Category Archives: Miscellaneous IT

Cloud computing, colocation, Featured, IT Management, Journey to the Cloud, Miscellaneous IT

Moving Our Datacenter: An IT Director’s Take

An Interview with Matt Mock, IT Director, GreenPages Technology Solutions

Journey to the Cloud’s Ben Stephenson sat down with GreenPages’ IT Director Matt Mock to discuss GreenPages’ recent datacenter move.

Ben: Why did GreenPages decide to move its datacenter?

Matt: Our current contract was up so we started evaluating new facilities looking for a robust, redundant facility to house our equipment in. We needed a facility to meet specific objectives around our business continuity plan. In addition, we were also looking for cost savings.

Ben: Where did you move the datacenter to and from?

Matt: Geographically, we stayed in a close area. We moved it from Charlestown, MA a couple of miles down the road into downtown Boston. Staying within a close area certainly made the physical move quicker and easier.

Ben: What were the benefits of moving the datacenter?

Matt: Ultimately, we were able to get into an extremely redundant and secure datacenter that provided us with cost savings. Furthermore, the datacenter is also a large carrier hotel which gives us additional savings on circuit costs. With this move we’re able to further our capabilities of delivering to our customers 24/7.

{Register for our upcoming webinar on 11/7 on key announcements from VMworld 2013}

Ben: Tell us about the process of the move? What had to happen ahead of time to ensure a smooth transition?

Matt: The most important parts were planning, testing, and communication. We put together an extremely detailed plan that broke out every phase of the move down to 15 minute increments. We devised teams for the specific phases that had a communication plan for each team. We also devised a backup emergency plan in the event that we hit any issues the night of the move.

Ben: What happened the night of the move?

Matt: The night of the move we leveraged the excellent facilities at Markley to be able to run a command center that was run by one of our project managers. In the room, we had multiple conference bridges to run the different work streams to ensure smooth and constant communication. We also utilized Huddle, our internal collaboration tool, to communicate as our internal systems were down during the move.

Ben: Anything else you had to factor in?

Matt: Absolutely. The same night of the move we were also changing both voice and data providers at three different locations, which added another layer of complexity. We had to work closely with our new providers to ensure a smooth transition. Because we have a 24/7 Managed Services division at GreenPages, we needed to continue to offer customers the same support during the move that we do on a day-to-day basis.

Ben: Did you experience unexpected events during the move? If so, what were they and how did you handle them?

Matt: With any complex IT project you’re going to experience unexpected events. A couple that we experienced were some hardware failures and unforeseen configuration issues. Fortunately, our detailed plan accounted for these issues, and we were able to address them with the teams on hand and remain on schedule.

Ben: You used an all GreenPages team to accomplish this, right?

Matt: Correct. We did not use any outside vendors for this move – all services were rendered by the GreenPages team. Last time we used outside providers and this time we had a much better experience. I’m in the unique position where I have access to an entire team of project managers and technical resources that made doing this possible. In fact, this is something we offer our customers (from consulting to project management to the actual move) so our team is very, very good at it.

Ben: What advice do you have for other IT Directors who are considering moving their datacenters?

Matt: Detailed planning and constant communication is critical, having a plan in place for every possible scenario, and having an emergency plan ready so that in the middle of the night you’re not scrambling with how to address those unforeseen issues.

Ben: Congratulations on the successful move. See you Monday after the Patriots crush your Steelers.

Would you like to learn more about how GreenPages can help you with your datacenter needs?

CMaaS, CTO, End-User Computing, Featured, IT Management, Journey to the Cloud, Miscellaneous IT, Network Infrastructure, SDN, Virtualization

Trick or Treat: Top 5 Fears of a CTO

By Chris Ward, CTO

Journey to the Cloud’s Ben Stephenson recently sat down with Chris Ward, CTO of GreenPages-LogicsOne, to get his take on what the top 5 fears of a CTO are.

Ben: Chief Technology Officer is obviously an extremely strategic, important, and difficult role within an organization. Since it’s almost Halloween, and since you’re an active (and successful) CTO yourself, I thought we would talk about your Top 5 Fears of a CTO. You also have the unique perspective of seeing how GreenPages uses technology internally, as well as how GreenPages advises clients to utilize different technologies.

Chris: Sounds good. I think a major fear is “Falling Behind the Trends.” In this case, it’s not necessarily that you couldn’t see what was coming down the path. You can see it there and know it’s coming, but can you get there with velocity? Can you get there before the competition does?

Ben: Do you have any examples of when you have avoided falling behind the trends?

Chris: At GreenPages, we were fortunate to catch virtualization early on when a lot of others didn’t. We had a lot of customers who were not sold on virtualization for 2-4 years. Those customers are now very far behind the competition and are trying to play catch up. In some cases, I’m sure it’s meant the CTO is out of a job. We also utilized virtualization internally early on and reaped the benefits. Another example is our CMaaS Brokerage and Governance offering. We recognize the significance of cloud brokerage and the paradigm shift towards a hybrid cloud computing model. In this case we are out ahead of the market.

Ben: How about a time when GreenPages did fall behind a trend?

Chris: I would say we fell behind a trend when we began our managed services business. It was traditional, old school managed services. It definitely took us some time to figure out where we wanted to go and where we wanted to be. While we may have fallen behind initially, we recognized change was needed and our Cloud Management as a Service offering has transformed us. Instead of sitting back and missing the boat, we are now in a great spot. This will be a huge help to our customers – but will (and does already) help us significantly internally as well.

Ben: How about fear number 2?

Chris: Fear number two is not seeing around the bend.  From my perspective as the CTO at a solutions provider, things move so fast in this industry and GreenPages offers such a wide variety and breadth of products and services to customer – it can be very difficult to keep up with. If we focused on only one area it would be a lot easier, but since we focus on cloud, virtualization, end user computing, security, storage, datacenter transformation, networking and more it can be quite challenging. For a corporate CTO you are allowed to be a market follower, which can be somewhat of an advantage. While you don’t want to fall behind, you do have partners, like GreenPages and others out there, that you can count on.

Ben: That makes sense. What about a 3rd fear?

Chris: Another large fear for CTOs is making a wrong turn. CTOs can get the crystal ball out and there may be a couple of things coming down the road…but what happens if you turn left and everyone else turns right? What happens if you make the wrong decision or the decision to early?

Ben: Can you give us an example?

Chris: A good example of taking a turn too early in the Cloud era is with the company Nirvanix. Cloud storage is extremely important, but what happens when a business model has not been properly vetted? This is one of the “gotchas” of being an early adopter. To be successful you need a good mix. You can’t be too conservative, but you can’t jump all in any time a new company pops up – the key is balance.

Ben: Do you have any advice for CTOs about this?

Chris: Sure – just because you can doesn’t mean you should!

Ben: I’ve heard you say that one before…

Chris: For example, software defined networking stacks, with products like Cisco Insieme and VMware NSX are very cool new technologies. I personally, and we at GreenPages, think this is going to be the next big thing. But we’re at a crossroads…who should use these? Who will gain the benefits? For example, maybe it makes sense for the enterprise but not for small businesses? This is something major that I have to determine – who is this a good fit for?

Ben: How about fear number 4?

Chris: Fear number 4 revolves around retaining my talent. I want my team to feel like they are always learning something new. I want them to know they are always on the bleeding edge of IT. I want to give them a world that changes very quickly. In my experience, most people that are stellar employees in a technical capacity want to be challenged constantly and to try new things and look at different ways of doing things.

Ben: What should CTOs do to try and retain talent?

Chris: Really take the time and focus on building a culture and environment that harnesses what I mentioned above. If not, you’re at serious risk of losing top talent.

Ben: Before I get too scared let’s get to number 5 and finish this up.

Chris: I’d say the fifth fear of mine is determining if I am working with the right technologies and the right vendors. IT can often be walking a tightrope between vendors from technical and business perspectives. From my perspective, I need to make sure we are providing our customers with the right technology from the right vendor to meet their needs. I need to determine if the technology works as advertised. Is it something that is reasonable to implement? Is there money in this for GreenPages?

Ben: What about from a customer’s perspective?

Chris: The customer also needs to make sure they align themselves with the right partners.  CTOs want to find partners that are looking towards the future, who will advise them correctly, and who will allow the business to stay out ahead of the competition. If a CTO looks at a partner or technology and doesn’t think it’s really advancing the business, then it’s time to reevaluate.

Ben: Thanks for the time Chris – and good luck!

What are your top fears as an IT decision makers? Leave them in the comment section!

Download this free ebook on the evolution of the corporate IT department. Where has the IT department been, where is it now, and where should it be headed?

 

 

Featured, Miscellaneous IT, Project management

How to Project Manage When it’s Not Your Job AND Everything is a Priority

By Melanie Haskell, Project Manager III

Over the years, we have heard customers repeatedly ask for tips on how they can manage their initiatives when project management is not their only job function and everything is a priority.  Before you can manage your time, you need to know what it is you must manage.

  • Create a list of what needs to be done. The first draft of your list should capture only high level items; don’t worry you will add more details later. At this point, you’re focused on what you need to get done, not how you are going to get there.
  • Prioritize the items on the high level list. In order to create realistic priorities, set aside the concept of “everything has to be done yesterday.” This is a first pass so prioritize the list based on what you know now. You can create any coding technique that works for you (for example, high, low and medium) – the only thing that matters that the coding works for you.
  • Now take the highest priority items and determine what needs to be done to complete the objective of that item (this is called a Task List). Eventually you will work through all items on your list.  This is an iterative process.  You might be able to create this task list on your own, or you might need to pull in other entities to flesh out the details. The more complex the item, the more help you may need. For example,  upgrading the firmware on your non-production SAN is a much easier item then moving your on premise email to a hosted cloud solution or embarking on hybrid cloud computing projects. When you start talking to people, you start discovering what needs to happen, and the picture becomes clearer.
  • Organize the task list conceptually – see if you need to pull in others just like in the step above. Since you did your due diligence during the discovery stage, now your objective is to chunk out the work.
  • Assign resources – ask for help if you do not have the ability to assign anyone.  You might end up owning all items, but if you can delegate tasks do so.  Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to do it all. You can be much more effective if you can delegate tasks as necessary.  Make sure individuals understand the overall goal and how it benefits the organization, as well as how their role affects the overall initiative. Gather feedback as much as possible as this will help identify risks, missed steps in the plan etc.
  • Determine if there is a tool you want to use to help you manage the task plan (i.e. the to-do list).  Some popular tools are Microsoft Project, Excel or Word. It does not matter what tool you utilize as long as it helps you with task management (i.e. what needs to get done, who is doing it and when will it happen).  Use technology to help you!
  • Set a communication plan – How will you know a task status?  This information can be gathered in many ways. Find what works for you and your resources.  Set schedules and follow up with people to make sure they are meeting their deadlines. Make time to monitor the task list to verify the team is in alignment with the committed tasks and timelines.

 

This all might sound like a lot of work, and you’re probably already over-tapped, but this will create efficiency and save a lot of time in the end.  It’s better to plan out how you will build your house before you pick up a hammer, nails and some wood and start building. Good luck and remember, if needed, our Project Management team is here in the wings to offer you professional advice any time!

 

Collaboration, Featured, Miscellaneous IT, Project management

Collaborating Through Crisis and Change for Successful Outcomes

By Brian Shaw, Program Manager, Managed Services Solutions

 

Crisis management and change management begins long before an incident occurs with the creation of a collaboration and decision making framework prior to project implementation.

A collaboration strategy needs to address the types of change to be communicated (perhaps based on thresholds for schedule and cost impact), who change needs to be communicated to, and what actions may result from that change. Actions resulting from change collaboration may be as simple as accepting the impact to the project schedule or as complex as allocating additional budgets and personnel. Follow the below steps prior to project implementation and your project team will be ready for change when it occurs. [Note: the method of applying these concepts should scale to the complexity and duration of the project.]

Preparation

Could it be coincidental that “preparation” and “Project Manager” both begin with a “p?” I think not. It is the responsibility of the Project Manager and the project team to create an environment for project success. A communication plan is a key component of project preparation. The plan should take into consideration the multiple audiences for project related information. All too often a single communication method is selected (such as emailing weekly status updates); however, this strategy doesn’t take into consideration that each audience has its’ own needs. A project engineer will require information regarding architecture and device level access that would be extraneous noise to an executive audience.

Additionally, most projects have a threshold for which change can be quickly accepted versus change or crisis that requires escalation. Define these thresholds as early as possible. If the duration of the work effort changes by less that x% or the cost changes by less than $x, can the project team quickly move forward without engaging an executive for approval? Prior to project initiation determine what types of change need to be escalated and who those changes need to be escalated to.

Control Sheet/Project Dashboard

Believe it or not, some audiences of project information don’t like reading MS Project plans and Ghantt charts…go figure. Both executive and client audiences often prefer a succinct format which quickly identifies task families that are on track, those at risk and those that have failed. This type of shorthand project metrics update is often referred to as a project dashboard or control sheet.

A project dashboard should quickly communicate project budget to actuals, project timeline and the status of milestones and/or important tasks. A popular method of sharing the status is the red, yellow, green light methodology. The critical benefit of this communication strategy is that audiences of this information can move quickly to problem areas and work towards resolution actions. If you are using a risk register then the yellow and red lights may kick out to the risk management work stream.

Collaboration Tools

Knowing what you are going to communicate and when you are going to communicate is only part of the collaboration strategy. It is critical that the project team determine how to collaborate and share types of information. Collaboration tools such as SharePoint, Drop Box and Huddle are commonplace, and I highly recommend your project team adopt a collaboration tool if you haven’t already done so.

The collaboration tool you use should allow the storage of multiple types of information along with selective access to information. The best tools allow access control at both the folder and file level. This level of information control allows sensitive information such as access credentials to be locked down to those that need access only.

The control sheet should be maintained within your collaboration tool so appropriate consumers can pull up a live project status at any time. Additionally, the collaboration tool should not replace individual action. If an important change or crisis occurs an update to the control sheet should not suffice as engaging decision makers. Those changes should be escalated in an active way to decision makers.

Execution:

Creating a communications plan around change is only the beginning. Once you’ve determined how you are going to communicate change, what changes will be communicated and how crises will be handled, it is then the responsibility of the Project Manager to ensure that consumers of this plan are informed and clearly understand the expectations. The plan is actionable and when change occurs the project team should be familiar enough with the plan to easily put it in motion.

 

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applications, BYOD, End-User Computing, Featured, Miscellaneous IT, Network Infrastructure, Unified Communications

Top Ten Considerations When Investing in BYOD

By Chris Reily, Director of Solutions Architecture

Every year has its own special IT acronym and 2013 has been no different. During client meetings, in the pages of IT trade publications and on the minds of vendor partners – the term BYOD pops up more frequently than Psy’s “Gangham Style” does on pop radio. For the record, Psy is the smartly dressed Korean pop music sensation sporting Risky Business-style Ray Bans as opposed to the (also trending) bearded Uncle Si of Duck Dynasty (reality-TV) fame. If this is all meaningless to you, you’ve been working too hard. Ask your family, they miss you.

Consumerization of IT is finding its way into the enterprise rapidly. Choice, personalization and mobility are no longer simply appreciated but are ultimately demanded. BYOD in theory sounds like a terrific plan and if executed properly can be an outstanding component of an end user computing (EUC) solution in many environments. Success however goes far beyond an employee stipend and flexibility in choice. BYOD is not for every organization and even in those organizations where it makes sense, it’s not for every employee. Here is a list of the top ten considerations when investigating a BYOD solution for your organization:

  1. What are the core applications you need to deliver to end users? Are these applications supported by recommended or allowed devices? What are the corporate use cases?
  2. Will your infrastructure support connectivity and desktop/application delivery to new devices on your network? Storage, compute and network – it all matters.
  3. Do you have the budget to support this initiative? Hint: it will be more than you expect. Hint #2: don’t expect to “save money” (at least in the first year). The ROI (return on investment) may come but expectations inside 36 months are unrealistic.
  4. Who needs what? Organizations are diverse and dynamic. Not every employee will need to be part of a BYOD initiative. Different categories of associates will have varying device needs. The road warrior sales guy, administrative assistant and mechanical engineer will all have different needs.
  5. A well-executed plan will drive employee job satisfaction. Figure out how your team will deal with happy IT-using employees; it may be a new experience for all involved.
  6. Are you ready to set policy and stick to it? There will be challenges that make you question what you were thinking in the first place. Get managerial support and be confident.
  7. Be flexible. Sure, this may seem somewhat contrary to comment #6. Of course you’ll encounter situations where the intelligent response is to modify and improve.
  8. Get “buy in” from the board room and the corner office(s). The support of senior management and investors is critical; don’t even go there without serious majority support.
  9. Seek advice and approval from legal, accounting and human resources. Ask the art department and maintenance team too if you think it can help.
  10. Talk to others. I know this is hard for many of us who have spent careers in IT, but give it a shot and see what happens. Speak to partners who have delivered BYOD solutions. Reach out to similar organizations who have implemented their strategy. Heck, speak with companies who tried it and failed. Arm yourself with information, do your research.

This is a lot to digest. A poorly executed implementation has the surety of employees abandoning the program. Small steps and a detailed approach work best – don’t be afraid of running test groups and proof of concept (POC) trials. The risk of not exploring your options may leave your IT environment seeming as outdated as last decade’s pop dance craze. Is your organization considering BYOD? Have you already implemented a policy? If so, how has your experience been?

 

Featured, Microsoft, Miscellaneous IT, Windows

Time is Running Out: Important Price Changes of Windows 2012 R2

By Rob O’Shaughnessy, Director of Software Licensing

 

There’s some good news, and there’s some bad news.  The good news is Windows 2012 R2 is being released…the bad news you have to pay for it.

Microsoft recently announced the release of Windows 2012 R2 which will be offering some new functionality described here Windows Server 2012 R2. However, along with the new release is some new pricing that will make you…well…read on.

Microsoft is releasing Windows 2012 R2 on November 1st and will be increasing the price of Windows Datacenter by 28%.  This is not a typo.  I’ll spell it out for you: Twenty-Eight Percent.  For you Twitter people that’s #twentyeightpercentholycow.

Now, only Datacenter is going up in price.  Windows Standard Server and Windows Cals will remain the same price.  Also, Windows 2012 Cals will be compliant with Windows 2012 R2 so if you own Windows 2012 User or Device Cals you don’t need to purchase new Cals.  So it’s just Datacenter right?  Yes…well almost.

Also going up in price is Windows Remote Desktop Services Cals (RDS) which will be increasing by 20% on November 1st.   Same deal here – if you own 2012 RDS Cals they will also be compliant with Windows 2012 R2. This means new Cals are NOT required for Windows 2012 R2 if you own Windows 2012 RDS Cals.

FAQ’s:

Q: Why is Microsoft doing this?

A: Because, they can.

OK, so here’s what you have to think about:

  • If you want to have access to Windows 2012 R2 and typically purchase it with SA, be sure to purchase the license before November 1st to avoid the price hike.
  • If you are looking at getting Windows 2012 and are not in position to purchase or don’t need SA, you can purchase the license before November 1st to avoid the price increase but you won’t have access to R2.
  • If you want R2 and don’t need to purchase SA, be sure to wait until November 1st to purchase it. Otherwise, if you purchase the license without SA prior to November 1st, you will not have access to R2.
  • Lastly if you need RDS Cals purchase them before November 1st

It’s coming up fast as the last day to purchase Windows 2012 Datacenter and RDS is Halloween night…scary huh?

These are important decisions for your company to make, so if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly roshaughnessy@greenpages.com

 

 

 

Cloud computing, email migration, Featured, Miscellaneous IT, Office 365

Moving Email to the Cloud, Part 1

By Chris Chesley, Solutions Architect

Many of our clients are choosing to not manage Exchange day to day and not to upgrade it every 3-5 years.  They do this by choosing to have Microsoft host their mail in Office 365.  Is this right for your business?  How do you tie this into your existing infrastructure and still have access to email regardless of the status of your onsite services?

The different plans for Microsoft Office 365 can be confusing. Regardless of what plan you get, the Exchange Online choices boil down to two options.  Exchange Plan 1 offers you 50GB mailboxes per user, ActiveSync, Outlook Web Access, Calendar and all of the other features you are currently getting with an on premises Exchange implementation.  Additionally you also get antivirus and antispam protection.  All of this for 4 dollars a month per user.

Exchange Plan 2 offers the exact same features as plan 1, with the additions of unlimited archiving, legal hod capabilities, compliance support tools and advanced voice support.  This plan is 8 dollars a user per month.

All of the other Office 365 plans that include Exchange are either plan 1 or plan 2.  For example, the E3 plan (Enterprise plan 3) includes Exchange plan 2, SharePoint Plan 2, Lync Plan 2 and Office Professional Plus for 5 devices per user.  You can take any plan and break it down to the component part and fully understand what you’re getting.

If you are looking to move email to the cloud and are currently using Exchange, who better to host your Exchange than Microsoft?  Office 365 is an even better choice if you are using, or plan on using, SharePoint or Lync.  All of these technologies are available in the current plans or individually through Office 365.

I’ve helped many clients make this transition so if you have any questions or if there’s any confusion around the Office 365 plans feel free to reach out.

My next blog will be on the 3 different authentication methods in Office 365.

Cloud computing, Featured, Journey to the Cloud, Miscellaneous IT

Journey to the Cloud: An Insider’s Perspective

By Ben Stephenson, Journey to the Cloud

Our Journey to the Cloud blog has been live for a little over two years now, and I’ve had the privilege of running and managing it from the start. I wanted to touch base about the site, share my unique perspective from managing it, and hear from our readers about what we can do to make it even better.

Our goal from the very beginning was to establish ourselves as thought leaders in the industry by providing high quality content that was relevant and beneficial to IT decision makers. We wanted to make sure we let our authors keep their opinions and voice, while at the same time taking an unbiased, agnostic approach. The last thing we wanted to do was start blathering on about what a great company GreenPages is or bragging about the most recent award we won (it was being named to the Talkin’ Cloud 100 if you were wondering…).  Over the course of the two years, we’ve posted over 200 blogs and seen the number of page views and shares across various social media sites increase drastically. We’ve brought in some big time guest bloggers such as ConnectEDU CTO Rick Blaisdell, CA’s Andi Mann, the Director, Advanced Analytics and Sr. Research Scientist at Gravitant, and more. We’ve incorporated a lot of video as well – in fact for whatever strange reason someone thought it was a good idea to let me host our Cloud Corner Series. We’ve covered topics ranging from cloud, virtualization, end user computing, BYOD, network infrastructure, storage, disaster recovery, shadow IT, project management, and much more.

Have there been challenges along the way? Absolutely. Have I had to go after people and chase them down, scratching and clawing until I get a blog to post? Yes. Have tears been shed? Has blood been shed? We’ll keep that to ourselves as it’s generally frowned upon by HR. And, yes, I have had to give William Wallace-like speeches to attempt to rally the troops. While there have been some challenges, all in all there’s been a great amount of enthusiasm and support from our writers to produce a high quality publication. For me, being in the industry for two years now with no previous technological background, the amount I’ve learned is ridiculous. Before starting at GreenPages, I would have rather listened to a Ben Stein Lecture or Bill Lumbergh explaining TPS Reports than read an article on software defined networking and the impact it will have on businesses in the next 5-10 years. I can see why our customers get excited to work with our consultants because they truly love and believe in the technology they talk about. I completely buy into their enthusiasm and passion and it makes me genuinely interested in the topics we cover. I’m in my mid-twenties and have, sadly, found myself out drinking at a bar with my friends having a great time before somehow winding up in a heated debate over the pros and cons of moving to a hybrid cloud architecture.

 

So, in case, for whatever deranged reason, you haven’t read all 200 of our posts, I’m going to list out my top ten from the past two years (in no particular order). Take a look and let me know what you think:

 

 

To close this out…I want to hear from you. What can we do to make Journey to the Cloud better? Are there any specific topics you’d like to hear more about? Any specific authors you’d like to hear more from? How about any features or functionality of the site you’d like added, changed or improved? What have you seen on other sites that you like that we don’t have? Leave a comment here or tweet us at @GreenPagesIT or @benstephenson1

Featured, IT Management, Miscellaneous IT, Project management, resource scheduling

Behind the Scenes of IT Resource Scheduling

By Ryann Edwards, PMP, Resource Specialist, LogicsOne

 

A few years ago, we made a change at GreenPages-LogicsOne to streamline how we handle the resource scheduling process.   It’s a good thing too, because so far in 2013 there have been close to 400 engagements that have used this new process.  While scheduling a large group of resources may sound easy, at times it feels like it takes a team of highly skilled scientific specialists and analysts to get it right.  Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there is actually a bit of a science to it.

I should begin with the disclaimer that the ­process hasn’t always been so efficient. In fact, most of my new hire trainings begin with the “back in the day” spiel because it brings to light the lessons we’ve learned.  This in turn leads to where we are today.  So where did we begin? We were slightly blind. Our services team of Account Executive, Solutions Architects, and Project Managers were working in silos when it came to choosing and selecting resources for our services engagements.  Everyone involved had the best of intentions: to find the right resource for the project, meet our customers’ deadlines or requests, schedule the project, and implement a highly successful engagement. The problem came when multiple Project Managers had “just the right project” for “just the right Consultant” who, yes, happened to be just the same person.  Needless to say, as our professional services organization has grown and matured over the years, the need became strong for a streamlined scheduling system.  That brings us to present day where we now have a Resource Specialist team to handle scheduling requests.

As I mentioned above, there is quite a bit of thought and strategy (“science” may have been pushing it) that plays out behind the scenes when it comes to the scheduling of service projects. It is imperative that at the forefront of it all is our customers’ best interests, including special requests and internal deadlines. While some might joke that we should just throw darts at a board of names to figure out who to schedule, I assure that you that we really don’t.  In fact, we look at each Statement of Work and scheduling request that comes in to our queue in great detail. From researching the background and history that Consultants may already have with a client, to looking at geographical location, travel, availability, customer dependencies and deadlines; there are a lot of considerations.

At the end of the day, our objective is always the same: to make sure we are looking at the big picture and are doing everything we can to keep our internal and external customers satisfied.  Our top priority is making sure the resource(s) assigned to a project are a good match for all parties involved, so the outcome is a successful professional service engagement for our customers.  Believe it or not, our customers can help in this process. Here are some things that help us ensure a successful engagement:

  1. Sign Off. The signed Statement of Work is crucial. It is the only way we can fairly and accurately prioritize requests for services.
  2. Information. The more details you can provide regarding the project or services, the better. Does a key resource on the project have an upcoming vacation?  Are there outside dependencies that will effect when your project can start?  Do you have an important internal deadline that you need to meet?  All of those things are pieces to the scheduling puzzle.
  3. Be open-minded. While you may have worked with one Consultant in the past and would like to use them again, we have a full staff of highly qualified resources that welcome the opportunity to work with you!

Streamlining the scheduling process has allowed members of the services organization to focus on other important aspects in the project lifecycle; project planning, managing, and executing. Having a team dedicated solely to resourcing has improved efficiency in scheduling, increased visibility into utilization of the solutions team, and is a key piece of the puzzle for successful project delivery.

 

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Featured, Miscellaneous IT, Project management, PSA Tool

Five Things to Consider Before Choosing your Professional Services Automation Tool

By Alyson Gallant, PMP, Project Administrator, LogicsOne

Choosing a Professional Services Automation (PSA) tool can be an arduous task. There are a number of options out there, and everyone’s business and workflows are unique. Also, the potential cost and time of evaluating a number of tools and running a proof of concept can be overwhelming.

Why do you need a PSA tool? A PSA tool is crucial to understanding where your resources are spending their time and the profitability of projects. A suitable PSA tool should allow your organization to continuously evaluate performance in order to improve and scale.

Like any Professional Services organization (or any organization looking to track time and budget on large internal projects), we’ve evaluated and used a number of different PSA tools. During the implementation of our current PSA tool, the Project Management Office (PMO) was lucky enough to have significant input into our PSA tool selection as well as the rollout to our Professional Services organization.

There is no one size fits all when it comes to a PSA tool, and there are many methods of evaluation, which we won’t get into here. However, here’s some food for thought based on our experiences for anyone preparing to search for a new PSA tool:

1) Can you consolidate your applications?
Do you have a lot of applications? Will your new PSA tool be an additional application for your users to use? Are your users experiencing application overload?? If so, have you investigated what your current CRM application already offers? A number of PSA applications are part of a larger suite, and the more modules you use, the better your data flows through.

2) Are you trying too hard to reinvent the wheel? Customization vs. integration.
One of the potential cons of going to a tool that you cannot customize is that you may have to change your workflow to fit the tool rather than having a tool that works with your existing workflow. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Using an application that hundreds or thousands of other customers are using can help provide a baseline for what your organization should be doing if your current workflow has a number of inefficiencies. Also, if you customize your tool, how does that affect future upgrades? Be open to revaluating your workflow. Look for a tool that is open to integrations with your other applications as an alternative to customization.

3) Is there an active community of users?
A great feature of a PSA tool is the energy and enthusiasm of the community of users. We did not have this with our first PSA tool, and it wasn’t until our second PSA tool that we recognized the value of this. Through an online community, users actively discuss new releases and provide feedback on forums open to all users. Users are encouraged to enter “New Feature Requests” and vote on them. We all know our time is highly prized during the workday, but sometimes it can be a good gut check when you’re running into an issue or workflow conundrum to take a look at what others are seeing or experiencing to see if you’re on the right track.

4) Are you able to roll out your tool in a staged approach?
If you have the luxury of rolling out a PSA in a staged fashion, this may be an easier way to encourage adoption of your users, as well as ensure you’re getting accurate data entered by your users. As we all know, change can be difficult, and when users are overwhelmed and unsure of a new process, it may not be the best setting for the most accurate information to be entered. If you have the ability to roll out a single module of your new PSA at a time, your users can focus on getting each process down correctly before moving onto the next new process. A staged approach may not always work for your rollout, but it is worth considering to ensure you have “good data”.

5) Are you willing to perform constant evaluation on the new tool and provide recurring training?
As rollouts can take time, there can be quite a gap between inputting your data into your new PSA tool and evaluating the data that you extract. What happens when you extract data that isn’t useful? What if the information is incorrect? You’ll need to constantly gauge how well your workflow is providing your management with information, and changing that workflow can require new training. Make sure to factor this in with the rollout of your PSA tool – the work is never done.
Are you in the market for a new tool to track your projects? What do you use currently, and what are your pain points?

 

If you do have any questions, this is something we can help with as part of our On Demand Project Management Offering, so feel free to reach out!