Operational Stability: Helping Good Operational Teams Become Great

In the article, "Building Teams for Success," we discussed how building an IT team may not be easy, it can be fun. Whether developed from the ground or inherited, we know we have good operational teams in many of our IT organizations. Teams that are culturally diverse, motivated to be successful and possess the right character traits to support our customers. Some of us are even privileged enough to have a few stars that, if given the opportunity, can shine brightly for the organization.



So the challenge is not necessarily our people, but the environment around them: the constant fire fighting, the need to react on unforeseen customer and regulatory demands, and the lack of automated or presence of broken processes that we just don’t have time to fix. These factors, coupled with the silos that exist between The Business and IT Organization, and even within our own IT organizations, make it nearly impossible for us (or our customers) to consider ourselves "great".



So how do we address this challenge? Let's discuss how, by empowering people with decision making influence and with the proper training, processes and tools, we can turn a good team into a great team.



THE CHALLENGE



Before we discuss some suggestions and techniques to assist you in turning goodness to greatness we must first be willing to face the most difficult part of this. How do we tell those who are already doing a good job that we need to change what they are doing? Most of the time our efforts in communicating the necessity for IT to transform comes across negatively and your people end up feeling that they're not already working hard enough or that what they're doing is just not good enough. An effort like this may also be perceived as just another IT project or may even promote fear of being replaced.



Let's face it: IT is excellent with communications but, for the most part, not so good at communicating. Understanding this, it is extremely important for the IT leadership to lead by example and change the way they communicate with their teams. Silo communications can no longer exist. A common theme and messaging must be delivered throughout this effort so that all of IT can share in this together.



Do something different!



GOODNESS TO GREATNESS



Greatness starts with you. Let your team see the necessity for change both publicly and privately. We must take personal ownership in seeing that our teams are given the opportunity to be great, proactive, strategic, and that they have a voice in the way we do business. Go out of your way to show them you care about their future by creating a platform for open communication. Don't allow the calendar application to be the only way to get your time.



Get out of the way. Remove the barriers between management and the professionals we have hired. Too many times we squash creativity by doubting our team's ability to be out-of-the-box thinkers, when the real issue is that we don't have the ability to mentor our people properly, or we're afraid to empower them with the ability to make decisions on their own.



EMPOWERMENT



"Empowerment is not giving people power; people already have plenty of power, in the wealth of their knowledge and motivation, to do their jobs magnificently. We define empowerment as letting this power out (Blanchard, K)." In other words we have to allow our people to do what they already know how to do.



Certainly, as leaders, we have to provide some guidance or direction on occasion, but when we instill confidence into our personnel by creating an environment that gives them a voice and entitles them to be in charge of their job, be prepared because they will shock you with greatness.



In "Building Teams for Success" I shared the process we followed for building a good operations team. Once that team was established, the business needs did not stop (they increased) and new technologies consistently challenged us to stay ahead of the curve. As an IT leader, my management looked to me as a voice of direction and to help build solutions to answer new demands from our customers. So how could I do this while managing special projects and an operations team? I had to be willing to impart my authority to my personnel. Special projects and service requests became a rotational responsibility for all of my employees. They were taught a technical project management 101 course, provisioned with the tools and templates they needed and empowered to be in charge on a weekly revolving basis.



The process was pretty fundamental. They were in charge of and accountable for managing the service requests; forming the teams they needed to complete the service requests (including persons from other groups as required) and generating the reports, processes and procedures needed to fulfill the request and support ongoing operations. Each team member had their own style, bringing their own techniques and character to this process and we let that happen on purpose. Why? We wanted to maintain that environment of cultural diversity we had established when initially forming the team. Their accountability was measured on two primary metrics: 1) whether they completed the request to the customer's satisfaction and 2) whether they carried out the deliverables and artifacts identified as part of the service request process.



While the first metric is obviously important to any service organization, the second metric was the one we placed most of our attention around. We wanted to ensure efficiency within our process and not reinvent procedures or solutions with each similar service request. The assigned team lead was liable for updating all documentation related to the service request and for ensuring it was stored within our central repository.



Here's the shock value that occurred, not only did they rise to the occasion of the established process but they started recognizing each individual's uniqueness and assigning their co-workers as leads based on the character traits and innate abilities they witnessed in each other. I was literally showing up to my team's weekly meeting to watch my good team become great. Occasionally they even assigned me, their manager, as a resource or subject matter expert to their team as well. Imagine that!



IN CONCLUSION



The key for helping a good operational team become great is empowerment. It's a trust that must take place between management and their staff allowing them to perform the work they already know how to do. It's the willingness for us as IT leaders to impart our knowledge and assign accountability to our staff in new and ingenious ways. This doesn't always need to happen under the guise of a new process framework initiative or via the purchasing of a new toolset. Empower your people, make them accountable, then stand back and watch greatness happen.



Thank you for interest in this article, we hope that you have found it to be of value. Please visit the CastlePointe "Ideas and Insights" library to browse our other IT Transformation resources, white papers and on-demand webinars at http://www.castlepointe.com/The-IT-Transformation-Journey.html.





About the Author

Jim Cross has over 20 years of industry experience covering a wide range of technical and business disciplines with cross-functional experience from high level consulting to hands-on technical management. As a Principal Consultant, he has successfully led organization-wide initiatives in identifying opportunities and developing innovative strategies to improve reliability, productivity and service. He has worked extensively as a consultant in the practice areas of ITSM/ITIL, IT Quality and process improvement since 2003. Prior to that, Mr. Cross spent over 14 years in senior technical and IT management roles in the healthcare industry for firms including MemorialCare and MedPartners.



About CastlePointe

Headquartered in Newport Beach, CA, CastlePointe is a premier provider of strategic IT consulting services to Fortune 2000 firms. Uniquely focused on leading its clients through successful IT transformation initiatives, CastlePointe operates nationally from offices in California, New Jersey and Tennessee. Using our proprietary DeepRoots™ methodology, we help large IT organizations reduce costs, improve service levels, drive efficiency and build operational scalability. To learn more about CastlePointe, please visit us at www.castlepointe.com.