Sponsored White Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads
TechRepublic Resources
- 9 things IT managers should think about in 2007
- This article is also available as a PDF download.2006 has sped by, leaving us with little time to ponder theapproach of 2007. Massive upheavals in the OS, software, and processor spaceshave left us with new, and radically more expensive, distributed architecturesto consider. Meanwhile, our operational and support environments continue todecay...
- Tags: Shannon T. Kalvar, virtualization
- Technical articles 2006-12-20
- 10 IT manager resolutions for 2006: A look back
- Thisarticle is also available as a PDF download.A year ago,I wrote a list of 10 NewYear's resolutions for IT managers. The resolutions covered principles oftime management, psychological tricks for keeping ahead of problems, andrecommendations for avoiding the pitfalls associated with modern IT. Mycolleagues and I tried to put these concepts...
- Tags: Shannon T. Kalvar
- Technical articles 2006-12-14
- 10 things you can do to organize and lead effective meetings
- This article is also available as a PDF download.In "10 things you can do toturn useless meetings into productive ones," we suggested ways you can addvalue to the meetings you attend, even when the organizer isn't entirely on topof the proceedings. These suggestions, though, can go only so far in...
- Tags: effective meeting, Shannon T. Kalvar
- Technical articles 2006-05-17
- Achieving executive balance: Nine ways leaders and managers work together
- This article is also available as a PDF download.Anyone who followsbusiness literature can easily track the rise and fall of leadership and managementas opposed disciplines. Sometimes the demand is for more vision andinspiration; other times, it's for more measurement and control. Fundamentally,though, the two disciplines cannot work apart. Leadership withoutmanagement...
- Tags: leader, Leaders, Shannon T. Kalvar, team
- Technical articles 2006-05-16
- 10 things you can do to turn useless meetings into productive ones
- This article is also available as a download.A quick survey of Amazon.comreveals hundreds of books purporting to help manage meetings. The vast majoritydo, in fact, contain good ideas if you initiated the meeting, have the abilityto set its agenda, and possess the social skills to keep all of the attendeesfocused....
- Tags: Instant messaging, action item
- Technical articles 2006-04-19
- Avoiding the trap: Proper estimation of storage needs
- Over the years many of my clients have come to me with anannoying problem: the need to constantly buy ever-increasing amounts of storage.Every time they built a system based on previous growth numbers it turned outdisastrously wrong. Storage systems have a nasty tendency to grow in punctuatedequilibriums—following a normalized growth...
- Tags: storage
- Technical articles 2004-10-21
- Buying what you need: Thinking about the right storage vendor
- After a few years out of the storage end of the business,one of my clients recently asked me for recommendations about which storagevendors to consider in an RFP process. After digging around for a few weeks, Icame to a not entirely obscure realization: Despite their best efforts, storagevendors still fall...
- Tags: storage
- Technical articles 2004-10-15
- Changing things too late: Why change management feels like an uphill battle
- Recently, as sometimes happens, a common theme emerged inthe "over beer" discussions I have with current and former clients. Asbudgets slowly begin to reawaken from their years of stasis, managers and CIOsalike find that they have a huge number of projects that need attention. Moreimportantly, attention-starved business users have already...
- Tags: change management, change manager, Shannon T. Kalvar
- Technical articles 2004-09-13
- Proving to business leaders that new technology is not just a gimmick
- As IT managers and CIOs, our businesses charge us toidentify new technical trends and IT tools we can use to achieve a competitiveadvantage. At the same time, many of our organizations resist the introduction ofthese new tools with ferocity. Sometimes this resistance springs frombudgetary, interpersonal, or political concerns. Other times,...
- Tags: information technology, leader, managerÂ, Shannon T. Kalvar
- Technical articles 2004-09-08
- Who holds responsibility for morale: Common goals and unification
- As I mentioned in a previous article, a client managed to pushme into a corner so I would talk about morale, time investment, and the theorythat links the two. After giving him an earful about how enthusiasm anddedication impact morale, I had built up a pretty good head of steam....
- Tags: morale, Shannon T. Kalvar, team
- Technical articles 2004-08-12
- Who holds the responsibility for morale?
- In my "What is moraleanyway" article, I recounted my theory on morale. In it, I outlinedthe idea that adult morale extends beyond simple enthusiastic work and intocomplicated psychological issues, such as dedication and a feeling of unificationbecause of rather than despite problems.One of my clients forced me into a conversation...
- Tags: morale
- Technical articles 2004-08-05
- What is morale anyway?
- In todayÂ’s overworked, high-stress IT environment, managersmust deal with constant "morale" problems. The "do more withless" expectations established by the productivity gains we provide thecompany exacerbates this situation as we fight for more staff and resources to coverbasic operational tasks. However, as I learned much to my chagrin early in...
- Tags: morale, Shannon T. Kalvar, team
- Technical articles 2004-07-27
- Security talking point: Disconnecting threat from risk
- Over the last few years I have seen and participated in anelaborate balancing act between the twinned concepts of threat the emotionand risk the analysis technique as they apply to the relationships between ITand the internal user community. When the emotional responses to threat beginto outweigh, on one or both...
- Tags: security team, security, Shannon T. Kalvar
- Technical articles 2004-07-12
- How tales about server unreliability help save face and influence people
- Once, in a far away land filled with gray cubicles, Ireceived a phone call from one of my customers. Now, customers were notsupposed to call me directly, but this fellow knew I would be at my desk. Healso knew I would not complain overly much; something about him holdingsignature authority...
- Tags: voicemail, Shannon T. Kalvar, server, telephone
- Technical articles 2004-07-01
- Face the music when you create communications problems
- When we honestly reflect, none of us can claim perfectionwhen it comes to dealing with our customers, whether they come from inside ourorganization or from another one. Despite the lovely myth of "putting itall down at the door," we are all human beings with habits, pressures,concerns, and even the occasional...
- Tags: team, Shannon T. Kalvar
- Technical articles 2004-06-17
- Overcome dependency conflicts to improve project workflow
- Back in the good old days, when I had the luxury of managingjust one type of employee, I believed that applying a sufficient amount ofeffort could solve nearly any problem. When my teams expanded to includedevelopers, quality assurance experts, security groups, infrastructureengineers, human resources staff and the occasional janitor, I...
- Tags: team, QA, Shannon T. Kalvar
- Technical articles 2004-06-03
- Improve end user satisfaction by measuring e-mail use, impact
- E-mail (and its cousin, instant messaging) so radicallyreshaped the business world, we do not even think about it anymore. Well, theusers do not think about it much anymore. E-mail remains one of the mostimportant services an IT staff offers, so ensuring its constant availabilityand security remains a very high priority...
- Tags: e-mail, uptime
- Technical articles 2004-05-27
- Focusing measurements and metrics on security
- Not so long ago, one of my clients called me in for aprocess and measurement readjustment project. We started with the three coreservices—infrastructure, development, and customer service. The measurements weselected covered a range of procedural, operational, and creative factors. Themetrics for each measurement emphasized behaviors we hoped would be more...
- Tags: security
- Technical articles 2004-05-17
- How to make desktop replacement a process rather than a project
- IT literature talks about something called a "desktoplifecycle" and then goes on to define this lifecycle in a variety of ways.However, very few people talk about the most common, and most subtle, trap wecan fall into along the way toward implementing this model: relying on aproject rather than a process....
- Tags: desktop, Shannon T. Kalvar, desktop replacement, desktop hardware, hardware
- Technical articles 2004-05-13
- Measuring the next core service--customer service
- In a previous article about measuring basic administration, I explained how a former client once called me to help him realign his measurements and metrics. The processes we established together a few years earlier met his needs when implemented, but they became dangerously malformed over time. We started the effort...
- Tags: Customer relationship management (CRM), customer service
- Technical articles 2004-05-06
