As the head of IT at Gartner, a company that advises other
organisations on how to optimise their IT, John Dunnet has to run
an exemplary ship himself.
That includes ensuring the company provides a productive and happy
workplace.
Dunnet believes that one of the ways to achieve this is to focus on
personal development, particularly in bringing out business
skills.
"We train on interpersonal skills such as meeting facilitation and
effective communication," he said. "We also do five-day courses on
process re-engineering."
This helps Gartner's IT team understand the benefits of working
together with staff in other departments to improve the service it
offers.
"We foster a close-knit team at Gartner. No issue is someone else's
problem, no one points the finger of blame and every problem is an
opportunity to learn. We believe in continuous learning and are
committed to creating an environment where this can happen," Dunnet
said.
Mentoring is available to everyone in the IT department, to help to
develop the business and communication skills needed by a
fully-rounded IT professional.
"It is for everyone who needs to be taught something new,
especially interpersonal and management skills. There is a weekly
tutorial [for every participant] for an hour a week where their
manager goes through a list of actions from the previous week,
talking through any problems.
"The meetings become less frequent as the participant becomes more
confident, and the mentor then becomes a sounding board rather than
a source of advice," he said.
"It takes time. I spend six hours a week with my direct reports,
which reinforces that having more than five or six direct reports
is too many."
IT staff have access to a lifestyle coach. This may sound trivial,
but, said Dunnet, it helps employees to develop business skills,
such as how to build rapport and ask open-ended questions, and what
body language to use.
Members of the IT team are also encouraged to pursue external
qualifications. "We have four staff in the middle of completing
their MBAs, and a couple of others doing Open University courses in
subjects such as project management for IT," he said. "The MBAs in
particular are exceptionally useful. They broaden people's
understanding of what business is and how it works."
Working with a user base which comprises some of the most fluent
and high-calibre IT professionals in the industry means it is
essential that the ITteam has the skills and confidence to convince
its users that it is delivering a high-quality IT service.
The high-profile annual Gartner Symposium is, for Dunnet, an
opportunity for its IT staff to show their skills. "It is a
showcase for us. Our team gets to do something visible for Gartner
clients. In three days we have to turn an empty shell of a building
into a fully functioning environment.
"The challenge of running the symposium gets greater every year: we
are tasked to get it up and running faster, at a lower cost, using
fewer people and with less work. We set goals such as reducing the
amount of cable used - six years ago we used three miles, this year
it was half that amount."
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