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Verify the facts before acting
On Tuesday of this week, I watched the coverage of our Presidential election. I won't bore you with my political preferences, but I thought there were some interesting dynamics that occurred that can be applied to managing technology resources.
The issue that happened was that early exit polls (polls taken from people as they depart the voting centers) hit the Internet and created some confusion. The major news networks had agreed not to publish the exit polls until after the first of the eastern states closed their voting centers. This was intended to avoid swaying people's votes in a state that had been called for one candidate or the other when their voting centers were still open.
Good intentions, but they forgot about the Internet and how fast word spreads through the Internet community. Early exit poll information started circulating the Internet like wildfire by noon time East Coast time. The message and "buzz" was clear in that it looked very much like Senator Kerry was winning key states like Florida and Ohio, even some unlikely states like North Carolina and Virginia.
Post election analysis has revealed that the Kerry camp was elated for most of the day and the Bush camp was pretty distraught, even when the exit polls disagreed with their own assessments. The discrepancy between the exit polls and the raw vote data that was coming in caused the major networks to delay the time it normally takes to call a state as being won by one candidate or the other. A case in point was that Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia would have normally been called much earlier for Bush based upon the actual vote data that came in, but the fact the exit polls disagreed with the raw data caused the news broadcasters to wait for additional data before calling these states and others like them.
How does this apply to our job of managing technology resources?
Actually, it applies in many, many ways and can be a valuable lesson to learn from, , , regardless of your political preference. Remember, I promised to avoid sharing my political views.
There are many situations where you need to validate the facts before running with unsubstantiated information. It will keep you out of trouble, will prevent you making big mistakes, and will keep the mud off your face. I've had to learn some of these things the hard way. In fact, anyone got a clean washcloth so I can wipe my face?
Seriously though, here are a few areas to consider getting your facts straight before acting:
A. Hiring people - Always verify the resume information. Anyone can create a great looking resume.
B. Complaints about people - Bickering among employees is going to happen. Be sure you verify the specific issues
before taking action; you may find that the circumstances are misstated or that there is misunderstanding of the facts.
C. Selecting vendor products and services - Verify what the vendor is telling you, especially for mission critical
functionality or capability. Their customers will be able to shed light on whether the Vendor can deliver and how well
they support their client. Ask for more than just two or three happy clients to talk to. Ask to talk to unhappy clients as
well; they may tell you things that help you become a successful client of the Vendor.
D. Complaints about clients - Your employees may complain about external clients or company departments. Unless
you know the specifics beneath their complaints and have an opportunity to verify these issues really exist, it is
premature to try to implement corrective action. I've seen too many situations where the IT staff needed to make an
improvement or change to allow the client to work with them effectively.
E. "Senior management doesn't want that !" - There are often situations of the past that were issues where senior
management required certain things that no longer exist in today's environment of the company. What often happens
is that the "rumor" that senior management "doesn't want that" continues to perpetuate itself. An example is that I
was in a company where everyone understood that senior management did not allow an overhead paging system.
However, when the CEO was asked about it, he replied, "That was when our entire office was one small floor of
people and we did not want to interrupt client visits with overhead pages, etc. Today, we are on multiple floors, even
in different buildings. If implementing a paging system for our support units helps us support our clients better, then
we should implement it by all means."
The point
The message with all of this is that you need to validate the facts, get specific input to analyze, etc. before "firing your weapon". Issues can be very misleading until you get underneath them. You may find that the "hearsay" is right on target. You may also find that it is well off the mark due to misinterpretation, a lack of doing the necessary work to discover the real facts of the issue, or even a prejudice or emotional feeling that is coming from the source of the information.
All I can tell you is that when I conduct an IT assessment, I listen to the message everyone delivers, but I verify the facts before I decide on my action. It will help you be far more successful.
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