␡
- 1.1 Building a Site from Scratch
- 1.2 Growing a Small Site
- 1.3 Going Global
- 1.4 Replacing Services
- 1.5 Moving a Data Center
- 1.6 Moving to/Opening a New Building
- 1.7 Handling a High Rate of Office Moves
- 1.8 Assessing a Site (Due Diligence)
- 1.9 Dealing with Mergers and Acquisitions
- 1.10 Coping with Frequent Machine Crashes
- 1.11 Surviving a Major Outage or Work Stoppage
- 1.12 What Tools Should Every SA Team Member Have?
- 1.13 Ensuring the Return of Tools
- 1.14 Why Document Systems and Procedures?
- 1.15 Why Document Policies?
- 1.16 Identifying the Fundamental Problems in the Environment
- 1.17 Getting More Money for Projects
- 1.18 Getting Projects Done
- 1.19 Keeping Customers Happy
- 1.20 Keeping Management Happy
- 1.21 Keeping SAs Happy
- 1.22 Keeping Systems from Being Too Slow
- 1.23 Coping with a Big Influx of Computers
- 1.24 Coping with a Big Influx of New Users
- 1.25 Coping with a Big Influx of New SAs
- 1.26 Handling a High SA Team Attrition Rate
- 1.27 Handling a High User-Base Attrition Rate
- 1.28 Being New to a Group
- 1.29 Being the New Manager of a Group
- 1.30 Looking for a New Job
- 1.31 Hiring Many New SAs Quickly
- 1.32 Increasing Total System Reliability
- 1.33 Decreasing Costs
- 1.34 Adding Features
- 1.35 Stopping the Hurt When Doing This
- 1.36 Building Customer Confidence
- 1.37 Building the Teams Self-Confidence
- 1.38 Improving the Teams Follow-Through
- 1.39 Handling an Unethical or Worrisome Request
- 1.40 My Dishwasher Leaves Spots on My Glasses
- 1.41 Protecting Your Job
- 1.42 Getting More Training
- 1.43 Setting Your Priorities
- 1.44 Getting All the Work Done
- 1.45 Avoiding Stress
- 1.46 What Should SAs Expect from Their Managers?
- 1.47 What Should SA Managers Expect from Their SAs?
- 1.48 What Should SA Managers Provide to Their Boss?
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
1.18 Getting Projects Done
- Usually, projects don’t get done because the SAs are required to put out new fires while trying to do projects. Solve this problem first.
- Get a management sponsor. Is the project something that the business needs, or is it something the SAs want to implement on their own? If the former, use the sponsor to gather resources and deflect conflicting demands. If a project isn’t tied to true business needs, it is doubtful whether it should succeed.
- Make sure that the SAs have the resources to succeed. (Don’t guess; ask them!)
- Hold your staff accountable for meeting milestones and deadlines.
- Communicate priorities to the SAs; move resources to high-impact projects—Section 33.1.4.2.
- Make sure that the people involved have good time-management skills—Section 32.1.2.
- Designate project time when some staff will work on nothing but projects, and the remaining staff will shield them from interruptions—Section 31.1.3.
- Reduce the number of projects.
- Don’t spend time on the projects that don’t matter—Figure 33.1.
- Prioritize → Focus → Win.
- Use an external consultant with direct experience in that area to achieve the highest-impact projects—Sections 21.2.2, 27.1.5, and 30.1.8.
- Hire junior or clerical staff to take on mundane tasks, such as PC desktop support, daily backups, and so on, so that SAs have more time to achieve the highest-impact projects.
- Hire short-term contract programmers to write code to spec.