Outsourcing the software development process is often the right decision for a business depending on what kind of in house technical resources you have.  If you have a software development project coming up, you may not wish to add an entire IT department to your staff with all of that overhead for a project that may only take a few months to complete.  It may make sense to turn over the development of the software to an independent software development company because they already have the technical expertise on hand that they can focus on delivering a quality product to you.

To have your software product developed or enhanced by a software development company, it is essential that finding a firm that is a perfect fit to your needs is given high priority.  In fact, as you lay out the systems development life cycle, the identification of the right software development company along with the subsequent process of building a business relationship with them should be given the same priority as any other of the phases of systems development from requirements definition through installation and documentation.

Know What You Need

Just as you would have a qualified project leader with any phase of software development, there should be an internal project manager who is charged with the selection process.  This project manager should have the authority to build the list of potential software development companies but not with the final decision. 

He or she should have the technical qualifications to fully understand the software specifications and to be able to interview software development experts and speak to them on their own terms.  But that project leader should also be someone who understands the business dynamics of negotiating a software development contract as well as the business requirements of the final product.

Before a search for a software development company is launched, the project should be fully defined, the needs assessment and requirements definition complete and the budget for the project is set.  By knowing exactly what you need, you are not going to allow a skilled software development company to expand your scope.  And by doing your project definition in significant detail, you will have an understanding of the technical abilities that any software development company you use must have mastery over including DBMS expertise, operating systems and languages, networking protocols and other technical issues that must be part of their proposal to develop the project for you.

Narrow the Field

Once you have your requirements for the project well defined, you can write an RFP.  A Request for Proposal will be sent out to qualified software development companies who you have identified as potential consultants to perform the work you need done efficiently, correctly and economically.  When you develop your initial list of software development companies who may be able to do the job, that initial list could be quite long.  But a number of factors may narrow the field.

If you have a specific hardware and operating system requirement that calls upon the software development company to demonstrate proven expertise in writing software for that platform, that will narrow down the number of potential firms who can bid on the job significantly.  For example, if the software product will run on your IBM mainframe and not on a distributed system or on client desktops, you need specific knowledge bout how to write for that environment.  In that case, you would also limit the number of software development companies that receive the RFP so that you do not have such a chore going through the proposals when they begin to come back to you.

It is also necessary that the software development company you select have experience writing applications similar to the one you are designing and that they can include interfaces to internet resources, database access, network delivery and controls and any other function of what is necessary for the software product to perform correctly.  If a software development company does not have the expertise in every aspect of the systems development requirements definition, that may mean they will have to bring in outside consulting to fill in that gap. 

Along with making sure any software development company that "makes the cut" because of their technical experience and background with the software and the application, the company must have a good reputation in the industry and check out as a responsible business entity.  You should perform due diligence to assure that the company you are about to work with is a viable business that has been around for a while.  They should have references you can check and the software development company should not shy away from any questions about any aspect of how they do business. 

In fact, it would not be out of line to visit their development facility to inspect their development resources, to validate they have adequate hardware and software to build the software you need.  During that visit, you can interview their subject matter experts in software development to confirm for yourself that the company who is submitting a proposal to develop your software can back that proposal up with the talent and resources to complete the development on time and under budget.

When you receive the proposals for development of the project, make sure that everything that is needed to complete the job is detailed in the proposal.  The company that gets the job should have complete control over their costs so there are no "surprises" as the development cycle gets underway.  The final cost to you, the customer should reflect that there is nothing left out.  If there are costs of the development that are left to you to cover, that should be specified.

Even after you accept proposals, the cycle of interviews may go on for some time.  A local company may be preferred because there will be local references you can go visit and because it may cut down on costs.  In the end analysis, there is also room for what we call "gut feel" in making the final decision.  Don’t overlook the wisdom of gut feel because sometimes your intuition as a business person and a software developer will tell you to go with a particular software development company based on impressions that they know what they are doing and that they are an honest group of business people.

If you make the investment up front to do a thorough job of building your requirements and making absolutely sure the software development company you select is qualified to do the job, you will have a greater assurance that when the project is done, you will have a quality software package delivered on time, tested and ready to deploy.  If you can find a software development company like that and they can meet you requirements with confidence and without flaws, keep their business card.  That will be a software development company you will want to use again and again and again.

IT workers are a notoriously technical bunch.  Along with that technical expertise comes a certain "lore" about the personality of a typical technical guru who thrives in the cubicle canyons of an IT department.  If you are an IT professional, you know that many of those stereotypes are just that, images that the media likes to assign to a group of people.  But one image worth taking head on is the idea that IT people are notoriously unhappy.

IT people are problem solvers.  And many technical problems that are resolved by the "gurus" in your department are tremendously complicated and difficult.  So the focus and concentration that you have to put in to find good solutions to technical problems may be part of why IT people are considered to be unhappy people.  But IT people are also some of the most motivated workers who enjoy unique technical talents that give them an enviable job security and career path that many would kill for.  Who could not be happy about that?

If you make your career in a large organizational setting, there will be good times and bad times.  Projects encounter problems and sometimes go wrong and it is your job as an IT professional to try to guide them to success.  During those times when conflicts occur or the organization is going through hard times, it is possible for IT workers to become quite dissatisfied just as it is for anyone in any department to feel nervous about their working environment. 

So we need some tools to get through those times.  To have a long term career that allows you to climb up the latter toward management, coping with the hard times is a must.  Much of that coping includes learning to overcome your own feelings of dissatisfaction and disillusionment so you can maintain your focus on the prize of long term success and growth to your career.  But how do you do that?   Here are a few tips.

It Won't Last Forever

One way to overcome that sense of despair when it seems that your working world is a mess is to step back and get a wider view.  If you have been working in your organization for a number of years, you probably have seen a few economic slumps come and go. You have survived some lay offs and you have even endured some run away projects that were a disaster. 

None of these big problems that would like to convince you that your career in IT is about to come to an end will last forever.  Problems have a shelf life and it is amazing how often they disappear almost as fast as they came along.  Sometimes a hard time in your department just has to be endured.  Picture yourself as a turtle that knows how to pull your head neck and arms in when trouble comes and that knows how to hunker down and survive a storm. 

If you have done a good job at making your job essential to the organization and if the organization is fundamentally sound, it will come through the current storm. Even if your department is being reorganized, that too is something you can endure.  Use your history in IT and your ability to ride out trouble to not allow a short term season of trouble to end your long term brilliant career.

Misery Loves Company

One thing you can take comfort in is the friendships you have built in your own department.  Other IT workers are your allies in surviving difficult times.  If you have a good manager who has guided his or her team through a lot of bad times, trust in that management skill.  He or she got you through these little messes before and he or she will do it again.

Humor is a great resource in times of trouble.  Allow some good natured joking to help you keep your head up and your emotional balance working.  Lean on older workers who know well the lay of the land in good times and bad.  Don’t try to go it alone when despair tries to force you to make a rash decision during a bad time.  Use the friends, mentors and wise old owls of the department and get their help in making wise choices of how to turn a really bad situation into a really good long term career situation for you and for them as well.

Take a Little Joy in Your Work

There is a wonderful quote from the movie Men in Black that applies to trying to get through tough times at work in an IT department. The Men in Black were about to take on an impossible challenge from aliens because that is the theme of the movie. At one point as the young recruit, Will Smith begins to become unnerved, the old wise Man in Black played by Tommy Lee Jones says, "You’re a young man.  Try to take a little joy in your work."

Your work is why you get up and go to the office every day.  The one thing that IT professionals love it is performing their technical wizardry using their technical tools and toys.  So turn to the work you love to do.  Throw yourself into a project and disappear into the complexities of the challenge right in front of you.  Not only will that help you get through days were trouble is brewing, it will help you accomplish your work goals which is very good for your career.

Keep a Cool Head

It is amazing how just refusing to panic can often be enough to propel you through a crisis into a new day where the storm clouds have passed.  When it seems that the world is coming to an end, keep in mind that it probably isn't.  There will be people around you who will be losing their cool heads and speculating all types of wild ideas that project doom and gloom for everyone.  Don’t listen to those people.

This doesn’t mean you have to be a cheerful bird when everyone else is upset. Simply make a choice not to jump to conclusions.  If disaster is going to come, make it come all the way to the door.  Too often it will get as far as the street corner and turns away.

If you keep a cool head, you can be the one who survives the hard times and is there to pick up the pieces and the rewards when good times return to your organization and to the IT department that pays your rent.  And you will have survived another storm not only because you are a valuable employee but because you navigated the storm and your own emotions at the same time so you came out of the difficulty a winner.

One of the most respected and recognized individuals who seems represent the epitome of how powerful the human intellect can be is Stephen Hawking.  This brilliant physicist has often been compared to Albert Einstein because of his powerful mind and because of his contributions to physics that has made huge leaps forward in the knowledge mankind has about our universe.

It can come as quite a shock if you actually saw a picture of Stephen Hawking or saw a video of him addressing large gatherings of scientists, which he does often.  Hawking is confined to a wheelchair and the "voice" that allows the tremendous knowledge and insight in his mind is a computer generated voice because Stephen Hawking is an invalid. 

He has been suffering for many years with the debilitating effects of Lou Gehrig's disease which has stalled out allowing him to continue to live and make his contributions to the body of knowledge we have about the universe.  And the thing that makes it possible for this genius to continue to make his contributions is a branch of technological research called assistive technology.

Not Just Prosthetics Any More.

When we think of medical technology that helps disabled people cope with their disabilities, prosthetics naturally come to mind.  While prosthetics have in many ways worked miracles to help people who have lost limbs live normal lives, assistive technology has gone far beyond that level.  Today, the scope and diversity of ways that assistive technology can help people who are medically challenged is truly amazing.

Using a wide variety of sophisticated research, assistive technology has as its goal nothing short of restoring full functionality to people who have lost a natural ability due to a disability.  To respectfully reference the Bible, assistive technology has been able to literally restore sight to the blind, to give hearing to the deaf and enable people who could not walk (the lame) the ability to leap, walk and even run in a marathon if they wish to do so.  This is done not through the miracle of religion but through the accomplishments of technology working in concert with medical science to achieve better lives for many thousands of people.

The areas of life where assistive technology has benefited people are tremendously diverse.  Athletes who could never have competed again due to a damaged or lost limb find themselves able to get out there and win trophies and gold metals with the best of them because of assistive technology.  Fathers who may have lost their ability to make a living and support their families are able to work gainfully due to the restoration of sight thanks to assistive technology. Soldiers returning home from battle and patients who lost functionality from life threatening illnesses or injuries do not have to live in grief because assistive technology gave them back those things that were taken from them.

Probably one are of life that is most encouraging and where assistive technology has benefited the most people is how it has helped young people be able to continue their education because important functions they needed to continue their studies were restored to them. 

The Assistive Technology to Fit the Need

Those who work in the field of assistive technology understand that there are varying levels of sophistication that assistive technology offers that depend on the need of the patient and the financial resources that can be raised to help people with disabilities get functionality back.  For example, the ability to write in Braille using pens that technology has developed that can lay down raised lettering in Braille format is a low assistive technology application. 

Assistive technology has made it possible for teachers who are not trained in working with the blind to "read" Braille reports and tests written by their students. Braille interpretation technology is available that will translate the dots to letters and numbers that any teacher can understand.  This simple but effective assisted technology teaching aid makes the barrier between teacher and student disappear so that blind students can function in a normal classroom with sighted students without difficulty.

Medium level complexity assistive technology would integrate voice recording so that a student could "write" a term paper easily by recording it and then using that recording as a feed into transcription to a printed copy later on.  Voice recognition technology has come along so dramatically in the last decade that this is an excellent solution for a student who has a physical handicap that makes writing by hand or on the computer difficult or impossible otherwise. 

For visually handicapped students, higher levels of supplication in assistive technology are becoming available so that such individuals will be able to use digital research and read the outcome in Braille.  Computer displays are becoming available that can actually raise the surface of the screen in pin patterns that correspond to Braille characters.  The arrival and development of the newest cyberspace tools like the Ipad hold great promise in giving handicapped individuals the same advantages others have in using the internet.

Assistive technology is moving ahead by leaps and bounds to facilitate handicapped persons to be able to function in the context of the rest of society.  No longer will there have to be special classes that are presented to persons with handicaps which stigmatizes them and separates them from the rest of the community. 

By bringing persons with disabilities into the classrooms and workplaces with everyone else, the feeling that they are somehow "special" and therefore less than others around them will be erased.   This is very good for persons with disabilities who before the arrival of assistive technology missed out on much of what most of us take for granted.  

But it is also good news for non handicapped persons who miss out on benefiting from relationships with persons who have handicaps because of the artificial separation that their disabilities have imposed on society.  Assistive technology can "level the playing field" so nobody has to be excluded.  And when we see how wonderful assistive technology has benefited mankind in the case of a phenomenal genius like Steven Hawking, these technological breakthroughs will bring great things to everyone in society as well.

Within the world of computer projects, there is an experience called a runaway project.  A runaway project is a development effort that, for various reasons loses all sense of control and management and exceeds any reasonable cost or time frame for completion of the project. 

If you have ever been on a runaway project, you know that it is a miserable experience for everyone.  Management hates it because the value of the project is destroyed and the costs run wildly out of control.  Project leadership hates it because it is like riding a volcano down to try to get the thing back under control.  Even developers hate it because their efforts are often wasted and there is no natural progression toward completion of the project.

The key to avoiding a runaway project is to have experienced and seasoned managers design the project plan up front.  To some extent, planning a project so it does not runaway is as much a science as it is an art form.  That is because if the project development time frame is going to take a long time, it is difficult to hit near term goals that were laid out early on in the project planning.  There is so much change that can happen to a project that it takes some wisdom and intuition to build a project schedule that is acceptable to the people who pay for work to get done but that also has some accommodation for changes.

Laying Down the Ground Rules

The enemy of a project development schedule is change.  Some change is unavoidable.  If you lose a major developer or there are difficulties with development hardware, that can throw a monkey wrench into your timeframe and send your project careening toward the runaway stage.  Everyone from the CEO to the programmers look to the people who draft the schedule for the project to anticipate change so that there is some "wiggle room" to adjust as  you go to stay close to schedule when things come along.

There are some ground rules you can lay down as a project gets underway that can go a long way toward stopping a runaway project in it's tracks.  Most of those ground rules could be summarized under the project phase known as "scope definition".  Scope definition is a fancy project management term for what you will do and what you will not do.  Within the context of a very complicated technical development project, you need to know in detail what the project you are developing will do and what is excluded or put off to future enhancement phases of the project.

The more detailed your definition of the scope of the project up front, the better you can keep the project on schedule as you go along.  That many mean putting some extra weeks of work into that planning stage. After you lay down the details of what the final finished product will do, then you will break the project down into milestones and begin to get a feel from your technical development team how long to anticipate for the definition of specifications, for development and for testing of the product before it can go into deployment.

Commitments All Over the Place

Another reason why projects get delays or run away is when you get to an important phase and you have trouble getting the developer time, hardware or other resources to get the work done that you must see done to stay on schedule. So part of the planning for the project is to get commitments at all levels of the organization.  The developers must be prepared to commit to the time it will take to turn the project from a concept into a reality. 

That time and resource commitment must be realistic.  It is unrealistic to ask for 20 hours a week from a programmer who already has 50 hours of committed time on his or her schedule.  That means the commitments must also be from the developers managers and from upper management that your project will get priority so you can have that 20 hours out of 40 hours in the developers schedule.  Just adding that time to his or her schedule isn't resource allocation.  It is a recipe for burn out and disaster that will affect the entire organization beyond your project. 

Checkpoints and Adjustments

The final important aspect of managing the schedule and costs of a project is to anticipate the change that will inevitably come during a long project development effort.  The scope process should do a lot to control change because you will have the ability to "just say no" to additions or serious changes to what will be done by the project in the interest in finishing on time and on budget.

But no matter how thorough you are in your planning, reality has a way of interfering in the best scope and the best project planning there is.  So anticipate that as you lay out the schedule so there is some "wiggle room" to make adjustments in the schedule as new realities come to light.  Some managers call this "padding the project" because they might add a week to a schedule that is written to allocate a month to a project phase.

That phrase, "padding the project" is a little deceptive because it sounds like you are hiding time for the purpose of goofing off.  That is not what you are doing.  But a wise project development process will include some days in each development cycle to allow for delays and setbacks if they come.  That "padding" should be well understood so that if no delays surface, you can finish that phase ahead of time and pass the time savings on to the next phase. 

If that happens, everybody feels great because your planning proved that it was entirely possible to lay out a schedule for development of even a very large project and see that schedule perform for you to keep a large team of managers and developers on track.  But don’t celebrate too long because your success will get the attention of upper management which means before too long, you will have another big fat project laid on your desk to take on and the entire cycle will start all over again.

If you have enjoyed the hit comedy series, "The Big Bang Theory", you probably could relate to how strange very brilliant technical people can be. If you are a CEO or in a position of authority in a business, trying to manage the "geeks" in the IT department can be frustrating at best.  Of course, the first thing that should be recognized since we used the term in the title of this piece is that the word "geek" is not derogatory to computer experts.  It is a designation they wear with pride.

There is no getting around it that if you are going to run a successful business, you must be able to tap the power of modern technology. And to take full advantage of that power, you need an IT department full of computer savvy subject matter experts who can make technical magic happen. The problem the IT personality is notoriously hard to manage.  It isn't that they are a rebellious lot or that they are not loyal to the company and grateful for their jobs.  The problem is that it seems that IT people are another breed of human being entirely.  They think differently than how you think and they speak a language that could only be more alien to you if it was Mandarin Chinese.

Should You Just Ignore Them?

Whether you are the president of the company or a department head, the need to find a way to communicate with the computer gurus in your company is essential to the long term growth and stability of the company.  For one thing, it is a morale issue.  Good employees are hard to find and those with specialized computer skills are worth working hard to retain. As much as computer experts put on an illusion of being separate and better than everybody else, they really do want to feel that they are an important part of the business.  Just getting an acknowledgement that upper management knows they exist can be a huge morale boost to workers who often stay on the job well into the night and weekends to make things work right. 

A second but just as important reason to learn to communicate with your IT team lies in how much it will help your business be successful. If you can help your IT team grasp the business priorities of the tasks they take on, they will be more capable of tuning the requirements of their technical challenges to what you are trying to achieve in the business.  They will keep their eyes on the business objectives as well as the technical objectives of each project. 

That will lead to more successful projects which makes the business more successful as well as benefiting their careers.  Everybody wins when the IT people become part of the business rather than an isolated camp of misunderstood "geeks".  So let's review some options to open up the communications between you and those strange but brilliant people in the IT department.

Option One - Make Them Learn Your Language

One option to build that line of communication is to simply invoke your executive privilege and require your employees to speak in language you understand when in your presence.  After all, you are the boss so why should you bend over backward to learn how to talk "geek talk" to communicate with the IT team?  In one way, helping the IT experts learn to speak in business terms will help them long term.

But that plan could be a dangerous approach simply because of the peculiar nature of IT experts.  Technical employees are a fiercely independent lot and you get a lot more out of them with cooperation and partnerships than through intimidation and pressure.  And considering that the technical gurus probably have their fingers on the computers that are the life pulse of the business, it pays to find ways to communicate with them in ways that do not antagonize this population of your business community.

Option Two - Learn Their Lingo

As with option one, there is a good side and a bad side to trying to learn "geek talk".  It is always a good idea to become more savvy of the technical concepts that drive your business. If you understand at a conceptual level the types of resources your technical people are capable of delivering, you can be a better manager and capitalize on those resources more efficiently.

But it will not work to just learn some buzzwords that you overhear your IT people using and throw them around to appear to speak their language.  This is as much a mistake as trying to appear "cool" to your teenagers.  IT geeks can quickly figure out that you are just using those terms to get on the inside track with them and they will see that tactic as foolish and awkward.  Better to keep your dignity and take full advantage of option three which is…

Option Three - Get a Translator

There are individuals in your business who may already be equipped to serve as a translator between you and the computer experts in the IT department.  The best translators are supervisors or project leaders in your IT department.  They may have grown up out of the IT world so they know the lay of the land and the lingo of their peers because they are native speakers.  As IT geeks themselves, they stay up on the latest developments and the technical implications of new technologies.

By having that level of comfort of a person who understands the business language that you speak but also speaks fluent "geek" language, that is a crucial skill set to use to launch and manage projects.  You can spend time with those translators to learn the lingo and what your computer gurus can do for you.  Then when you do meet with the programmers and systems engineers, they understand your requirements because they were translated by those skilled managers.  And you understand the technical terminology and ideas because someone who knows how you think explained it to you in your terms.

It is always smart to keep that line of communication open to all employees including your IT experts.  Don’t be intimidated by them.  They understand that you are not one of them and they want you to be one of them.  They want you to keep the business moving toward more and more success so they can enjoy prosperity too. Leave it to the managers you keep on the payroll to do the heavy duty translation when it comes to technical ideas.  In that way, everybody has a role to play and when each performs their role well, everybody wins.

The justification and pay offs for business and for employees for promoting more telecommuting are well known.  That is why it is so surprising that employers seem to be dragging their feet on offering work at home programs for their employees so that they can sponsor a strong telecommuting program for their staff.  But a recent study that was sponsored by Microsoft using an online survey reflects that the percentage of companies offering this option is far below the level of interest in employees to participate in such a program.

The Microsoft survey which is available online here reveals some numbers that are not that surprising such as…

• 60% of the people surveyed had the opinion that telecommuting was more productive, not less.
• 46% of employees had an opinion that their employer might be open to offering telecommuting. That is not a positive statement that such a program is in place.  It is just an impression that employees have of their current employers.
• An astounding 37% of employees were open to a pay cut if allowed to work at home.  That alone should be an attractive idea for employers because they could save money on office costs and on salary.
• 72% of employees surveyed were quite interested in working at home.  That is a surprisingly high number of office workers who feel it would be a change for the better.
• The reasons that employees responded to that they felt were positives about telecommuting were split three ways. 55% felt saving gas was a value of the program.  47% liked the idea of skipping that commute and 60% preferred the idea of telecommuting because it would help them balance their work and private lives more effectively.

With that much employee interest, it is hard to fathom that employers would not move forward with offering work at home programs for their employees.  Now, obviously not every job is a good fit for work at home employees.  Hands on jobs such as manufacturing or construction are not a good fit.  But for companies that sustain a large office staff where they fill office buildings with cubicle farms full of employees, many of those jobs could be moved to a home based system rather easily.

There are numerous financial incentives for businesses to offer telecommuting to employees.  If an employer were able to export 25% of their jobs to home based employment, that would represent a quarter less floor space they would have to rent in their office park.   Office space is expensive so that is a significant savings. 

Also, the use of office supplies including everything from pens to toilet paper to employer supplied coffee would drop off dramatically as well.  A work at home employee pays for his own coffee.  That is a small cost but it adds up  The cost of providing an employee with a computer, a desk and office supplies could also all go down somewhat.  While some employers may continue to supply some of those needs to home employees, some savings are still available to employers.

The statistics that the Microsoft survey reported are telling because they represent how much employees dislike the commute and their desire to cut down on their gasoline usage by working at home.  Part of this priority may be due to the price of gas, which makes the cost of holding a job much higher.  If workers have to pay for parking to work in an office, that is another expense that workers resent.  While public transportation is an option for some workers, it is a nuisance and a time investment.  All of this can be compared to the ease of getting to work for a telecommuter who can walk to his or her work station in a matter of seconds and get to work.

It could be that the cost savings of not having to commute to work are so significant that those who responded to the survey answered that they would even take a pay cut to work at home.  In addition to the gas savings, wear and tear on the vehicle is a consideration. Commuting can also be emotionally draining in that heavy traffic takes its toll on a driver.  With the increase of awareness of our need to find ways to live green and not increase carbon emissions, cutting down on the use of gasoline just makes sense.  Workers see these telecommuting as a way to achieve all of these objectives with a change to working at home rather than driving to an office to sit in a cubicle all day long.

There may be some hard to change opinions that employers hold that may be holding back the telecommuting movement.  Many employers insist on being able to monitor employees so assure they are getting 8 hours of work for the 8 hours of pay they shell out.  They believe that an employee who is working at home would goof off and not get as much work done as an office worker. 

Anyone who works in an office setting knows well that few workers actually deliver 8 full hours of work.   There are ample opportunities to goof off at work right under the nose of the employer.  Office socializing, trips to the break room or the rest room and playing on the computer are common ways that office workers pad their time while at the office.  The only true way to measure the success of an employee whether he or she is working at home or at work is by productivity measurements, not by doing time in a cubicle like it was a prison sentence.

Another misconception is that office communications with staff would suffer with employees separated by distance.  In this day and age of digital communications, there is no reason to hold on to that old belief system.  Staff meetings can be conducted by teleconferencing either by phone or even using webcams so everybody can see everybody else.  Email, instant messaging and other digital methods for communications means that a employer can stay as much in touch with employees who are working at home as he would with employees in the office.

The biggest cultural shift in managing a distributed team of employees is learning to measure their effectiveness by actual product or results instead of by time served.  But employees often blossom under that kind of measurement system.  If an employee has "X" amount of work to produce in a given day, the employee can arrange that work to suit their own schedule.  If the employee needs to take a child to the dentist, he or she can work other hours to keep up those work responsibilities.

Telecommuting also enables employers to tap a wider work force.  By employing people who cannot work in an office, employers can keep older workers on staff or make it possible for ladies on maternity leave or disabled workers to make a contribution to the workforce.  Employers can even broaden their pool of potential employees by offering telecommuting jobs that could be done from anywhere in the world as long as the employee has the skills. 

Telecommuting changes the dynamic of how the employer/employee relationship works in ways that benefit both with very few downsides. The more employers realize this, the more this movement will begin to spread in the future.

An IT person must approach the challenge of finding a new job in a very particular way.  Because your skills are specialized, you are not going to apply to every job that is in the newspaper.  The approach you should take to find good jobs and then how to craft your resume and your strategy are all just as peculiar the IT industry is and as unique as you are.  But if you approach the job search right, you can cut through a lot of the confusion that hunting for a job can bring and get to the good jobs fast.

Stealth Job Hunting

The frustration of job hunting is that the job market is a huge jumbled mess.  The last thing you want to do is compete for the perfect job with hundreds of other people who are not as qualified as you are.  It is even worse to find yourself applying to job after job that are not the perfect next step for you.  You need some stealth job hunting tactics that can get you to that perfect next step in your career, even if you are unemployed at the moment.

Those tactics are right at your fingertips and you may not even know it.  Most IT professionals are part of groups and associations that cater to your particular specialization and skill set.  Whether you are a web designer, a data base administrator or a project manager, there is an organization that is out there that is full of people with your same career focus.

Those groups are also natural magnets for businesses who need people with that skill set.  The people in your own IT specialization are the ones who will be aware of openings that are out there or about to happen.  If your company paid for your membership to some of those organizations, keep up those dues.  Then use the collective power of those groups to look for your next job.  Because they know exactly what you do, they can guide your search and plug you into job openings that are perfect for you.

The Power of the Network

Just as potent as the groups who make it easier to do your job are the people in your immediate IT world who know you well.  Any expert in finding a new job will advise you that your first strategy is not to file for unemployment or even go home after losing your job to pout about it.  Your first and most important strategy is to network.  Your network are the other people in your specialization who may be able to direct you to another job in town that can use an IT specialist just like you.

Your network is also people you worked for including bosses and clients who admired your work.  If you served other businesses as part of your work, those businesses might be eager to "snap you up" when you are cut lose from your current job.  So by all means, get snapped up.

Networking is not something you start to do when you are suddenly out of a job.  If you still have your position, work at building that network every day.  It is a natural thing to do because you are in a professional position with peers on your IT team, supervisors who can witness how good you are at your job and customers who come back for more every time you deliver good work.  Those social groups are teaming with networking opportunities.

IT professionals sometimes have a reputation of being socially retiring.  That may be true if you prefer to sit and crank out code instead of going to a party.  But networking isn't about a popularity contest.  It is about taking advantage of the close professional relationships you naturally develop with other technical people like yourself. 

Your networking web is everywhere.  It is at work, in your family, at the bowling alley or at church.  When you are looking for that next great opportunity, throw the doors and windows open for your network to go to work for you.  If you do that, the network of people who know you well are the ones who can do the most to plug you into that next great job.

What a Resume Isn't.

It is smart to keep your resume up to date all of the time.  You don’t have to wait until you are unemployed to update your resume so it is ready to go to work for you to get you that next great job opportunity.  In fact, you don’t have to wait until you are unemployed to put your resume into circulation.  If you get in a mindset of always having your radar up for a great new opportunity and also keeping your resume ready to go out at a moment's notice, you may be the one moving from job to job on your terms rather than waiting for your employer to make that decision for you.

If a resume fails, it is because people put too much in it or too little.  A resume is more than a skeleton review of your career with dates and addresses.  But a resume is not a chance for you to write the story of your life either.  To find the right balance, be aware of the job the resume is out to accomplish for you. 

The resume has one job.  That job is not to get you a job.  That is what happens in the interview.  Your resume should not set out to talk a potential employer into hiring you.  All it has to do is make him or her interested in talking to you.  You will take it from there when you get to the interview phase of the project of getting a job.  So to be successful, your resume's job is to leap past human resources and past the final cut where the person doing the interviewing picks the people to talk to and rejects the rest.

There is a secret to getting past human resources that your résumé must use to get to the person making then decision about that job.  That secret is two words - key words.  There are certain key phrases that summarize what the person hiring is looking for.  So when you write your résumé, scan the text describing the job being filled.  Look for key phrases and use them exactly as you see them in the job ad.  Phrases like "outgoing and personable", "knowledgeable professional" or "creative and outgoing" will give you the keys to getting the job you want.  Also, acronyms of your profession and key job description phrases like "data base administrator", "web development expert" or "project manager" are key words that will get your resume to the final cut.

The reason key words are important is that when an employer is taking résumés, they will either use job screening software or a person in HR who will weed out a lot of resumes before they go to the decision maker who will send out invitations for interviews.  The Human Resources person and that software may have no clue what your job is.  They will have a list of key words to look for in the résumés they are reviewing.  If those key words are there, you make the cut.  If they are not, your résumé hits the big trashcan in the corner.  Stay out of that trash can and use key phrases to get past screening software or the Human Resources department so the person dong the hiring has a chance to appreciate how great you are.

By taking advantage of your professional associations and by networking, you can find the great jobs that are out there.  That saves you a lot of aggravation because you don’t have to pound the bricks going after dozens of jobs that are not right for you.  Then by being clever in how you organize your resume, it will cut through the mass of resumes and get right to the person who is filing the position.  From then on out, the rest is up to you.  But if you can get an interview for the perfect job where your skills will be utilized perfectly, landing that job should be a snap.

Failing all that- you could always kick off your own startup... Here's a few thoughts for starters...

Most IT department managers or project leaders grow up out of the IT technical ranks.  That is a good thing.  For one thing, an IT manager must have the ability to talk intelligently with technical experts.  If he or she cannot sustain the respect of a staff of highly trained and talented IT developers, that manager's ability to be effective is in bad shape. 

An IT manager has a very unique job because you sit directly between the two most important groups in the business world that you must get to work together to be successful.  You manage a department of developers who are capable of performing technical wizardry if you manage them right.  And you work for the top-level leadership of the business who are capable of making the business and you very profitable if you can deliver what they need, when they need it, on time and under budget. 

In order to achieve the goals of both groups, the IT manager must be able to speak two languages fluently.  Moreover, you have to be able to communicate the needs and interests of both groups to each other and do so in a way that results in greater cooperation and productivity - resulting in completed projects, happy developers and happy upper management.  It’s a tricky operation to pull it off.  But if you can speak both languages, you are in for a long and very successful career at the IT management level.

Very Different Languages

If you got to management by working up through technical jobs, you understand the language of technical people.  Knowing how to be proficient in "tech speak" is about more than just understanding the acronyms.  Your history in the culture of technical developers will serve you well.  Speaking the language of developers means understanding what makes them tick and how the technical tools they use can be brought to bear on the development problem at hand.

Even within the technical world, there are various disciplines that must be able to integrate with each other and you must be able to make that possible by understanding the tools and terms of each group.  If you have applications developers, they will need to make their code work seamlessly with the database management system and with the web interfaces needed to make the application really deliver for its users.  Add in the security team and the hardware gurus who will give you the limitations and possibilities you have from a platform perspective and that is a lot of translation going on within an already cramped technical world.

Your technical team cannot function without good projects that come to them from the business planners who run the business.  But the top level owners and managers of business departments speak their own language as well - sometimes sniffing rarified air that just isn't ready for everyone else.  Their goals and objectives for the projects that they define are couched in what the application will do for the business.  In many respects they may not know, understand or care about the technical complications you face to make that application a reality.

Your job as the manager who will make your department or project team successful is to define the projects and goals of upper management in terms of their business language.  When you meet with the business leaders who make things happen in your organization, your job will be to understand what the application will do and how it will make the business more successful.  The business objectives of the application will be the standards of measurement by which your technical team will be judged.  Those objectives will then be "translated" into technical objectives that you can communicate to your project development team.  You may wonder who does that translation.  That would be you.

Very Different Priorities

While you may be manager of the technical development team, to make them successful, you have to know how to motivate them and make them productive - I can tell you from experience, it isn't a lot of shouting and cursing.  While you may work for the upper level business management team, you manage them in a sense because it is up to you to understand their priorities and get them to work with you and not against you for the success of your department.  This can be the hardest game to play if that management tier isn't interested or just doesn't 'have time' for teamwork .

The priorities of upper management are business objectives.  So the applications you bring back to your team from the top brass will be successful if they make the company more efficient, more profitable or save money through some form of process improvement.  So you must understand and speak fluently about those priorities so you can excite management about what your team can do for them.  Then you can then gather the details of the business objectives of the applications work to be done so you can take those goals to your technical team.

To say that your technical development team will have different priorities is to understate things dramatically.  It isn't that systems developers and "techies" don’t want the company to hit it's business objectives because they do (contrary to the belief of upper management sometimes!).  They consider that to be your job and the job of upper management to deal with.  The priorities for a systems developer lie in the ongoing development his or her skills, the size and impact of projects that they get to work on and the peace and quiet you can provide to them to continue being "techies" by keeping management "off their backs."  There ARE tools to make management less painful.  But that's the subject of another post.

The Fine Art of Translation

Much of the real work of being a manager over technical projects is translating business objectives to technical people and technical details to management people.  While it is always good management to let your technical team know what the goals are of the project in business terms, to get their "buy in" and to see them really engage the project, they must see it as a technical challenge. 

So you will translate each business priority into a technical specification before you begin having meetings with the rank and file development team.  That means that the first few phases of the project development life cycle, which is the project definition and needs analysis, are by far the most critical phases.  It is in those phases that you will use your ability to speak two languages to lay out a technical solution to a business problem in language that both camps will understand.

Similarly, when you and your team have defined the business problem in technical terms, you will take that solution to your business management team to explain how that solution will take the business where it needs to go.  The more you develop your skills at explaining technical solutions to business managers in business terms and explaining business objectives in technical terms to your development team, the more success you will realize as an IT manager.  And success is what it is all about after all.

P.S. A bad place to start building bridges is to post this one on the office wall!

Getting your next software project done on time can be a matter of factoring a whole lot of variables.  Time, resources, features and not forgetting the client's feature creep.

Now before I get flamed for trying to document "the impossible" or get any more "keep livin' the dream, buddie" tweets, let's look at the basics - again.  Software and web projects CAN come in on time and on-budget but the same old factors keep killing them.

So while it's the dream of every PM to hear "We Did It!" when the dev team finish code review, it's also pretty clear that it doesn't require a nuclear scientist or psychic to know that this does not often actually work out perfectly.   While our client's might like to forget it at times - we're all human.

How much time are we spending with clients talking about why we didn't make their schedule given the constantly changing spec we should be "more carefully managing"? Or in the postmortem where we bemoan that there were just too many moving targets to manage in the solution, making time or budgets just a wishful notion we're always chasing.

Cynical thinking aside, virtually every project I've worked on starts out with the best intentions and a keen and motivated team. So - let's start completing some more projects on-time and on-budget.  Regardless of whether we want to walk out the door before it gets dark or sleep in to 8am, it's time to get serious and organised. 

For what it's worth, here are the simple steps I try and follow for getting a team over the dev-hump and back into productivity - and the pitfalls I find that kill-off all of those best-laid plans, morale and intentions.

The First and Most Important Step! Create a plan with simple, realistic and achievable goals. 

In all-too-many cases, the goals and timelines may be set by sales, or the Resource Creep (that blue beast that no-one knows who lives down the corridor!) 

If you're already running 'behind the eight-ball' when you're thrown into the couldron, the first step is to find out what resources will be needed - and create a resourcing plan for commencement.  The urge to document how we're going to solve the Kennedy assassination, find the frisbee that slipped into the Bermuda Triangle or build documentation to rival the next space station launch may be overwhelming.  But resist the urge and JUST document what's needed to kick off a reliable first project phase or proof of concept steps initially.  Then, once you know where your resources are coming from and how the POC is going to roll, get the detail under control - working out what will be needed to complete on-time and assess impacts on schedule if resourcing is changed.

Needless to say that, it's time to flag penalties for missed deadlines and contractual challenges with the sales and management teams if there's holes in the resourcing plan. Sometimes delaying kick-off can be better than failing to complete to-schedule if the client is made aware of the resource allocation issues upfront.

Assuming you now have a proof of concept moving, focussed resources and management buy-in, it's time to dust off Microsoft Project or Excel if you're more comfortable with that.  Add in your resources, project milestones and keep the plan alive. Engage the team and start drawing out the key break-points in the development.

Carefully managing the resource engagement model can be the difference between success and failure in step one.  But beware of the Resource Creep.

If things are still looking bright, we're onto the Second Stage - Task Assignment.

If things have gone well and your resources are fired up (and the RC - Resource Creep - is on assignment elsewhere), you're off to a great start.  With your Project Plan growing and the code and architecture planning underway, the days will be looking bright!  It's time to convert napkin architecture and customer's whistful notions of functionality down to achievable functions. 

Once you have a basic functional design, it becomes easy enough to assign functional clusters to each member of the team - Whether it's User Interface, Data Modelling or Database design task-clusters, these can be used to achieve milestones and proof-of-concept test-points quickly and itteratively.  Task Clustering is also an excellent way to ensure the team feels a sense of achievement in their patch plus keeps the team accountable for completion.  (Accountability coupled with a sense of achievement remain the key motivators.  But removing either one of these will destroy the project.)

Each task-cluster needs a realistic time on the project plan.  And this needs to be carefully thought through with the team-member - not randomised on a MS Project Gaant chart.  Project Managers constantly forget how quickly poor time-estimates can compound on a Gaant chart.  Each 48 hour off-set can quickly compound to a month delay on large enterprise projects. 

With larger focussed development teams, it's not uncommon to have each team-member sign-off on a copy of the project plan their task-cluster's schedule.  Each person may then be incentivised on completion of each segment or cluster of work to the promised schedule.

The Third Stage - Running the Gauntlet... erm Schedule.

So.  The schedule is prepared and the stage is set.  The team have agreed on their workload, architecture and a path has been mapped out for the initial task-clusters.  The Proof of Concept technology tests worked.  There have been no serious revolts or uprisings amongst the ranks and senior management are probably now cursing the fact that the Sales Team's assessment that "it can be ready yesterday" wasn't actually accurate. 

The good news is that the worst is hopefully now behind us.  If we're organised and want this to work, the key in this phase will be resource visibility.  Keeping everyone accountable to each-other.  Producing Gaant charts (preferably on paper as well as using MS Project Server if you have it available) and sticking them on the wall amongst the team.  Seeing the resource plan for the first time shouldn't be a religious experience of enlightenment (!)  As we've all worked out, most professional programmers only have two hands and one task-cluster will need to be under control generally before another can be started.  Everyone needs to be reminded that the schedule can be their friend not their enemy. 

The key in stage three is therefore, aside from warding off the Resource Creep, simply controlling the key and critical development milestones of the project.  Highlighting them on the Gaant chart and ensuring that task clustering is working to achieve these key elements.  As a few of these clusters or elements start showing up in the code repository, a test plan will need to be introduced to test any logical workflows against the plan.  Committment to the plan and to the timeline needs to be reinforced yet-again.  The big danger when a project is running in stage three is that the Resource Creep grabs your resources for that other project's "quick fix" and small delays start to compound into morale-sapping nightmares.  Show me a team that never catches up and I'll show you a team with resume's on Seek.com or that's lost the will to fight!

At the first sign of a pontial delay, the temptation is to drop functionality to recover - compromising time before fixing the issue's core can be the root of a failed deliverable.  Keep the overall plan running to the FFS - A Full-Function-Schedule.  While the matra around the office may well be "FFS" everytime the project team talks about resourcing, maintaining a Full-Function-Schedule and sticking to your guns is usually the right way to get a project completed with a happy client - But it won't always be the best career path!

Assuming task-clusters are starting to arrive, it's time for the FFS Critical Path review.  Working through the functionality list and customer requirements document, a set of workflows should be clearly evident. These should be documented and form the basis of your Test Plans. The Critical Path will essentially be based on ensuring these workflows pass the test plans and can be demonstrated as the initial releases start coming together. 

Team communication becomes one of the most critical elements as the project progresses - Integration of task-clusters becomes the next challenge. This can be tricky as each team-member's KPI may depend on working with another team-member. So your job as a team-lead can start to include such fun as politics and time management skills.  Not to mention a few "you call that a sniffle" challenges (!).

Stage Four - Who ate the Schedule-buffer?

We've all had those projects where the Swine Flu hit, or the Tsunami caused a ripple in the programmer's bath-tub.  We've even realised too late in the schedule that people actually "Have a Life" and feel that their aforementioned life should be grounds for getting leave.  So , no matter how much you try, hiccups in the schedule are a way of life in the coding world. Minimising the potential for disaster through solid planning and jealously guarding your team can be an artform.  For software development projects a standard buffer of 25% across the project timeline is the accepted variance for a realistic delivery on a 3-6 month project.  If you've eaten it and you're only half way through the code-base, it's time to revisit scheduling before things go way off the rails.

Stage Five - Resources Again and Brooks's Law

You're working your rear off and the task clusters and functionality models are coming together.  Proof of Concept phases worked - showing up the issues in the architecture for action items in the plan.  You're feeling confident. Team deliverables are on-schedule and everyone's smiling for a brief, unexpected moment.  This is not the time to relax.  It's the time to take-stock of the resource situation and look at how your buffer is going.  Assuming your project is properly funded (someone is actually paying for this?) and kicked-off with realistic assumptions and expectations, there will be plenty of good reasons to spend a little extra to resource up the project now, not resource it down to ensure it all goes well.  Good practice at this point is to build your buffer up not down.  Why? Because the worst estimations in any software development project are usually based around testing and bug management pre-release - Not in the design or POC phases.  Remember the 90/10 rule? If you don't have a 'clean slate' on your buffer now, it's time to fix this.

The most foolish and ill-thought out project management slogan around has to be Brook's Law - "adding manpower to a late software project only makes it later".  Brooks himself called it an "outrageous simplification".  And who am I to disagree.  Adding resources in a panic does indeed cause pandemoneum.  Managing a well run resource model, knowing what the learning humps and integration curves look like, can indeed save a project from distaster.  Why do project managers keep brandishing the foolish notion of Brooks's Law without thinking through the quantity, quality and skills of the teams in play.  Good management and development methodologies can have a dramatic impact on Brooks's Law.  Assuming that all teams will immediately suffer the full impact of "Brooks's Law" just by implication is a endictment on the project manager's opionion of his team's technical and coping abilities.  Who's making these calls on resourcing?  A project manager should be accountable AND in control.

Once again, beware the Resource Creep.  Assuming you've got this far and resource adjustment isn't a result of being blindsided or through a sudden mandate to "share resources", you should be heading towards a successful development phase - resources and buffer adjusted and with a clear test plan forming.  You already guessed it (it's getting boring now?) - Re-assess and mitigate the negative impact of resource allocation by checking the buffer available - remembering that the over-run will almost always be in the testing / final clean-up project stages.

Stage 6 - Ongoing Progress Tracking as the project heads into testing.

Throwing in another three letter acronym for good measure.  OPT or Ongoing Progress Tracking is something you're either good at or are terrible at.  It usually gets a fair few "FFS"s if a programmer thinks he runs the project - and we're not talking about schedules now.  Usually a determiner of a cohesive or fragmented team model,will be the ability with which you can get a straight answer out of your team on how their task-clusters are going.  This will also determine how close to schedule a project rolls.  While often discounted outright, a well run project whiteboard or A2/A3 printed Gantt chart for each project segment can do a lot of keep everyone communicating and accountable.  Don't be afraid to run the project as a technology project - from the top.  Management describe functional models, business analysis describes workflows based on documented client requirements (and therefore test-plan scope) and project management describes task-clusters.  This works a whole lot better than allowing programmers to sink the team with 'architecture' and political discussion.  That's not to say that the tech team cannot add critical value in software design and architecture  - it is simply a statement that the value-chain needs to be directed by project management.

Remember to celebrate the wins with the whole team, successfully delivered milestones and test plan successes.  The wins belong to the team - not just management.  Keep testing against the Critical Path plan and keep the customer's deliverables top-of-mind.  Facilitate results, keep the team talking to each other and manage bottlenecks wherever possible.  Assuming the project resources have been tweaked, managed and are still talking successfully to each other, then you're now entering the Test Plan phase.  If you're stuck with team in-fighting, it may be time to rethink the team's members.   Critical Path meetings to maintain schedule adherence and manage any required Critical Intervention are now the order of the day. Whether you follow Extreme Programming (XP), SCRUM, or another Itterative development model, problem solving often means more in terms of meeting team-related objectives, that are both understanding or technical in nature,  head on and solving them as they happen rather than in terms of managing the code itself.  Good coders are team-players - End of story.

Keeping the team focussed on the result, ensuring the team works well together and enjoys working in the structure they have formed is critical to productivity.  Constantly changing the structure and make-up of teams can dramatically impede productivity - So decisive action and consistent planning is mandatory to software development teams - not just the project they are working on.  The task-clustering and teamwork approach itself needs to drive - destabilisation does not succeed nor motivate.  If a small software development team is constantly playing 'musical projects', it's time to change either the team or the business model.

In most enterprise software developments it seems like every failure in the schedule or test plan  means the end-of-the-World as we know it.  You're sure the team will torch your PC, burn the cat and your family will emigrate. As the Hitchikers Guide would say "Don't Panic".  Job number one remains leadership. Providing a voice of reason and sanity and calmly leading the troops out of the storm is what it's all about.

If the Resource Creep has struck, regroup, refocus and try and rebuild confidence in what can be salvaged ...

What Are the Most Innovative Careers For a Tech Graduate?

Some people get out of college, clutching their new diploma, and survey the job field with a finicky air. Sure, sometimes you want to go where the money is, or where there's the most stability, but for the starry-eyed dreamers amongst us, the principle attraction of a tech career is what kind of innovative new technologies we'll be working with. While not all of us can get a glamorous job right out of college, we don't want to get stuck being a sysadmin in a basement somewhere.

So here's the fields of today which have the most promise for innovation. Even if you can't get into one of these positions right away, it might be something to aim for down the road.

Computer Security

When *isn't* security an innovative field? As the history of computing has shown us so far, there is no such thing as a perfectly secure system. Instead, we have had an arms race, with the "black hat" hackers on one side and the "gray hat" security researchers on the other. Working in computer security will guarantee that you'll be pushed to the cutting edge of the latest developments in cryptography and software engineering. This field has the most fascinating conferences.

Visual Effects

An obvious one. As consumers continue to get the latest games and games systems continuously update, the video game industry will continue to find the newest way to 'wow' their audience. No sooner do you get a fully animated 3D character that can perform 1000 different actions than somebody else will come out with the same thing with an added boost to visual effects. In the film industry, likewise we've seen continuous development with increasingly sophisticated effects, and this shows no signs of abating.

Knowledge Systems

While A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) is temporarily a stalled career path, the subset of A.I. which deals with finding the most efficient way to answer a question in the least amount of time is a field which will show continuing progress. For instance, recently the answer engine Wolfram Alpha made some headlines for itself. We have much farther to go.

Streaming Media

Consider that we still don't have real-time video 'phones like they did in "Blade Runner!" What's the hold-up? Media on the web has seen an explosion in popularity in the recent decade, so this field still has some growing up to do. There's a fortune waiting for the first person who comes up with a way to deliver video and audio without buffering, downloading, needing a web browser plug-in, or having to worry about hardware compatibility.

Biology and Genetics Software

The field that shows the most future possible progress. As the medical field makes further research into genetics, stem cells, cloning, and DNA tinkering, they're finding computers to be an indispensable aide in lab work. Already a whole cottage industry has sprung up around software for biologists - and it's just getting started!