CHAPTER 2: I'D THOUGHT THINGS WERE GOING RATHER WELL
I slapped the side of the terminal as the screen went dark, and all the data I'd loaded into the SMT for the last 30minutes dissipated into the ether. "Your mother was a toaster and your father was a cockroach who loved her because she'd never been cleaned," I snapped.
I'd yelled loud enough for anyone on our floor to hear; if there had been anyone else near my cube at 1.30 am. While everyone else was gone, either sleeping or partying, I was stuck here trying to get this stupid SMT tool to work well enough for me to get the data I needed for my presentation tomorrow morning. The fact that I was crunching at the last minute was not my fault. I had relied on our CIO's opinion of how easy it was to use.
Apparently, while the vendor's consultants had gotten the software running, they hadn't yet been able to get it properly tuned. They euphemistically referred to it as, "Post implementation testing using real-time incremental input and removal validation." As long as the check cleared, they were happy. Months ago they promised it would be fixed real soon. I just kept telling myself this was what our leadership called progress.
After all my struggles, Jessica's comment that this was going to be so easy a child could do it, was clear proof that she had no idea the work involved beyond what was in the glossy sales brochure.
I had been wrong to pay attention to anything my leaders said that required operational understanding and experience, simply because it had been 20years since any of them had to deliver any tactical work. Their world was now nothing more than making decisions based on proposals fed to them by their minions, and occasionally giving out assignments.
To any objective observer, the fact that her advice to me was totally wrong, should be all the proof needed that any delays or errors were not my fault, and should not count against my PIP. Unfortunately, even though I'd been working here a few months, I couldn't remember anyone who was a truly objective observer.
While the system rebooted, I scrawled a large, "Save Your Work" sign on the back of a yellow sticky note, and attached it just above my screen. As soon as SMT finished loading, I began keying in the data as fast as I could. The system was slow and cranky. As near as I could tell, the vendor had bought a bunch of old mainframe tools from a series of failing companies, and then bundled them together under a common interface for a client-server environment. It was somewhat like building an automobile by taking the parts of a dozen 20year old wrecks, and shoving them into a modern chassis. The only thing it seemed to do reliably, was lose input data, and nothing in their help information was even remotely useful, beyond the admonition to frequently save my work.
It was bad enough this hodge-podge of a system was so slow it took three hours to load what should have taken 30minutes, but the fact that my presentation was barely eight hours away moved this from frustrating to emergency. Fortunately, if the documentation I had read on the system was correct, it would automatically produce an enormous list ofservice desk metrics that were perfect for every occasion, and that was great news. Perhaps Jessica had been right about that portion of it. Once I got the data loaded, everything should be easy enough for a child to do.
My first quick look through the documentation had shown some good KPIs that any senior leader would want to know about the service desk. There were things like, length of call, time to resolve, dropped calls, wait times, and more. Once I had the data loaded, my only concern would be whether to use them all, or cherry-pick the most impressive ones. This is where my psychology came in.
I was going to delegate upward, and let Jessica's staff decide what KPIs I should have the service desk produce. I figured there was no way I could pick the right set to satisfy everyone, no matter how good my judgment was. So the answer was obvious. I'd give them all the KPIs the system could produce for the service desk, and let them read through to decide what they wanted. As a bonus, it meant I didn't need to do much more after I got the data loaded, other than logically organize them.
Hopefully my new manager's peers would tell him about what a great piece of work I'd produced. Leaders like to demonstrate their value by making little changes, just to show how their higher perspective is invaluable. I snickered when the image of my pet dog marking his territory came into my head. While I was in such a promising frame of mind, I also promised to keep my desk clean.to get more sleep.to help other people. The list went on and on, just like the data.
I worked till dawn and then some. By meeting time I was tired to the point of being seriously cranky. Fortunately, that only lasted until I got to the conference room. It was nearly a full house; and like an old racehorse returning to the track, being there gave me the strength to jump into it. Every chair at the table in the conference room was occupied. Even some of the broken chairs atthe back had people perched nervously on them. I guess when the CIO invites you to a meeting, you show up, no matter how important you think you are.
I was a little irritated because there were people at the meeting who definitely had not been on the invite list. I always thought it strange how an invitation to a meeting was construed to give you a license to bring along anyone else you wanted, without getting an approval from the organizer. I knew most of the uninvited guests. Some were the worker bees for the actual invitees, so I guess that made sense. That way the invitees wouldn't have to bother explaining what needed to be done, or why. It also meant they could work on other things, and not really pay attention, since their underlings were there to take notes and ask questions. There were some suits in the back that I had never seen before. I figured they were just visitors from corporate. No one in IT wore a suit. Or maybe they were people like Lee, in from the field, because they had a much more formal dress code thanwe did.
10 minutes into the presentation, I was getting head nods, note taking, and all the positive signs that it was going really well. Even some of the leaders stopped texting and were actually paying attention. At least it seemed that way, right up to the point where one of the suits in the back stopped me mid-sentence and said, "I am concerned that some individuals might interpret this information as a suggestion we use all of the measures you've listed over the last two slides. I'm not sure how many there are, but it looks like there are quite a few. I would greatly appreciate it if you would clarify for the group which of them you would like to recommend the service desk should adopt or modify."
The conference room went silent. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at me. This had to be someone ignorant of how KPIs work, and unfamiliar with the norms for meetings here. I had never interrupted someone during their presentation to ask what they meant, and I didn't think it right they should treat me differently.
I shot a furtive glance at Jessica. I couldn't judge her expression or body language, but I wasn't picking up a happy vibe in the room.
I turned toward the suit, and in an effort to buy some time to consider the most appropriate answer, said, "Excuse me? You have some concerns about the material we've been discussing"? Repeating unanticipated questions back to people in the guise of clarification, was always a great way to buy a few more seconds to think through an answer.
The suit stood up in a precise, formal and almost mechanical way. He was a tall man with black hair and a swarthy complexion. In a resonant voice, with a noticeable east European accent, he said, "I merely note that you are proposing the use of a large number of measures to manage and evaluate the service desk. Unless the service desk manager has a background or experience with metric design or management by metric, they may find all of that information overwhelming and counterproductive. How did they react when you proposed so many measures to them"?
He paused for a moment, letting his words sink in. His facial expression was neutral, almost as if he were simply a puppet who didn't care and someone had given him the question to ask, even though he didn't understand it.
"Someone of your background and experience.," he continued, ".has no trouble interpreting all of this data. I am trying to assist you by reassuring the people in the room that they should not be concerned about that because you must have some focusing slides later in your presentation that spell out exactly what you are recommending for the service desk manager and this group at large."
Two minutes ago, I had everyone in my pocket. I was proud that it was aligned with our use doctrines for SMT, as well as the overall IT policies. Now the whole pace was stumbling, and I was in danger of losing control. Whether this ignorant suit was right or wrong, I couldn't let my performance whither. I remembered one of the lessons I had learned from my last manager - whether you are right or wrong, always act confident and in charge.
I reached out and tapped on the projection screen beside me.
On the screen was displayed a grid that contained part of the list of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that came with the SMT tool, this included their purpose and frequency of measure. Actually, I had cut and pasted the grid directly out of the SMT manual, but since I was offering all of them to...
