All Posts in Policies and Procedures

|In: Organizational Effectiveness|Last Updated:

The best note-taker of all time worked in a department I managed several years ago. I was reading his notes from a staff meeting when, on page two, in the middle of a sentence on some procedure change or other we’d agreed to, I read the following: “(If you’ve read this far, you’ll find a dollar bill under your telephone.)” after which his notes returned to the subject at hand.

Sure enough, I found the dollar. When I returned it, laughing, I asked how much the experiment cost him. Of the ten dollars he invested, he lost two bucks, of which I returned one. It’s a good thing to try. I recommend it.

Same guy, different meeting. The notes: a picture of a horse, on its back. Ten people with whips stand around in different poses. Some flog the horse, some flog other team members, one or two stand back as noncombatants.

Accurate notes.

I’ve participated in dead-horse-floggings before, so why should I stop now? Between the Forum on InfoWorld Electric and e-mail, the reaction to my “End-User Computing Manifesto” was hot enough to melt lead, so it’s time to flog further.

Several end-users, mostly Macintosh users, I’m afraid, became incensed at the “No Prima Donnas” entry. A prima donna, in this context, is someone who insists on using a tool that competes with the standard. If I insist on using WordPerfect when my company has standardized on MS Word, I’d be a prima donna.

Some suggestions were topologically and anatomically impossible. Most, though, seemed concerned over how IS comes up with its list of standards, assuming they’d exclude end-users. For the record: I can’t imagine circumstances that would justify selecting end-user software without end-user involvement. I also can’t imagine a selection process without a support analyst and someone from the networking group (to assess compatibility with and impact on the company network).

A few perceptive readers pointed out that “support” is pretty broad, and that several levels of support should be defined. Here’s a scheme I’ve used that’s worked well.

Level 5: Fully supported software. IS installs it, tests it for compatibility with all supported desktop environments, upgrades it when new releases become available, and provides both classroom training and one-on-one assistance. The IS software budget pays for it, too.

Level 4: Acceptable alternative software. Software that fully supports the native file formats of Level 5 software generally falls into this category. IS buys this software, installs it on the central file servers, and upgrades it when new releases become available. It doesn’t, however, provide classroom training or one-on-one support beyond the point this software diverges in use from the Level 5 standard.

Level 3: Departmental software. Any department may choose to buy and support whatever software seems important to its organizational success. IS will participate in the selection process to make sure this software is compatible with, and not destructive of, the overall network environment, and will provide a network directory for it if needed. The department takes responsibility for installation and management of the software though – IS has no operational involvement.

Level 2: Software acceptable for individual use. End-users can buy and install whatever they want on their local hard drives. They must be able to produce the original installation diskettes at any time (to demonstrate the legality of the software) and must be fully self-supporting in its use. If Level 2 software somehow makes a computer unstable, IS may choose to help, or it may offer to restore the desktop to a standard configuration to get it working.

Level 1: Software that’s not acceptable in the organization. Different companies have different qualifications here – some allow no shareware; few allow games.

Limiting end-users to company standards makes IS a gatekeeper, not an enabler. IS can’t, though, support everything anyone decides to buy. Multiple support levels let both groups succeed.

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|In: Industry Commentary|Last Updated:

I’m feeling pretty crabby over the excitement generated by network computers. P.T. Barnum could probably explain it, except that he’s dead. He knew every passing minute results in the birth of one more sucker.

It all comes down to bad cost accounting and dumb measures. PCs cost more to support than more traditional architectures, we’re told: three out of five dollars goes to support costs. We’re also told client/server systems cost three times more to develop than traditional systems.

It may even be true, although as previous columns have pointed out, the chance these comparisons having any meaning is pretty small. Even if it is true, it’s irrelevant.

One reason: companies that focus on cost are doomed. Companies that spend their energy reducing costs forget why they spend that money … to retain and attract customers.

Paul Erlich, writing about species extinction, came up with the metaphor of the rivet-popper, who sat on the wing of an airplane removing rivets. When a passenger complained to the pilot he explained the plane didn’t need that rivet anyway. The proof? The wing is still attached, isn’t it?

Cutting unnecessary costs is a Good Thing (GT to use the acronym). Far too many companies forget the keyword “unnecessary” and figure cutting costs is a GT. It’s not: most costs are investments in customer loyalty and acquisition.

The point: companies need to focus on value, not cost. Does anyone seriously think network computers will provide as much value on the desktop as a full-fledged PC?

And now, a reality check. Network computers will run software downloaded from servers. They’ll be completely compatible across all manufacturers, running the same code with no configuration problems, driver idiosyncrasies, or other technology-generated headaches.

I sure believe this. My 20 years of experience in this industry lead me to believe vendors work together in harmony to produce standards designed to maximize customer value, then resist the temptation to create propriety extensions or non-standard alternatives. Don’t you?

No matter how much grass we smoke, it’s always greener under someone else’s bed.

Let’s put our collective experience with real-world vendors aside, though, and pretend these gadgets really will work as advertised. Our support headaches will evaporate overnight.

So when someone in Accounting creates a critical spreadsheet and saves it before going home in the evening (on the server, since there’s no local storage) IS can be assured the spreadsheet program will run without trouble.

And when that accountant needs to do a bit of work at home because she’s a single Mom and has to put the kids to bed, but she’s on deadline for the next morning, she just pulls the spreadsheet up on her home computer and …

Oops! It runs from the network only. Okay, let’s imagine this technology allows for remotely accessing the corporate network from home. So she dials in and downloads the spreadsheet, so she can work on it on … hold it. She has Excel on her home computer. She bought it herself, of course, because her employer uses network computers. So she tries to load the spreadsheet into Excel and …

Hold it again. Do you think the network computer runs a spreadsheet that’s 100% compatible with Excel? I believe this just as much as I believe WordPerfect and MS Word exchange files while perfectly maintaining all formatting.

Now how about that mobile sales force? Are you going to outfit every one of those guys with a laptop network computer and 10 Mbps wireless network connection?

You think your support costs are high now? Start thinking about a mixed architecture, with network computers on the desktop and standard PCs everywhere else. You haven’t even begun to buy Excedrin in bulk.

So before we all get too excited about network computers, let’s do some serious thinking about how people use personal computers now, and figure out how they’ll react when we tell them they won’t be able to do that stuff anymore.

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