It's All About Perception

I spent the majority of my time this past weekend divided between cutting and gluing straws, and completing the first section of my Operations Management course. There were a few other tasks thrown in throughout my two days of rest, which ultimately resulted in a very productive weekend. A lot was accomplished that needed to get accomplished.

I also made time to relax, which, laced with the recently absorbed chapters on service management from my textbook, brought about some reflection on the IT service industry. More to the point, the role of management within the IT field, and in particular the roles I have played throughout my career. In the forefront of this is a short coming of mine (and most in the field) that I have been endeavoring for some time to overcome.

Information Technologies is a very behind the scenes service field; it is something that is rarely noticed save for when a system stops working. If the people performing the work within an IT department do their jobs correctly and efficiently most of their fellow employees will never even know they are there. I have always related the IT field to the people in the nuclear missile silos; you know they exist and you pay them well to be there, but you almost never see them and hope you never have to use them in an emergency.

Although the wording might be different, this is the general view most senior managers have for the IT departments within their companies; and it can lead to problems. If you work in the industry, you know there is far more going on behind the scenes than simple break fix. Technology initiatives created and put into place by IT service personnel save thousand and millions of dollars for a company each and every year. A good department will pay for itself in savings through these cost and time saving projects, a great department can save a company more with the right projects than all other cost cutting strategies implemented by a company combined.

Throughout my career I have been part of many major cost cutting projects within various organizations; from team projects implementing new technology, to developing simple applications that can automatically manipulate data, to upgrading existing processes and procedures that make them more efficient. And I never was bothered when during each company meeting an administrative assistant would get an award for saving the company $1000 by purchasing pens in bulk, while the IT department was ignored after saving $50,000 through one of its latest projects. It is what was expected of us.

Then I became a manager and suddenly it bothered me. I am not sure if my perspectives had changed with taking on more responsibility or if it was something else entirely, but my people deserved better than that. They deserved the recognition they had earned, to be seen as the valuable employees they were, the people who earned the salaries they were given and, further, deserved raises, not the first thrown up onto the chopping blocks when it was time for layoffs. Only, that is the way of the Information Technology field. Or at least how it was.

Times have changed for many corporations. Smart executives who have learned to leverage technology to the benefit of the company are bringing with them an understanding of the departments that previously went unnoticed. These companies are still far from the norm, but their numbers are growing and the reason is something I should have learned a long time ago: Marketing.

Savvy IT leaders have not only learned to leverage the resources of their departments, but have also made a concerted effort to promote those resources to others within the organization. These leaders make certain that every project, every cost saving endeavor, and every time cutting process is heard about by every employee within the company, not just senior management. It is something we should have been doing all along, because in the end it is all about perception.

Unfortunately for most of us in the IT arena, myself included, marketing is something we have never been very good at, or at least never saw a reason for. It is, however, a skill I have been working to hone, and will continue to work at. After all, I spent the majority of my time this past weekend divided between creating the base propulsion structure for an autonomous mobile robot, and enhancing my managerial skill-set through further study and education.