Making IT Happen

We just finished our second year of volunteering at Old Ford School in Bow. We did this through City Action. I was one of the volunteers this term, and it left me with a few thought on volunteering:
1 - nothing, and I mean nothing we have done has generated the same level of buzz in the team than the shared experience of doing this.
2 - you can make a difference without committing huge amounts of time. It was half a day a month for me.
3 - it's very practical, and all absorbing - we tutor children who are 8 or 9 years old for an hour each, and after three tutoring sessions I'm ready for a break.

I'll ask my colleagues what they think about the experince and do a post that summarises their response.

This has appeared in much of the computer press. I'm sure this would be an absolutely fascinating job. One of my colleagues notes that all cv's go to Hotmail, so Microsoft will get to know the candidate pool even before MI6 do...

MI6 searches for a new CIO

Who will be the spy who loved IT?

The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) is advertising for a new chief information officer, following the retirement of the previous IT leader.

The job advert from MI6 requests "an experienced manager of technological and commercial risk at a strategic level" to help defend the UK's security and economic interests overseas.

"Technology is a critical enabler of SIS's work in tackling 21st century challenges such as terrorism and regional instability," said the SIS.

"Like any world-class organisation the Service is continually adapting to change and our technology has to be ever more responsive, agile and resilient."

The successful candidate will be expected to grow strategic relationships with private sector partners

Applicants must be British citizens and will be required to obtain Developed Vetting clearance – the government's highest-level security check, allowing access to top secret documents.

Interested candidates should email their CV and a covering letter to CIOresponse@hotmail.com by 19 November, quoting reference 2810.

Having a good network is a key asset of a CIO. Not that network - I mean your personal contacts. I'm a member of the Property IT Directors Forum, run by the indefatiguable Chris Lees at Calvis. 30 strong, it's members are the most senior person responsible for IT in almost all of the leading agents and property companies.

We get together from time to time, and if anyone has a question they can send it out and within an hour of two you'll have 10 responses. If you're a CIO and there's one of these in your sector, then join it! (and if there isn't, then start one)

I have grumbled once or twice about suppliers on this blog - so it's good to be able to sing the praises of a recruitment consultant. Alex Lawless at Computer Futures sent an unsolicited e-mail a few months ago in something I was interested in (business intelligence people) and I got in touch. Since then not only has he sent relevant cv's (an apparent baseline but lots of people in his industry don't), he also put me in touch with a consulting firm if we wanted to use them rather than employ our own people. He has also offered other bits of value add along the way, and having just spoken with him to tell him we wouldn't be using his firm for recruiting as we have decided not to employ anyone in this area he immediately e-mailed me some other contacts that might be helpful. Swoon.

I'd noticed in the past few weeks that the volume of unsolicited e-mails in my inbox from contractor recruitment agencies had doubled. Checking my junk e-mails folder reveals a similar increase from previous, now junked, senders. So this afternoon's Computer Weekly story about reduced contractor vacancies doesn't surprise me, other than that it's only 11% down.

It does have a good link to an IT Professionals Survival Guide that is both amusing and accurate - I particularly like the video it links to.

It's Ron Bonig's golden rules, which are below. But first, some background.

On the one hand I hate trite statements of 'values' but on the other hand, when something goes wrong in our IT team it is usually because someone has broken one of the 'rules' - or didn't know the 'rule' in the first place. About two years ago I tried to write them down as I was fed up with the same mistakes getting made over and over again.

This led to a howl of protest from some of my colleagues, who felt that this was imposing a culture. Others thought it was a good idea - a baseline of expected behaviours. The whole thing imploded into a sort of hippies v control freaks debate. I decided the whole thing was too divisive and quietly let it drop.

Two years on. And the same mistakes still get made. And I'm still not happy that the culture is right. Time to dust this off.

When I looked at this two years ago I found an excellent article in CIO magazine - in particular a list by Ron Bonig of George Washington University. "As long as you operate in these parameters, you will get your job done," he says. "We can correct any honest mistake." I completely agree.

Ron Bonig's Golden Rules

Rule 1 Production is job number one.

Rule 2 The first part of job number one is to "protect the data." Backups are sacred. Even scheduled production can be interrupted to get a clean backup.

Rule 3 Nothing I say regarding deadlines, projects or special initiatives should ever be construed as permission to deviate from Rule 1 and Rule 2.

Rule 4 Standards and procedures are your safety net. If you follow them, you can be virtually guaranteed that no mistake you make will cause a disaster (the procedures include peer review, testing and validation).

Rule 5 If you don't document it, it didn't happen. Keep it online and in several places. If you write it down on paper, it's obsolete before the ink is dry! (Especially for documentation, configurations.)

Rule 6 The most important part of the plan is the back-out strategy. If it all turns to "soup," you can get back to a steady state if you have planned it.

Rule 7 There is no such thing as an inconsequential change.

Rule 8 Never say no to a user--just put a price tag on the yes.

Rule 9 Nobody is indispensable...but all the systems administrators are forbidden to cross the street at the same time.

Rule 10 To borrow from Mark Twain: "Put all your eggs in one basket, then guard that basket!"

Rule 11 And to also paraphrase von Clausewitz: "No plan survives intact the first contact with the users."

Rule 12 You can put the square peg into the round hole, but you have to use a big hammer. It is easier to recruit and hire for the skills you want in the first place.

Rule 13 It's only money. If it is critical, we'll have a bake sale.

I've only got two to add to this list:

1 - If you agree to do something by a given date either do it by then or tell whoever you didn't get it done.

2 - The Rule of 20's for projects - mentioned in a recent post