titled "Experts Have a Message for Managers: Shake It Up". The gist of the article was that management practices that solve a particular problem at a given point in time can eventually turn on a company. This has some significant impacts on IT teams.

The article goes on to say that if you keep doing the same things over and over, even if they made you a great department at one point in time, then they will eventually lead to problems. The reasons for this dire eventuality is because you can develop tunnel vision, start to resist new ideas, stop experimenting, start to build silos, and stop being able to adapt to new changes. Dang -- I though that if I could only find & read the right book, then all of my problems would be solved.

It turns out that the experts recommend that in order for an IT department to succeed in the long term, you need to set up processes & procedures that naturally cause tension and collaboration at the same time. Having both of these conditions present at the same time will help keep the department open and able to change. You have to be careful to mange both of these -- too much of either will result in a workplace that nobody wants to be a part of.

Ok you say, so how can this be done in my IT department? You have many choices: reorganizing the department is a quick and dirty way to shake things up quickly. How about telling everyone that their job descriptions are only temporary. There is the IT classic: give different managers different goals (reduce costs, produce twice as many products). Separating tasks and making mangers dependent on each other in order to complete projects will also introduce new challenges.

At the end of the day I guess we are all just a little bit like zoo animals. We can get very used to what works when it is working well. We say that friction is bad, but it turns out that we all need just a little bit of conflict in our lives in order to keep us engaged in what we are doing.

So How Do You Gracefully Leave An IT Job?

In the world of IT we seem to spend a lot of time talking about downsizing and folks getting fired. What hasn't really been discussed is what the best way to leave a job is. Although in my younger days I was very good at burning my bridges behind me, these days I've come to realize that this is in fact a very poor long term strategy.

When I left my first IT job after 6 years in basically the same position for a job at a different company in a different town, I had no experience in how to break off the relationship. This very large company had a policy that you would sit down with someone from HR on your way out the door and ask you several questions. These questions dealt with issues like where are you going, why are you leaving us, and what suggestions would you like to leave us with that would improve how we do things. What I didn't realize at the time (ah, how young we once were) was that the real reason for an exit interview is to determine if the firm is going to be sued by a disgruntled employee. Pretty much everything else that you say is nice, may be noted, but really doesn't matter.

Seeing as most firms don't know how to handle your leaving, what's an IT worker to do? First, you need to realize that once you announce that you are leaving the company, everything instantly changes. Some firms will show you the door immediately. Others will give you two weeks to wrap things up, but you will instantly be treated as an outsider. Even if you are willing to work at full force for those last two weeks, you are now officially a "short timer" and nobody really wants to work with you any more. What this means is that if there is anything that you really need to hand off or wrap up, you should do it BEFORE you announce that you are going to be leaving. This is always tricky to do because your close team members may start to guess that something is up. You can handle this in two ways: lie, or tell them that you are considering some offers but have not yet made up your mind. Lying is never a good idea even if it seems like the easy way out -- the truth always comes out eventually. Slowing introducing everyone to the idea that you might/are leaving seems to allow everyone time to come to grips with it.

The new job that you are planning on leaving your current firm for probably looks like the best job in the world: great cube, great people, fabulous pay, undreamed of perks, etc. Please note: the last thing in the world that you want to do is to tell everyone about these reasons for your leaving. No matter how good a teammate they were, this will make them turn green with envy and that is never a good thing. I've always found that telling everyone that I felt that I had completed what I had joined the firm to do and that the new firm had offered me a challenge that I just couldn't pass up seems to satisfy most folks and does not produce a great deal of ill will.

I guess that it goes without saying that in the world of IT there is always a good chance that you'll be working again with some of the folks that you are leaving. Yet another reason to leave on good terms!

He's / She's Leaving? Now What?

Teams are a wonderful thing -- when everyone is linked together and plays off of each others strengths an IT department can virtually hum just like a smooth flowing machine. However, when a team member decides to leave the team, whether its to go to another internal team or to go to a new company, it can cause the whole department engine to start to sputter and misfire.

For those who are left on the team, the loss of a team member who has chosen to leave the team, can be difficult to deal with. A good IT manager has to recognize that envy will immediately show up: we all are jealous of others who appear to be heading for green pastures/better challenges/more money. The most effective way to deal with this is to let it happen, wait for the person to actually physically leave, and then reveal / discuss new exciting challenges for the remaining team. The envy is a short term emotion and can be quickly buried if you can get the team excited about another project task.

The next big question is how does the loss of the team member impact the team. Specifically, who will be picking up the work that the leaving team member was working on? Additionally, does this loss of a team member open the door for any promotions? Answers to both of these issues need to be determined as quickly as possible and communicated to the whole team early on.

There is a lot more to do, but these are two good places to start.

Pimp My IT Job!

What to do when you are stuck working on a program/project that is not the executives' current favorite? Do you feel as though you are stuck in your company's technical back waters and that your skills are growing older, staler, and more out-of-date each and every work day? Do you look enviously at your coworkers who are working on more glamorous projects and using cool new tools like Ruby or various Web 2.0 toolkits to create shiny new beasts?

Well fear not, amazingly enough you are not alone. Most of the IT community is in your shoes -- we work to keep the critical systems up and running and try to make them just a bit better each and every release. "Project Envy" is a fact of life that we all live with. What to do about it?

There is no single magic cure for this affliction; however, here are three ways that I have dealt with this in both my own career and in trying to keep folks on my team motivated:

1. I.N.T.L.S: "It's Not The Language, Stupid" Lots of times our jealousy of other workers and projects stems from the fact that they get to use a neat new toy that we don't get to use. Get over it -- good design is good design, no matter what language or tool you have to work with. Back in the day, folks were able to get Fortran to do some pretty amazing things that it had never been originally designed to do. Think about it this way: how boring must it be if the language / tool that you are using to solve a design problem does too much of the work for you. Instead, focus on creating the tightest, clearest code that is humanly possible. We all like a challenge and this will help you to overcome language envy.
   
   
2. Can Anyone Say "Soft Skills?": If you find yourself trapped on a back waters project, instead of spending your days surfing dice.com, how about if you spend some time working on those skills that you are going to need in order to make it through your entire 45 year career? Skills like communication, delegation, negotiation, etc. If your career eventually takes off, you will desperately need these skills so use this "pitstop project" as an opportunity to bone up on what you'll need.
   
   
3. Play the Metrics Game: Most IT departments have fallen in love with metrics and this offers you a great way to get some department wide recognition no matter what project you find yourself stuck on. Back water projects are generally in charge of older, stable applications or systems. You can use this to your advantage. Study what metrics your department is tracking and determine which of them are most important to upper level management. Then take a look at your project and ask yourself how you can make this project #1 in terms of department metrics. By doing so you'll rise to the top and will get noticed. This just might be enough to get you moved to another more popular project.

There are many more things that you can do should you find yourself stuck on a project that turns out to not be the flavor-of-the-week. Complaining, sulking, and surfing for a new job are always options, but there are much better ways to spend your time!

The Power Of A "Thank You"

So here we find ourselves in the powerful 21st Century and yet still we are looking for ways to motivate and keep our teams together. Hmm, some things never change. I recently had an experience that once again reminded me about the power of something that I already knew but had just once again forgotten about.

I had an upcoming trade show and somehow I got sucked into "booth duty" -- standing for hours on a cement floor trying to interest walker bys in your product. With just four days left before the big show, I now realized that I had no material to hand out that would describe the product that I'm responsible for. I quickly pulled together a 1-page handout and then I ran smack dab into the company's legal and layout teams. These two groups are never easy to work with nor do they move quickly ("you want it when?"); however, things were even worse because they were involved in a major company marketing material overhaul and had even less time than normal to deal with requests.

I tracked down a technical material expert, we'll call her Carole, and asked for her help. She started by letting me know that what I wanted to accomplish in such a short time was probably impossible, but she was will to give it a try. She made edits to the handout herself in order to get it to flow through the legal department easier, set up calls with the legal team and she worked with the layout police. In the end, it was through her efforts that on Friday at 5:00 pm I got a final, approved copy that could be handed out at the show -- an internal company record if ever there was one.

For most IT departments, the story would normally stop here. However, I was so impressed with Carole's efforts when I so clearly did not deserve her attention that I sat down over the weekend and wrote a thank you email to her boss. I explained what the situation was, what Carole had done, and why it meant a lot to the company. Here's the amazing part: her boss shot me back a thanks for thanking her note. Then I got a thank you from Carole who had been congratulated by her boss. Finally, I got a thank you note from Carole's VP -- clearly my original email had been forwarded up the chain of command. One simple thank you had accomplished a great deal.

So what's to learn from all of this? Well first off, thank yous still count -- none of us send enough of them and we all really should spend some time each day thanking those who help us to get our work done. Next, when you do send a thank you, be sure to include enough info so that the person who is receiving it can understand the whole story and realize what was done. Finally, when trying to keep an IT team or department motivated, sometimes the best strategy might be to get folks one the outside to send a note reminding everyone that they really are doing a good job!

The Joy Of Computer Storage

I'm currently out in Las Vegas attending the EMC World 2008 tradeshow. If you've never heard of this one, then you probably aren't a part of the world of computer storage. EMC is a $15B company that grew large by providing the storage that Yahoo, Google, the government, etc. use to store each and every bit of information that they mange. This year the show has been a real eye opener for me.

I dabble in the world of storage when I have a need. The folks who I've talked to at the show, on the other hand, REALLY get involved in storage on a daily basis. There are about 9,300 folks attending this show (see -- I told you that it was a big deal).

What I've observed about this mass of IT professionals is that they all seem to be engaged and motivated. Now I can't say what will happen when they get back to the shop, but at least for the few days that they are out here in the desert they seem to be satisfied with both their jobs as well as their companies. If only you could capture this feeling and bottle it!

How did they get this way? I think that it has a lot to do with the simple fact that they are among peers who share the same technical knowledge that they do. This allows them to remember that they are not alone. It also helps that EMC spends the entire show telling them that they are important parts of their company and that the future rests on their shoulders.

Perhaps this type of environment can be captured and used back at home. Within you firm is there any way to set up a birds-of-feather group for technical professionals who share the same types of knowledge but who don't normally have an opportunity to work together? Be careful that this doesn't turn into a complaint club, but if managed and directed, it can become a powerful reason why IT workers join and don't leave your company.