Garner Executive Support for IT Projects

In my early days in Information Technology I dreaded the meeting with executives to attempt to get approval for a new IT project or for upgrades to the existing systems. Now, I sleep easy the night before and walk into the meeting with confidence, knowing that when the meeting ends, I will not only have approval for the project, but I will have a critical partner until the project is complete. The difference isn't in the times or the executives, but rather in my understanding and ability to provide the executive what they are looking for to make a decision.

 

In the early 2000s I was working for a company where we were running Exchange Server 5.5 and Windows NT 4.0. Microsoft had recently ended support for the product and I had been fighting for a long time to upgrade to Exchange 2000 and Windows 2000. One time after another I explained how much easier it would be to manage Exchange 2000 than 5.5 and how I could save a lot of time and headaches, but nothing got done. I pointed out that we were pushing the limit of our Exchange Standard edition storage anyway, and the result was to tell people to clean out their mailboxes.

 

One weekday morning all the calls started coming in from people unable to get into their e-mail. The catastrophic failure I wanted to avoid had happened. After working on it until 5:00 the following morning, I got a call from my apologetic boss at 9:00 AM  to let me know it wasn't working as good as hoped. At 10:00 PM the second day the CEO stopped in and told me "I didn't realize how important the e-mail was to our business until these last few days."

 

Eventually I did get the server back up minus a large chunk of corrupt data, and the next morning I had approval for a new Exchange Server, hardware, operating system, and all. Now, I'm not going to advocate waiting for a catastrophic failure in your system and I'm sure not going to advocate causing a catastrophic failure to get the executive's attention, but there are things you can do to get the executive's attention and to call them to action. If done properly, they won't just approve your project, but they will buy-in to the project and do whatever is in their power to make the project a success (and they have a whole lot more in their power than you have in yours).

 

 

IT from the Executive Point of View

 

The executive is a business person. He runs and has a complete understanding of a business which is providing goods or services. From 30,000 feet he views his business like this:

1. A customer has a need and the business has a product or service that fills that need.
2. A marketing process occurs that brings the customer and the product or service closer together.
3. An operational process occurs that provides the customer with the product or service.
4. The customer leaves happy and the business makes money.

The executive has refined the details of these processes and built a successful business. The refinements really boil down to two things: making more money and spending less money otherwise known as increasing revenue and lowering the bottom line.  To make these refinements the executive gathers hard facts and makes an educated decision based on the risks and rewards. If flyers aren't bringing in business while newspaper ads are, the money for flyers might be reallocated to create more newspaper ads. If an order is taken and someone spends 3 minutes walking the picking list out to the warehouse, the executive might move the printer to the warehouse to make the process more efficient.

 

Technology is not a main part of the executive's well designed business process. Instead, IT provides tools that help facilitate the refinements to better serve the bottom line. Just like a delivery business wouldn't work without trucks, today's office doesn't run without a computer network. The executive knows this, and is willing to spend on technology, but someone (probably you) has to help him understand how the technology will impact his bottom line.

 

 

Getting to "Yes"

 

Now that you've seen what the executive is looking for you probably have a good idea what you need to do. No, I already told you, causing a catastrophic failure is not an option. I am referring of course to meeting the needs of the executive.

 

When meeting with the executive, they want to know the business impact. How will making this change improve the business process? How will it effect the bottom line? What are the risks and rewards of making the change to the business process?

 

Your goal here is to gain their trust that this project will positively influence the business. If the executive gives you his blind trust (and if so, why are you reading this article?) then your job is done. Most of us though have to supply proof that the project will benefit the company.

 

Showing them is better than telling them. The executive wants to see cold hard facts. They don't care to hear generalities, they want to see numbers. By sharing generalities, my Exchange server stayed at 5.5. That's because the executive saw me wanting to replace e-mail with e-mail. There was no benefit in that. If your computers are getting outdated and slowing down the end users, you have to show the executive numbers to back it up. They might not know a lot about RAM, but if you show them a report that includes the new computers with little memory usage and the older computers with high percentages of memory used they willl understand that (in fact, DGard Network Manager includes that exact report).

 

The executive is aware of risks and you have to disarm those risks. Replacing the Exchange Server could cause problems. He knows that, but doesn't know what those problems are. Be honest about possibilities. Include percents that you think they might happen. The executive knows that when changing the Exchange Server you could lose mailbox data, but if you let them know there is a 10% chance that you lose some data and a 0.5% chance that you lose all the data, and that rolling back to the old server mitigates the risk, the executive has a clearer picture to work with. (Note: Don't lose sleep over the percents, they're a guess. Be honest with your guess. It's accuracy will help you in your next project).

 

If the project is going to have a significant impact, the executive will want to be engaged in the decision making process, but doesn't have the time to deal with the details. In this case you want to engage the executive in the decision making process. Take some time and talk to a few of the people the project will effect. How is the task accomplished today? How long does it take them? What are the problems they face with it? Make sure you document the answers. When meeting with the executive, present them with the data. If the solution will save time, let them decide how much money that time is worth. Just be sure you share with them the time estimates from the people on the ground who do the work every day. Of course, if the expenses are common knowledge you can put them together ahead of time, but when dealing with the cost of an hour of a customer service rep's time, usually the executive has a rough estimate in his head.

 

Finally, make sure your project goes far enough. The executive has business problems, not technical problems. If your solution doesn't improve on that problem, chances are you won't get approval. So ask yourself, will the executive see your solution as replacing e-mail with e-mail, or will he see it as adding support and security? At the time, we had a spam problem. Today when looking back, I realize that just by adding spam filtering software into the quote I would have had a far better chance of getting approval. Why? While it would have added some to the cost, it would have added a lot to the value to the business process as sales people wouldn't be spending hours a week filtering out spam.

 

If you've looked at the project from the standpoint of it's impact on the business process, gathered hard data about the current situation through reporting or by engaging those who use the systems, and listed out an honest list of risks and rewards you should be prepared to gain the executive's trust and get approval and support for your IT project. But if you get turned down all is not lost.

 

After doing everything right the executive might deny the project anyway. Listen to the executive. What questions did he ask? Each of those questions had a right and wrong answer in his eyes, and you probably know which questions you didn't have the answer for. When possible "Let me look into that further" is a better answer than "No". If you aren't sure why the executive turned it down ask them. Usually they'll give you a general answer but it should at least tell you whether they feel the price is too high, it's too risky, or if they just don't think there's enough to be gained. If this is the case, review your solution and see if you can work some more value in it. Keep in mind though, if they deny it once they are more likely to deny it subsequent times unless you can show a truly large improvement. Why is that? They're busy and don't remember what the issues were, but they do remember that they said no and their time is valuable so they don't want to readdress it.


Conclusion

In this article I have shared with you how to get not just approval but also support from business executives for your IT projects:

• Executives have business problems not technical problems. In order to successfully get executive support you must first understand the business problem.
• Gain the executive's trust by beinig prepared and asking questions. Bring reports with hard facts. Engage the users within the business process. Be ready to engage the executive if the need arises.
• Be honest with risks and rewards. include percents and mitigating factors for the risks.
• Ensure you are solving the entire business problem you are dealing with. If not, add to your project the tools you need to solve the problem.
• Pay attention during the meeting. If you get denied the project, you need to know why so you can improve on it or at a minimum understand why the executive doesn't see value in it so that you can improve your approach next time around!

The Obligatory ... Who Are You?

Greetings!

Data Garden Technologies has burst on the scenes with the release of DGard Network Manager and received some wonderful reviews  right out of the gate. Our goal though isn't just to create great software, but also to be an active participant in the Information Technology community.

I have launched this blog, DGard In Motion, as an opportunity to share with you a behind the scenes look at what goes into our business process from my perspective, the President of the company. No conversation can get started though without a solid introduction.

My name is Josh Fruits. I founded Data Garden Technologies LLC with the idea of creating software that will improve the efficiency of Information Technology business processes. For me nothing beats that feeling of seeing the look on someone's face when I provide them with a solution to a time consuming task that takes the time out of it but still provides the same results. Since 1995 I have been providing those solutions. Starting as the eager young tech who was thrilled to build his first computer and happy to sit down with an Excel spreadsheet and work out the formula an end user required, to recent years when as Director of Information Technology I was working with the entire business process, and finding better ways to provide automation and save time and money in the process.

As an IT professional I have always felt it great to provide these solutions for the business, but I also saw a lot of areas within IT that could use efficiencies. What's worse than having to run all the way to the computer of the person at the other corner of the building to end task on an application only to get back to your desk with them calling to tell you it's frozen again? How bad is it to know someone needs a faster computer, but have the business executive deny your request because you can't show them "solid proof" that the computer is slow? Does it bother you that a bug shows up on only one machine and after spending 2 hours dealing with it (possibly over the course of several days) you find out that the problem is the computer is running the wrong version of the software? How many hours do you spend each week on these or similar issues?

Business managers assume all these frustrating issues add up to less than 20% of your time, while you know you're lucky to have 20% of your time to work on progressive projects. You know those projects... They're the projects you want to be working on, and that your boss wants to see done. They're the projects that make money for the company or save the company big money. But you can't work on them because you have to run back to Nancy's computer to end yet another task.

Business managers want you to be working on the progressive projects. You want to be working on the progressive projects. Not only will they make your job easier, not only will those projects save the company money, but they're also a whole lot more fun!

That is where we come in. DGard Network Manager is designed to provide the tools you need to take the time out of those day-to-day tasks and provide the data the executives want to see before making the decisons to purchase new equipment. The end result being, you spend less time on maintenance and more time on the projects that will save the business money.

When walking around the companies I worked for, I always kept an ear open for complaints. Being IT, I would hear a lot of them. Once I learned to listen, I mean truly listen, I started to interpret what wasn't being said rather than just hearing the words on the surface. What I realized was that most of those complaints have to do with a flaw or inefficiency in the process, and most were issues that could be improved on. I bring that same ear to Data Garden Technologies. I want to listen to what you want to see in the software or just what your biggest IT frustrations are. From my standpoint conversation leads to innovation. That's why we provide many avenues for feedback. The Community Forums are a great open forum for discussion of these topics. If something hits you while in the application you can click the Send Feedback button (upper right below the close button) and send us feedback. You can even send this feedback anonymously. Many other options for feedback are available and if we think of more, I'm sure they will be added fast!

One final principle I would like to share is I believe in building quality. I'm not a fan of a shortcut but am a big fan of making a complex task more efficient. This shows in the ease of managing software licensing in DGard Network Manager. Every IT professional I know (myself included) started tracking licensing on an Excel spreadsheet, and soon realizes that with the complexity of software licensing it just doesn't work. A lot of time was spent revising this feature, and finding the best method to make software licensing easy for you to track but still provide the complex options you require.

Built into the application is also a bug reporting module. If a bug does occur, the bug reporting module allows you to submit the relative information to us, optionally including your contact information so that we can keep you up-to-date on progress of fixing the issue. I understand there will be bugs in any software. We attempt to test as many scenarios as possible, but in the end there are going to be some scenarios we cannot predict. If a bug report is generated, it gets our highest priority. If you took the time to provide us this information, then I feel I owe it to you to make sure the issue is resolved and a fix released in a reasonable amount of time.

I know you probably aren't familiar with myself or Data Garden Technologies, but I hope this has provided a good introduction into who we are and who I am. I did not fill it full of a lot of marketing talk, but rather an honest commincation of the goals and expectations that I plan to hold this company to. If you haven't already, why not download our free 30-day trial. I mean, if you spent the time to read this whole post, you may as well spend 10 more minutes looking at the software, right?