Midwest IT Survival

Produce a Business Case Deliverable

In the first part of this series on senior management communication for those more comfortable with grep-ing an exception log or tracing through lines of code to find that elusive bug the conclusion was:

No matter how technically proficient you are in your respective discipline, not investing in effective communication skills will limit your over-all effectiveness in your organization.

In the second part of this series, we used an example of engineer Bob recommending his company invest some cash and resources into an operating system upgrade. The initial logical conclusion that a sequence of facts surrounding how awesomely technically cool the new OS is would convince anyone to make the investment. Yet, spewing facts isn’t as compelling as it is to:

Relate the facts and figures to senior management’s goals/vision

To do this, structure a presentation into a story following this sequence:

1. Describe the Current State including gaps/challenges/issues/problems
2. Describe the “Optimum” Future State
3. Describe the Roadmap to get from Current to Future State
4. Outline the immediate next steps to get started on the Roadmap
5. Throw anything ancillary or supporting to the above 4 steps in Appendices

In the Bob’s case, consider “telling the story” of ultimately what aligns to senior management’s goals/vision in this example context: computing capability at reduced cost.

Using the above sequence as a template for Bob:

1. Current State

• Number of servers running prior OS, server count over time
• CPU utilization
• Maintenance costs (total cost of ownership if it can be computed, support contract costs)
• Indicators when “bad news” like special support contract costs, etc. show “doing nothing” is a negative
• Intersection with any other projects that need capabilities provided by your Future State

2. Future State

• All servers running new OS phased in over timeliness
• CPU utilization
• Maintenance costs

3. Roadmap

• Upgrades broken into simple chunks
• Chunks representing some useful grouping (rather than random)
• Testing or other functions supporting the upgrade
• Costs over the duration

4. Next Steps

• $$$ approved to buy hardware
• $$$ approved for 2 resources
• Initial steps within your organization to get a formal project going

5. Appendices

• Data showing why 2 resources are needed, what happens if you get 1 or zero or 12
• Any other data, facts, figures around “hot button” issues that might come up like a trend to out-source or in-source work, strategic vendor partnerships, etc.

Your goal in telling this story is to have a compelling deliverable in the form of your presentation that conveys to anyone that it would be just plain silly not to execute your roadmap. That “anyone” needs to be both technical and non-technical people. I am certain your technical peers are going to be 110% behind anything that involves implementing new, cool technology. What techie holds the position of “nah, I still want to be a Windows 98 shop.” At the same time, the more holes that can be poked in your analysis the more likely your great idea is going to get trampled by the masses and not acted upon.

Sure, others might suggest not putting this much effort into a request that “should just stand on it’s own to support action”. A recent (how timely!) tweet from @rands suggests as such:

And although it might seem highly desirable to be able to convey your technical request in words and have immediate understanding and support, those veterans of large corporate IT shops know there is a big complex organization with overlapping, competing and sometimes contradicting priorities that can easily mount a campaign against your plan. Thus, those quick to dismiss the value of a slide deck deliverable in corporate IT might be missing a critical element of this series: producing a deliverable.

Sure, once you have a deliverable out there others can still mount a defensive. But, you also empower your management with a strong case to move in your direction that can be forwarded along and forwarded up. The more compelling your story, the more it stands on its own as a viable business case to make a strategic company investment the more the financial/business minded in IT will be able to comprehend and support your plan.

So, before you write-off the value of putting the effort into crafting a story deliverable that compels the non-technical decision makers to act on your plan, consider the alternative: a verbal request to spend money on some cool technology? If you are planning to invest a significant portion of your own money, do you want to buy some cool technology or act on a strategic technology investment with data backed returns?

Speaking in the Zone

Recently, @rands posted a very timely, for me, article on what goes through the conference speaker’s mind as he or she is about to get in front of a large audience and give a presentation. Everyone that presents at a technology conference, no matter how frequent a speaker, probably goes through the same thought processes that I found myself going through. I recently presented at a technology security conference. For fun, I’ve sequenced that thought process below:

Topic Submission/Call for Papers

Did I have a compelling enough topic that I will get selected?

Do I seem credible enough as a presenter in the first place?

The submission forms are usually well structured, but since the selection process is usually blind to the submitter, you really have no idea what the selection committee is prioritizing for topics and speakers. You may think you have the most brilliant topic but unless you have an inside source, you are completely at the mercy of the selection committee.

Speaker Acceptance

Awesome, I’m going to get present!

Holy cow, I have to put together a presentation!

It is quite exciting to find that a topic you proposed actually has enough merit for some folks, who are pouring through submission form after submission form, to actually select it. It is also a nice boost to your ego that you and your topic are compelling enough for a conference presentation time slot. This excitement is quickly followed by the immediate realization that you have only just started this very public commitment. You need to pull together a compelling presentation to justify the honor of being selected to speak. I would be fibbing if I skipped mentioning the slight panic that follows the boosted ego moment that you are going to have to actually give this presentation.

Presentation Submission

Geez, did I get everything I needed into the presentation?

Did I spell check everything?

Did I even come close to what I originally proposed that got me selected?

No matter if you start your presentation before you got the official selection notification or if you procrastinate till the night before your sides need to be submitted, there is still a moment of panic immediately following your presentation submission. Just after you hit “send”, you wonder if you really got everything just right. Sure, in a moment of panic you can beg and plead with the receiver of all speaker materials to replace your original submission with a last minute revision, but do you really want to annoy the masters of the conference agenda? They could put you right after lunch on the last day. That slot is probably one of the most challenging given you have the entire conference to sweat about your pending public speaking including the very real concern that very few conference stragglers will actually come back to your session after that last lunch with planes to catch and general conference fatigue in full affect.

Tip: I have found that starting immediately on your presentation and then leaving a few days prior to submission to make final corrections to be the most effective for me. In between I make it a point to ensure I have a few days to completely ignore the presentation all together. I am amazed at when I pick back up after that break how many “What was I thinking; this doesn’t make any sense?” review moments I encounter.

Conference Start

I have plenty of days/hours. I’ll survey the room, take in a few sessions and size up my peers.

I still have a few hours, I’ll find a quiet stop and skim my notes.

Holy cow, I’m speaking in 10 minutes. Where did the time go?

It seems time both slows down and speeds up. Sitting in sessions makes you wonder if you have prepared enough. Reviewing your notes with tons of time remaining becomes a struggle to focus. Lastly, you find all the time you thought you had just zoomed by and your session is about to start.

Waiting to be Introduced

I am totally going to bomb.

Someone is going to throw me off track with a unexpected zinger question.

Why did I submit this topic in the first place. I could be sitting in one of those attendee chairs just zoning out right now.

Speaking in the Zone

In hindsight, I always wonder why I was stressed out at all. It seems for me, once I get started speaking, the process of giving the actual presentation just flows out smoothly. In volunteering to present on topics of which I’ve researched and have actual experience with, I am reminded that I really do have some solid knowledge in what I am presenting. “Zinger” questions are an opportunity to have a healthy exchange with the audience in a way that breaks up the sometimes methodological bullet point by bullet point nature of the slides.

All that stress evaporates as the session comes to an end replaced with a deep sense of a job well done. Feedback, of course, is the ultimate verifier of a good presentation. Most recently, someone came up to me at the conclusion of my session with:

“Great presentation. It was the only session worthwhile out of all I attended today.”

That one comment made all the hours of work and stress prior completely worth it … and I was  the last speaker that day.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had the opportunity to present at the 9^th annual Information Security Summit 2011. The full title of my presentation was “Identity and Access Management Reference Architecture for Cloud Computing” and just about filled the room with attendees. I was impressed with the turnout given I was in the last speaking slot on the first day up against three other speakers with very interesting topics.

For those interested, I’ve placed my slides on SlideShare:

All in all, it was a great conference attracting mostly local security and audit professionals. Given my tenure in the area, I ran into all kinds of familiar faces going back at least 10+ years. It was great to catch-up with all those of which I’ve crossed paths.