Leadership Cheat Sheet: Calling Dr. Nerd? Community Question: Is Your Org Failure-Friendly?

nonprofit technoloGy leadership cheat sheet: CALLING DR. NERD?

Keys to having a meaningful “office visit” with your IT staff or consultant.

Talking to a technical solutions specialist is like going to see the doctor. Most people have a preconceived notion of what the treatment should be. However, the best solutions usually come from meaningful dialog about the problem and a discussion of the treatment options. Here’s how you can help me help you.

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Grant howe, @geekbyte

Tell me where it hurts.

“Doctor, I need some antibiotic” is probably the most common conversation kick-off that patients have with their doctor. Just like antibiotics often aren’t the best course of treatment, the best technical solution to your issues may not be what you think.

Focus your initial discussion on the symptoms of your problem. Is it performance of technical assets? How slow? When did you start noticing this? Tell me about the business processes and workflow and how this fits in. Do your best to help me understand your current state so that I can compare that with the desired results you will be telling me about next.

Tell me what your desired results are post treatment. “I want to play tennis three times a week without knee pain” is a good example of a desired end state. Seek to articulate what you will be able to do and how you will do it after a solution is put in place.

Looking for a collaboration tool? How will it work with your users? How do they expect to access it? Do you have remote and on-site users? Do some users need more access rights than others? I think you get the gist, but the more you can tell me about what you want to be able to do, the better I can narrow down to a set of solutions we can talk about. Like any good physician, we’re likely to have to do some tests to get some quantitative data on the issues you are seeing.

Discuss and choose a treatment.

“Your MRI shows you have a slipped disc in your lower back, here are our options… ” Obvi-

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ously not great news, but most problems have a variety of solutions. Let’s talk about the top three I have thought of first and we’ll come up with more or tweak them if we need to while we discuss it.

Ask questions about each solution: • What will this cost (in time, resources, and money)? • How does this solution compare to my original desired end state? • What other “side effects” can I expect from the solution, good or bad? • What is the risk of something going wrong or causing damage? Is there a mitigation strategy? • What are the skills required to implement, and have you done this before? How many times?

Write down the pros and cons of each solution and compare them. Then make a choice based on your analysis. Please walk me through your thought process of making the choice. I want you to be successful, and if you’ve forgotten to consider something, I’ll discuss it with you.

You are also entitled to seek a second opinion and talk to others about the solutions. I encourage you to do so. Take your medicine. “Take these, 3 times a day… ” Many people go through all the effort to make an appointment and visit their doctor, but don’t follow the prescribed treatment. These people usually don’t get results and neither will you if we don’t follow the plan we’ve laid out together. Solutions are holistic; often we see poor results from not following the full plan.