How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs
-
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)
By not billing based on projects, base on orders.
Example:
Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.
THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.
How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.
Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.
I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.
So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth?
you can, but you don't have to spend all the money today.
example - you buy a server, you buy a dual socket machine, but only populate 1 socket (assuming the job can get done with that) and you populate the second when it's actually needed, same goes for storage and RAM.
What I've seen is overbuying specifically for the calculated expansion needed for whatever the refresh plan is but yeah, I guess that is too much of an upfront investment.
Yup, lots of cost up front, at higher rates, before needed, for something assumed to be needed someday. All three are negatives.
-
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)
By not billing based on projects, base on orders.
Example:
Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.
THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.
How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.
Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.
I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.
So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth? You just buy exactly what you had?
Why would you ever buy exactly what you had? The reality here is that you're replacing for one of two reasons - aged out equipment or growth. Obviously in the case of growth, you're not buying the same thing - you clearly need more. But aged out equipment - do you really need more? heck your equipment aged out, meaning it's at least 5 years old, and could easily be 8+. Any server you buy today will crush that 5+ year old server and if necessary, should have plenty of room for expansion (in RAM and CPU) assuming you built it somewhere near the performance level of the old one.
As for storage - you might start with all internal storage - then you might move to DAS for additional storage, don't need another server (necessarily)
They were widely viewed as successful but that is only because they stopped analyzing after implementation
Right, so seen as successful because neither IT nor the CFO ever checked AT ALL. 100% business failing because they aren't analyzing their decision making processes to see if they are logical or working.
-
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Dysfunction may come about because the company only has so much money and if the charge back is a fixed cost, you can bet all departments will work VERY hard to be first in line to use up all of their fee first.
If the company can't show a bank that it needs money to make money, you've got even more dysfunction. Having departments with an inability to get profitable because they can't afford to be efficient is a major problem. Companies can certainly be short on funds and unable to maximize value, but there are simple business processes that guarantee that a healthy company will never have the problem that you worry about....
- The CFO / financial department will always oversee and prioritize investments. No qualified CEO/CFO would ever allow a situation to arise where any department asking gets what they need just because they asked faster. Any that has that problem, is already screwed and lost.
- Any company that is doing all this properly would be first in line for any bank to fund their expansion needs.
-
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Add to that, you now have all department heads stating, "Hey, I paid my monthly fee, now give me what I want NOW! My department is more important than any other department" Thus more dysfunction within the company.
They can say that, but again, management above departments would always prioritize and departments in a healthy company would never have input on prioritization between departments. No healthy company would experience this problem. It's a pretty silly thing to worry about, a CEO would have to want this for it to be possible.
-
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I think his premise is fundamentally flawed... he thinks that treating departments as customers isolates IT from the organization. But that's backwards, it is in doing so that internal IT can attempt to approach the extreme functionality of the MSP model (but never match it) while making IT part of the business rather than at odds with departments. He's missed how it works entirely.
Remember that the C suite, the CEO, the financial department.... they are the most core of the business and they always see departments in this way. If you want IT to be part of the organization, this is really the only logical model. By the author's logic, CEOs aren't working and/or we should simply eliminate departments conceptually.
-
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I agree that in Dustin's situation, it may not be so dire. Just in general, that is the possible dysfunction of charge backs.
Anything will be dysfunctional if not implemented properly or the organization is fundamentally dysfunctional. But there is a difference between having a good model and doing it wrong, and having a bad model.
It's like saying that driving can be slower than walking if you don't drive to the right place. Sure, while true, it misses the point.
-
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
I have yet to find a way to do it here and will be watching this post for others who come up with an idea. FU*&#%@ PDF's for Credentialing bloat my file server. Worse than email attachments (grrhhhh).
Charge backs fix this in the real world every day. We've done it and the success is amazing. The people causing the bloat are...
- The ones who pay for it.
- Identified by management.
- Able to be dealt with if deemed necessary.
No other model is logically functional. Aligning cost to use is literally the only possible way for things to make sense. If the people responsible for cost aren't the ones responsible for paying for it, you've literally encouraged people to do terrible things. Why would someone clean up storage if you are financially incentivizing them not to?
Think about it... if bad IT decisions get to be made by a departmental manager, but IT is punished for them and/or other departments are punished for them... then you actually benefit by pushing through bad decisions either because it makes your department look better by internal comparison, or in a case like the storage, it is cheaper to not clean it up since cleaning it up costs your department time, but the cost of the storage is paid by someone else.
-
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?
Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?
Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.
Dysfunction may come about because the company only has so much money and if the charge back is a fixed cost, you can bet all departments will work VERY hard to be first in line to use up all of their fee first.
Add to that, you now have all department heads stating, "Hey, I paid my monthly fee, now give me what I want NOW! My department is more important than any other department" Thus more dysfunction within the company.
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I don't think it needs to be super hard and fast to live and die by charge backs, that could be a CFO/exec level only thing... but then the CFO could look at a department who's asking for 750 TB of storage, and look at the history of that department and might come back and say - uh, yeah.. ya know.. we're going to get you that 750, but it will be staged over years - etc...
I agree that in Dustin's situation, it may not be so dire. Just in general, that is the possible dysfunction of charge backs. I've only been in a SMB area but I have seen CIO/CFO/CEO's (and their SMB equivalents) fight over money constantly. Yes, the C-levels will make the choice but only to the determent of the overall business.
If the CIO/CFO is the one making the final OK - then there should be no determent to the business
Right, there is a central point of decision making. A CIO, for example, can't argue with the CEO more than the CEO allows because the CIO is still providing valuable arguments.
-
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
I have yet to find a way to do it here and will be watching this post for others who come up with an idea.FU*&#%@ PDF's for Credentialing bloat my file server. Worse than email attachments (grrhhhh).
Better than being in email in my mind. are you in medical?
Yeah a Medical SMB. The issue is they come in email, the email is then forwarded (with attachement) to a few other internal individuals and then save to the file server. Then they make one change to the document and the process starts over and no one bothers to remove the previous PDF's that no longer matter.
This is simple departmental management. Whoever is managing that department doesn't care, and whoever is over that department doesn't care. So bottom line, IT shouldn't care as the business thinks that this is what they want.
-
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
I have yet to find a way to do it here and will be watching this post for others who come up with an idea.FU*&#%@ PDF's for Credentialing bloat my file server. Worse than email attachments (grrhhhh).
Better than being in email in my mind. are you in medical?
Yeah a Medical SMB. The issue is they come in email, the email is then forwarded (with attachement) to a few other internal individuals and then save to the file server. Then they make one change to the document and the process starts over and no one bothers to remove the previous PDF's that no longer matter.
This is simple departmental management. Whoever is managing that department doesn't care, and whoever is over that department doesn't care. So bottom line, IT shouldn't care as the business thinks that this is what they want.
I know Scott's black/white view on this is accurate from a 20,000 ft view, but the reality is that management doesn't have the numbers of the cost of managing this extra data (IT expenses mostly) compared to the cost of employee time to cleanup these files - or even better - create a policy that fixes the problem in the first place going forward, then cleanup the old shit.
Lack of numbers is the whole reason these types of issues exist, and that is a management issue - because they aren't demanding them.
-
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I think his premise is fundamentally flawed... he thinks that treating departments as customers isolates IT from the organization. But that's backwards, it is in doing so that internal IT can attempt to approach the extreme functionality of the MSP model (but never match it) while making IT part of the business rather than at odds with departments. He's missed how it works entirely.
Remember that the C suite, the CEO, the financial department.... they are the most core of the business and they always see departments in this way. If you want IT to be part of the organization, this is really the only logical model. By the author's logic, CEOs aren't working and/or we should simply eliminate departments conceptually.
There is a big problem with seeing internal IT as external IT or MSP. First problem is that vendors don't care about customers. Their primary concern is themselves - the ultimate reason for all business. That would not be a problem because that would naturally be controlled by market forces, competition. Those that didn't provide customer value would die. However internal IT doesn't have other internal IT departments to compete with. So having internal IT as a department where the other departments are their "customers" is an unnatural environment. A non-self regulating environment, a monopoly. It's however the defacto standard for larger companies.
-
@Pete-S said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I think his premise is fundamentally flawed... he thinks that treating departments as customers isolates IT from the organization. But that's backwards, it is in doing so that internal IT can attempt to approach the extreme functionality of the MSP model (but never match it) while making IT part of the business rather than at odds with departments. He's missed how it works entirely.
Remember that the C suite, the CEO, the financial department.... they are the most core of the business and they always see departments in this way. If you want IT to be part of the organization, this is really the only logical model. By the author's logic, CEOs aren't working and/or we should simply eliminate departments conceptually.
There is a big problem with seeing internal IT as external IT or MSP. First problem is that vendors don't care about customers. Their primary concern is themselves - the ultimate reason for all business. That would not be a problem because that would naturally be controlled by market forces, competition. Those that didn't provide customer value would die. However internal IT doesn't have other internal IT departments to compete with. So having internal IT as a department where the other departments are their "customers" is an unnatural environment. A non-self regulating environment, a monopoly. It's however the defacto standard for larger companies.
And that is why Scott said they could never be as good as a real MSP/ITSP.
-
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Pete-S said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I think his premise is fundamentally flawed... he thinks that treating departments as customers isolates IT from the organization. But that's backwards, it is in doing so that internal IT can attempt to approach the extreme functionality of the MSP model (but never match it) while making IT part of the business rather than at odds with departments. He's missed how it works entirely.
Remember that the C suite, the CEO, the financial department.... they are the most core of the business and they always see departments in this way. If you want IT to be part of the organization, this is really the only logical model. By the author's logic, CEOs aren't working and/or we should simply eliminate departments conceptually.
There is a big problem with seeing internal IT as external IT or MSP. First problem is that vendors don't care about customers. Their primary concern is themselves - the ultimate reason for all business. That would not be a problem because that would naturally be controlled by market forces, competition. Those that didn't provide customer value would die. However internal IT doesn't have other internal IT departments to compete with. So having internal IT as a department where the other departments are their "customers" is an unnatural environment. A non-self regulating environment, a monopoly. It's however the defacto standard for larger companies.
And that is why Scott said they could never be as good as a real MSP/ITSP.
I thought he meant scale. Because that is another reason.
-
@Pete-S said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Pete-S said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I think his premise is fundamentally flawed... he thinks that treating departments as customers isolates IT from the organization. But that's backwards, it is in doing so that internal IT can attempt to approach the extreme functionality of the MSP model (but never match it) while making IT part of the business rather than at odds with departments. He's missed how it works entirely.
Remember that the C suite, the CEO, the financial department.... they are the most core of the business and they always see departments in this way. If you want IT to be part of the organization, this is really the only logical model. By the author's logic, CEOs aren't working and/or we should simply eliminate departments conceptually.
There is a big problem with seeing internal IT as external IT or MSP. First problem is that vendors don't care about customers. Their primary concern is themselves - the ultimate reason for all business. That would not be a problem because that would naturally be controlled by market forces, competition. Those that didn't provide customer value would die. However internal IT doesn't have other internal IT departments to compete with. So having internal IT as a department where the other departments are their "customers" is an unnatural environment. A non-self regulating environment, a monopoly. It's however the defacto standard for larger companies.
And that is why Scott said they could never be as good as a real MSP/ITSP.
I thought he meant scale. Because that is another reason.
I should have said - that's one of the reasons.
-
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I think his premise is fundamentally flawed... he thinks that treating departments as customers isolates IT from the organization. But that's backwards, it is in doing so that internal IT can attempt to approach the extreme functionality of the MSP model (but never match it) while making IT part of the business rather than at odds with departments. He's missed how it works entirely.
Remember that the C suite, the CEO, the financial department.... they are the most core of the business and they always see departments in this way. If you want IT to be part of the organization, this is really the only logical model. By the author's logic, CEOs aren't working and/or we should simply eliminate departments conceptually.
I understand how both you and Bob Lewis arrive at your own logical conclusions. I don't doubt both of you have evidence that each one works depending on the company and situation. In the end, both actually have issues as you and Bob point out. Different strokes for different folks.
As we all know, there are numerous business using different models, yet are healthy and profitable. That is what matters in the end.
-
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
In the end, both actually have issues as you and Bob point out. Different strokes for different folks.
But are the issues he's pointing out WITH the system, or from failing to implement it?
-
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
As we all know, there are numerous business using different models, yet are healthy and profitable. That is what matters in the end.
That's not quite true. Healthy and profitable aren't always the same. In fact, rarely are. Many doctors make profits, while losing their shirts. Why? Because of things that have nothing to do with business, they have an ability to make money regardless of the unhealthiness of the business.
-
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
both actually have issues as you and Bob point out.
What issues does he point out? I point mine out publicly for peer review. Where are his listed without needing to pay to find out what they are?
Given that the basis he works from is incorrect, I'm not sure what his points would even relate to.
-
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I know Scott's black/white view on this is accurate from a 20,000 ft view, but the reality is that management doesn't have the numbers of the cost of managing this extra data (IT expenses mostly) compared to the cost of employee time to cleanup these files - or even better - create a policy that fixes the problem in the first place going forward, then cleanup the old shit.
They would if we followed proper billing strategies
-
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
both actually have issues as you and Bob point out.
What issues does he point out? I point mine out publicly for peer review. Where are his listed without needing to pay to find out what they are?
Given that the basis he works from is incorrect, I'm not sure what his points would even relate to.
I found one that is wrong...
He thinks that this promotes SLAs. But it does not. He's conflating the model with "common mistakes". He's not addressing that the model isn't right, he's just pointing out the insanely obvious fact that having the right model doesn't magically fix other mistakes in a business.
