Computers and Internet – Jasper Kraak

The Big Underrated Issue in Working from Home

Although the initial anxiety on COVID-19 has dropped by now, lots of Organizations are aware that Remote Work is here to stay. And we see lots of applicable Technologies that can facilitate that. But mostly just up to the point where we come to “Line of Business Applications” (LOBs).

Most of my Customers have a pretty traditional setup of their IT Infrastructure in a on premises data center. Active Directory, member Servers running (legacy) client/server applications in sometimes a 2-tier infrastructure. The Local Area Network (LAN) sits in the Corporate Building and all Desktops have connectivity to the local data center. Some of these Customers started with moving some workloads to the Cloud, mainly email that goes to Office 365. Adoption and moving more workloads or starting to use new things in the Office 365 platform is going very slow.

And now we need to work remote. Outside of the Corporate LAN. That poses several challenges. For the sake of the topic I refrain from looking at processes relying on physical paper although a lot of my Customers still do so. Of course, that makes the challenge of working remotely even more complex.

The Devices

In most Office buildings people have a Desktop, I think in most cases, even in this COVID-19 situation, people are not allowed to take that one home. And even if they are allowed, it will not be connected to the Corporate LAN, so work as usual is not an option. Also, things like Group Policies (including Security settings) will not be applied to those Desktops. Corporate laptops suffer the same unless they are decently prepared for remote work. Lots of people will work on their personal device from home, or even their family device, Organizations have to realize that those devices are totally out of control. Then, users will use anything trying to accomplish their tasks using any application they can find. That list is endless by now and 99% of it fits in the category of “Shadow IT”, corporate data can and will flow anywhere.

Business Applications

Organizations can use a lot of different applications throughout their companies, per department or division. Some of them will just be a standalone application, a lot of them will tie back into a backend in the datacenter. Are these Line of Business Applications accessible for Remote Workers? Can they be made accessible, in a secure and user-friendly way? Some protocols to connect to these backends are not that suitable to traverse Wide Area Network (WAN) connections, resulting in a bad user experience or very limited functionality. Some Organizations already have some of their Applications accessible from outside the Corporate LAN; email is probably the most common one.

In general, a Client device must be fully managed and sit as close to the Data Centre as possible, preferably over Corporate LAN Connections. Add to that, a decent Data Protection configuration. That is the ideal situation. Or is it?

There are numerous options to make LOB Applications accessible for use outside of the Corporate LAN, and they all have their pros and cons.

VPN into the Corporate LAN; applications may seem very unresponsive/low performance, a simple thing like browsing a File Server is hard over a VPN connection. Can the VPN-appliance on the Corporate LAN side and the Internet connection handle the load? Are the remote devices secure? Can the “client” side of the LOB Application be installed on the Remote Device?
DirectAccess. Only available for Windows 10 Enterprise domain member PC’s. Transparent end-user experience (Always on), very secure (IPSec), Certificate based authentication, fully managed PC through GPO. Can the Corporate LAN side appliance and the Internet connection handle the load?
Web-based applications. These are relatively easy to expose and authenticate to. The http(s) protocol is designed for WAN Connections.
Re-architect application to Web-bases applications.
Remote Desktop Services. The actual (virtual) Desktop runs within the Corporate LAN. Modern RDP Protocols (or the proprietary Citrix and VMware ones) are designed for WAN Connections. RDS or VDI Services are expensive, they require large amounts of resources: CPU, RAM, Storage, Networking. It also requires Infrastructure specialists and Application packaging specialists. Managing and maintaining a SBC environment requires a lot of IT Staff resources.
Move LOB Applications to the Cloud. Make them available and accessible from anywhere. For “legacy” applications there is still the issue about the distance between the client and the server though.
Move LOB Applications to the Cloud AND build SBC in the Cloud like Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD). WVD is not cheap (resource intensive) and almost just as hard to manage and maintain as an on-premises SBC Solution.
All the above scenarios leave the end user device as is, unmanaged and not secure (except for Direct Access). With Microsoft 365 (Office 365, EMS, Intune) we can manage any device (Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android), implement things like Multi Factor Authentication, Conditional Access, Information Protection, Threat Protection, and lots of telemetry to analyze that all. The Office 365 portion allows for Communication and Collaboration (Email, Teams, SharePoint). Implementing Microsoft 365 will make all of the above scenarios easier and more secure.

What we can see happening right now is a myriad of all these options, which is fine as long as there is a Strategy or Vision stating where it leads to. If a Strategy is lacking all we are left with is a pile of unmanageable “spaghetti”. In the meantime, all scenarios could be valid under some specific circumstances. There is not one right way of doing it.

My “prefect picture” would look like “All Applications deployed in the Cloud, preferably as SaaS or PaaS Solution. All Devices managed through M365”.

VDI – Will it ever end?

There is a lot of buzz about Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop, a VDI Solution running on Azure. Let me tell you this: VDI should not be around anymore, it should be buried, and the epitaph should read something like “Promising but never delivered”.

It’s not that I see no use cases for VDI Solutions, unfortunately we, as an IT Community, have allowed those use cases to still be out there. In 2007 I joined Qwise, a major multiple award-winning Citrix Partner in The Netherlands. I was a stranger there, I do Microsoft only. And seeing all the struggling, the complexity, the money absorbing craziness of all those efforts to give users access to their applications, it made me wonder if there was no better solution. And there was, and that solution is a valid one still in 2018. And I even think that a lot of people would agree me with me, and, we did nothing about it.

Already back then, in 2007, web applications were mature enough to regard them as a serious solution for the growing complexity of managing and maintaining the application landscape, both on local desktops and centralized desktops. My “SBC/VDI” colleagues agreed, but, they argued, we must also support the legacy and the traditional client-server applications. And now, almost 12 years later, I still hear that same argument. And so, we still need desktops and full-blown operating systems. To run legacy applications. And we did nothing about it, no vision, no strategy. Software vendors, software buyers, consultants.

Of course, that is not completely true, I really love the Office WebApps and plenty of legacy apps are now WebApps. They offer a good portion of functionality for most users. But still, the battle on the VDI market continues, where we now do “serverless” in the cloud, doing “who needs a server OS”. We are afraid Windows7 becomes the new Windows XP but Microsoft’s WVD allows for Windows7, even offering 2 years of extended support. Allowing us all to not move forward. Keeping the 2007 eco-system alive, making some bucks. But keep in mind, we are probably end customers of our professional customers so who are we kidding?

Just saying……

Some Email Etiquette, maybe I can start liking email again?

We need agreement on an “email etiquette” document, so we can hold each other accountable. Without agreement nobody is accountable. And that just doesn’t work. Here are some thoughts of what should be in such a document.

Email has a couple of drawbacks in modern organizations. A lot of corporate information sits isolated in user mailboxes and is not accessible for the organization. The speed at which we currently work, dropping emails all day, without wondering how it will be received at any point in time by the recipient(s). The push mechanism of email maybe good in some situations, when it comes to sharing information a pull mechanism would be way more effective. The tools are available for that. We just need to be aware of the ineffectiveness of email for the sole purpose of sharing information. People tend to hide behind email, avoiding responsibility. The email is sent, it is of my plate. Disastrous for Organizations. Furthermore, emails are often not written (or read for that matter) with the necessary attention. Resulting in unnecessary back and forth (group) emails.

The primary accountability lies with the sender, including replying, of any email. The sender must be aware of several things when composing a message, filling out the “To” and “CC” fields, including the “Reply/Reply All” button, applying other marks like “High Priority” or “Ask for Read Conformation”, using Distribution Lists and determining the Subject line. While filling out the: “To” and “CC” Fields, so called MailTips can appear. They have an important function. If someone is on vacation maybe it is not such a great idea to send that person this email right now. We all know what our mailboxes look like when we return from vacation. Some common sense in timing is also appreciated by your customers, partners and colleagues. Friday afternoon is not an elegant time to put people to work. It may be nice to have it of your weekly plate, for the organization it doesn’t work. Senders must realize they consume time of the recipients. So far, not even mentioned the content of the body.

Let’s start with the last, the body. The intention of communication must be clear. It starts with relating to the common interest and understanding you and your recipient(s) have. When steps in a process go as expected is there any need to confirm these steps? Maybe only just the last one? Email by exception or of course, when agreed upon or requested. In general, the results of a completed process should be visible in one of the systems we all have access to (pull information).

Most emails are about a request, you want somebody to do something. Be specific and to the point. Can you please do this by then. Maybe you could add you need a confirmation by a specific time. Not by default though. Even on complex matters or questions, the finishing lines of an email contain a request, also as recap. Announcements should not be made over email, we have better platforms for that. Emails are conversations and you always want to forward the conversation. In a reply, just a “no” is not good enough, it does not forward the conversation. No, I cannot do it at the requested time or as requested, but I can do it by then or I can do it like this or let’s ask another colleague to handle it. This applies to Meeting Requests as well. Being specific becomes even more important when emailing to multiple persons. Who is going to do what by when? Make clear who is responsible for what by when. Be to the Point, stick to that Point, be accurate, precise and complete. Make sure the conversation moves forward, the sender is largely responsible for that. Or, the sender can stop the conversation mentioning something like “replies not necessary”.

The Fields of an email: To, CC, Subject. Again, the sender is responsible for avoiding unnecessary emails. The “To” field should only contain those persons to whom you have a request to make. No more. Putting in others for “For your Information” purposes just means you are not relating to the common interest you have with those persons. Try to minimize on the number of persons in the “To” Field, it also has a great impact on the possible mail storm when people start hitting “Reply All”.

The CC field is probably the most outdated option since working with computers. In the type-writer era we made Carbon Copies to file somewhere in a cabinet so one could look them up afterwards. Pull information in the old glory paper days. Folks, in any email application a copy is filed in the Sent Items folder. Absolutely no need to stash that Carbon Copy in other people’s Inboxes too. It’s also kind of degrading the position of the person in the CC Field, ah, well, you’re just not important enough to be in the “To” field, but I think maybe you want to know about this, but please note you’re at the side line so stay out of the conversation. Plenty of people made themselves email rules for incoming emails when they are in the CC Field. Try to eliminate that Field, you know you can hide it in Outlook? Oh, ah, you CC the Manager! Hoping that that will make your request more important for the actual recipients. That is just covering up, clearing yourself from all responsibility if things do not move forward. It’s also damaging the trust relationship you should have with the recipient, you’d better do it, the Manager already knows you should. Keep the managers out of it. When escalating something, the Manager should be in the “To” field. Last thing on the “CC” Field, all recipients in there are included when someone hits “Reply All”. I’m not even going into the BCC Filed, I hope you get that.

The Subject line is the first thing recipients see when they receive an email. So, it better makes sense, right? It creates the listening of and the context for the recipient. People who receive (large amounts of) emails will select the order of opening emails based on what’s in the Subject. Or even apply rules based on the Subject. Recipients expect the body of an email to have something to do with the Subject, use it wisely. If, while moving forward the conversation, the topic changes slightly, you can append something to the Subject of the original thread. Senders should realize that.

Special Markups. Request a Delivery Receipt is an old remnant of the ages when connectivity was unreliable and slow. It only states that the receiving servers have put the email in the appropriate mailbox(es). Don’t use it. Request a Read Receipt. There is a huge difference between opening an email, glancing at it, reading it or acting on it. The Sender will never know which one it is when receiving such a confirmation. So, what’s the point Sender? Wishful thinking that recipients will actually read your message? High Priority. Senders, please be careful here, your High Priority is likely not the High Priority of the recipient(s). What intention does that red flag fulfil in your communication? What is your expectation? Is it in your common interest or just yours?

Finally, we get to the “Send” button. Did you know you can schedule emails? Again, sending out a bunch of requests on Friday afternoon after 4 PM will probably not yield much result. On the contrary, you might spoil the recipients’ weekends. Well done. Effective emailers will not push the send button immediately. Go over your own writing at least once. A good practice is to just close it and re-open it 30 minutes later from your drafts Folder. Read it again, maybe adjust something and then send it out. Do not call or message recipients telling them you are going to send them an email. Do not call or message recipients telling them you have just send them an email. People live in their Inbox, popups, phone notifications, smart watch notification; don’t you think they’ll know?

Receiving and replying to emails. There must be agreement on a timeframe. We reply within 24 hours or something like that. Of course, a reply can also say, I am not able to do that now, but I will take care if it by then. But let the sender know so she or he can forward other relating conversations and actions. A first reaction response is by default a defensive one. That is the nature of people. It also tends to be emotional. We all know this “What!!!??? Reply All, type like crazy, Send!!! Do not hit the “Reply” or “Reply All” button too quickly. Give it 30 minutes or so. When the sender has stated by when an answer is expected you should respect that timeframe. When replying you become a Sender so all the above applies. Forward the conversations, relate to the common interest, be specific in answering the question(s) or following up on the communicated action(s). People tend to use the “Reply All” button automatically. For the Organization or the issue at hand, that is probably not the best option. Take the extra couple of mouse clicks, just hit “Reply” and add just a couple of those from the initial email. Have some consideration and compassion for your recipients. Please note that email is not a suitable medium for discussion. Murphy’s law applies and someone will not reply to the last email in the thread ….. and then there were two. There are better platforms to have discussions. As mentioned before, email should not be used for announcements. But if a sender did that anyway, you should refrain from the “Reply All” button period. A good exercise would be to hide the “Reply All” button for a while, after some time you won’t even miss it. Or you can send emails on which the “Reply All” button becomes greyed out for recipients.

Last but not least, always, always be respectful and polite. Not in the last place because we all know that emails could end up anywhere, in anyone’s mailbox.

Alternatives:

Announcements should be made on Yammer
Discussions belong in Teams
Information sits in SharePoint/Teams/CRM/LOB/ERP where it belongs
Quick Questions sit in Skype/IM
How about picking up the Phone
How about walking up to a colleague

So, let’s do ourselves, our colleagues, our customers, our partners a huge favor and take some of these points.

Maybe we can start liking email again, if and when effectively used. Just saying……

Knowledge is Key – Learning is crucial

“You can’t do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow”.

When it comes to IT in Organizations something must shift, if not, it will be like the quote. In my opinion the main source lies with learning, or better said, the lack of learning. There is no organizational conversation on learning as an ongoing process. Best efforts get stuck at the level of “training as needed” and way too often even that gets stuck on the “no time” and/or “no budget” argument.

I pointed out in several other blogposts that the state of current IT is the biggest stop for leveraging modern technologies in organizations. And by that we create so called “shadow IT”, employees will find their own way of trying to do their job, with or without Company IT: Gmail, drop box, WhatsApp, Facebook, flash drives, byod. And, we can do nothing about it on the short term. But we know, lessons learned (?), what the source is. IT is not up to it. IT has barely the knowledge to keep yesterday’s systems running (as we were not learning 5 years ago either) so embracing new technologies while juggling with 7 old balls already? Right, I don’t think so. By the way, when I say “IT”, I do not specifically mean IT Department or IT People, I mean all people and processes that work with and through computers. Managers using a pocket calculator while working in Excel? C’mon!

What will happen if we do nothing? Well, the probable almost certain future is that is stays like this. We came up to here and now like this, it will probably get us through the next 5 years as well (hopefully). So organizations will just keep throwing away money because, hey, hardware and software must be paid. And we’ll just keep on not using what we paid for. Now that’s fine economics, isn’t it? And the only reason that that might work out is that the competition is in exactly the same position. Having the tools while nobody knows how to use them because nobody told them.

Or, we can transform the conversations on the place of IT within the organization. The relevance of IT and how to finally get to the point where IT is a business enabler (Gartner). A good starting point for shifting that conversation is asking the question “What happens with our business when we unplug everything for 72 hours”? Suddenly everybody realizes the relevance of IT for the organization. Now the time has come to take that on seriously.

We’ll have to start creating learning plans. Long term learning plans in a way that ongoing learning will be the standard conversation. Long term learning plans, 3 to 5 years, get less specific as they sit further into the future, we do not know what the future beholds. But by making them nevertheless, time and budget can be allocated and more important, it’s all about transforming that conversation throughout the organization, all layers and all departments deeply involved.

Imagine what would be possible then. On collaboration, communication, productivity, total cost of ownership, return on investment, security, personal development, employee loyalty, customer service and efficiency. The list is endless. Put it in like specific measurable results and you’ll be sorry you did not think of this 10 years ago.

Happy learning!

Office 365 and Bandwidth – Adoption to Cloud Computing

Where I live, in The Caribbean, Office 365 is available in most countries, on most islands. However, customers have concerns about bandwidth. So this is my second Blog Post in the context of Adopting to Cloud Computing.

There are some really great options to reduce bandwidth usage but that touches strongly on end user behavior (not that I mind, I’m a huge advocate of serious end user training before moving to the cloud). Of course, working with Office 365 requires a decent Internet Connection at the workplace and maybe even decent 4G (LTE) coverage for the road warriors. You do not need huge speed to be able to do your work. Let’s have a look at what users can do to work effectively in the Cloud without consuming too much bandwidth.

Mail: the first thing people do when coming into the office is check their email (actually, it’s even worse, the first thing people do when they wake up is check their email on their Mobile device to see if there was someone who mailed in the middle of the night). Outlook Web App is so powerful nowadays, I tend to say “who needs Outlook”. There is even an “offline availability” feature. Outlook has the option to not cache emails on the local computer. In either case there is hardly any data flowing over the network. And of course all tips and tricks I wrote down in my Blog post “Mail Senders, Stop doing that” are valid to reduce bandwidth through email.

Lync: now that people are already pretty familiar with the possibility of Video Calls, in a lot of Business conversations the video bit has hardly any contribution. It’s really about awareness and education to make users understand how to use Lync/Skype wisely for conferencing. In Desktop or Application sharing beware what and how to share. It’s better to stage PowerPoint presentations, it is better if participants in the call use Office Online to be on the same page in any Office document during the call. Prepare a Lync meeting like you prepare a real meeting. IM and Presence do not require a great deal of bandwidth.

Yammer: when wisely used, Yammer can eliminate lots of email and even lots of Lync calls. It’s a perfect platform for discussion and information sharing.

SharePoint: for me, SharePoint is the equivalent of Office Online. Work in the browser whenever I can. Using Office Online means no data flows over the network. No downloading and uploading of Office files, they stay put on SharePoint. This is really something users need to get used to. We are all SO used to working in the local installed Office versions. Deadly for working effectively with SharePoint is the use of Windows Explorer: use the browser!!!

OneDrive for Business: of course it’s great we have unlimited storage in OneDrive for Business now but be very careful on Syncing all that content, you do not have unlimited storage on your NotebookJ. And of course Syncing uses Bandwidth…..and it uses Windows Explorer. Luckily in the very near future we can setup “selective syncing”. Personally, I sync nothing. I am always online, if I’m not, I don’t even bother to switch on my PC. I am a road warrior, I travel 50% of my time, spending a lot of time on airports and airplanes and even without syncing I can always do some work when offline. Just a matter of planning.

Office Online: use it! Office Online is THE best thing when it comes to reducing usage of bandwidth. Put your stuff in SharePoint Online and edit/view in Office Online. Brilliant!

All of this is no IT Pro Rocket science, it has nothing to do with Migrating to the Cloud. This is all about adoption of end users to use the rich features of The Online Collaboration Suite wisely. That takes time so organizations looking to moving to the Cloud should start at least the awareness process and start planning the necessary Training. Manage expectations when moving to the Cloud.

Working with Microsoft Surface Pro 3

Selffie of Surface Pro 3

At Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, July 14 – July 17 in Washington DC, they offered the Surface Pro 3 with a discount of some $ 300,-. I bought one after stumbling back and forth trying to decide for 2 days. It’s still a lot of money.

But oh joy! This is really an amazing piece of hardware (and I’m pretty spoiled when it comes to hardware). I’m not going to put in all specs, there are plenty of places where you can find those. It’s about experience. The first experience after unboxing is its weight, it will probably float (but I’m not going to try that). It’s much lighter than my Surface Pro, maybe not when you compare specs, but it’s about the experience. Probably you’ve seen the picture somewhere of Surface3 compared with an iPhone for thickness, which shows is exactly how thin it is. How the h*ll do they get all that stuff in a light and thin device like this.

Plug it in and switch it on! Surfaces boot really fast, so does this one. No need to get a cup of coffee first. Great screen resolution! Go through to necessary configuration steps and ready to go. Configure the Pen for the screen, Stream a copy of Office Professional Plus from Office 365 and install a couple of my favorite Apps, run Windows Update. Playtime … or worktime! This device does both. I think I’m out of the 3-devices world. My Surface Pro 3 and my Lumia 925 will do. I travel really a lot so that is a big win.

I bought myself 2 extra’s, the Surface Mouse and a Miracast Receiver. The latter allows to project your screen wireless to any HDMI screen, beamer or projector. Did my first presentation with that yesterday. Just walk across the room, Surface Pro 3 in the hand and do my demo, my presentation and white boarding in PowerPoint and OneNote and the Pen… boy, impressive. And not just for me, imagine what my customer wants now…… At home, stream Netflix movies to my television. Nice technologyJ.

For work, I use my Administrative accounts form a Virtual Machine and Hyper-V runs smoothly on the Surface Pro 3. The type-cover is a bit bigger than the one on my Surface Pro and certainly the mouse pad area is works much better. Of course I’m typing this on my new “machine”.

My impression after one week: totally terrific! Welcome to the 2-devices world. No compromise from a tablet point of view and no compromise from a laptop point of view.

Windows 8.1 Hyper-V Networking and Enhanced Session Mode

As a good Administrator should, I have two user accounts. One as an ordinary user and one Admin Account. We have all our Services running in the Microsoft Cloud and of course I do not want to fill out my credentials every time I open my browser or do stuff in Private Browser sessions. Although tearing it down, we still have some servers Onprem and to access those I need a VPN Connection to our Cisco ASA appliance (I live on Aruba and our office sits on Curacao). It took me some trial and error to get things going…… with my Virtual Admin Machine.

@Home I have a simple Wi-Fi set up and as we all know by now, running a Virtual Admin Machine just over a Wireless Network Adapter is no great success. The proper way to set that up is as follows:

In Hyper-V Manager, create a new Internal Switch:

Assign the Network Adapter of the VM to that Internal Switch:

Go to Network and Sharing center on the Host, click properties on the Wireless Adapter and hit the Sharing Tab and share it with the Internal Switch:

At this point the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client (3.1) on the Host refuses to connect over the Wi-Fi connection because the adapter is being shared. Bummer. There is probably a workaround for that but I want my Admin stuff not on the Host but on the VM. So this is just a note.

I installed the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility client in the VM and tried to connect. Bummer……. The client refuses to connect out of a RDP Session. I used my favorite Search Engine:

There is a client config file on the local machine -> not so
In the ASDM Console connected to the Cisco ASA Appliance there is Node called “Client Profile Settings -> not so
Both the ASDM Console and the ASA OS are outdated, downloading the latest version -> (Cisco) accountname + pw -> not documented…..

So, I tried starting at the other end, the VM. How come “RDP”? Am I not connected to the Console in the “Virtual Machine Connection”? My favorite Search Engine again: A “cool” feature of Windows 8.1 Hyper-V is “Enhanced Session Mode”. By default this is set to “Enabled”. It allows for RDP-like experience in the Virtual Machine, redirection of drives etc. There are three places where you should look:

And in the Virtual Machine Connection Window:

Unchecking the “Enhanced Session” in the Virtual Machine Connection did the trick. The Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client now connects through my Shared Wi-Fi Connection!

All in a days work………

Mail Senders! Stop doing that!

There is a lot of buzz on Mail lately. Germany and France are actually working on prohibiting replying to work mail after working hours (not a word on sending work mail though….). People write a lot of tips, software vendors create a lot of tools for managing full and cluttered Inboxes. In the “modern” world work becomes just another activity during a day, in a lot of companies the management style is still 9 to 5.

From a working perspective two worlds are collapsing. If you work from 9 to 5 it seems arguable that you’re done at 5. But now that work is being separated from a location it also seems weird it should still be from 9 to 5. Sure, there’s a lot of jobs that require being “in the office” or “at work”. Those are not the situations I’m talking about. When I delivered an Exchange Training let’s say 5 years ago, I always said, the first thing people do when they come to the office is opening their mail. Nowadays I say, the first thing people do when they wake up is checking their mail and the last thing they do before they go to bed is checking their mail. We don’t use separate devices for work and private stuff, all sits on that Smart Phone/Tablet/Laptop.

Bosses (old style managers) like to have their workforce at the office, thinking people will be more productive when they are being monitored like that. Well, statistics prove differently. But then, what to do with working hours? I had the luck (or I created the circumstances) that I get paid for a JOB, not for an hour of my time. An hourly salary is not working anymore in a lot of situations. If I get the JOB done between 11 PM and 5 AM, the JOB is done and I get paid. Sure I have meetings and stuff at regular working times and, I get a lot of work done over the weekend as well.

I needed this conversation to get back to the introduction, prohibiting people to do work mail after hours. So, the after hours is done with, there is no such thing as after hours. Unless of course, you have an agreement on that with your coworkers. Part two of the introduction is on keeping your Inbox clean. And that is where the whole discussion sets of in the wrong direction. At least half (in my opinion it’s closer to 80%) of the source of full and cluttered mailboxes lies not with the recipient but with the sender. And we just keep on working on the results of that: tools and tips and tricks for managing that cluttered overflowed mailbox.

So, now we have look at senders. When I look at the mail in my work inbox I can’t help frowning over this very incomplete list of characteristics:

No subject or worse, a reply to an old mail with a totally different subject
Misspelling, grammar errors
Unfocused, not to the point
Vague questions, no context
No proposal for when feedback is required or if feedback is required
CC and probably BCC to “whoever it might concern”
Here you go, it’s of my chest (I’m not responsible anymore)
Everything is urgent (deadlines? Hey, nobody is going to die)
Lots of emotions and opinions
Hasty
Receipt/read confirmation to be send back
FYI

And then when you see the reply (in case of a mail thread with multiple people involved), that this list could be even much longer. People respond with their primary reaction which is “defensive”. Therefore incomplete, full of opinions. Oh, I understand, don’t get me wrong. I really have to chop of my hands every now and then for not hitting the reply ALL button and vomit back in all those mailboxes. If you hit the reply button, don’t send it out immediately, keep it in your drafts and have another look at it an hour later; you will smile and rewrite the whole thing.

So here’s just some tips and tricks for managing your Outbox (and, as a result you also manage other people’s inboxes)

Don’t react primarily, but responsible
Put in a clear Subject
Break with the tradition of CC and Distribution Lists
Forward the conversation
Be accurate, complete and to the point
Don’t be opinionating and righteous; mail is a bad platform for discussions
Use your spelling checker
Ask for an action from the recipient and say by when
Ask for a reply (and by when) OR say “NO RESPONSE REQUIRED”
Have it clear in your organization within what timeframe mails should be answered
NEVER call “hey, I just send you an email” or even worse “hey, I’m going to send you an email” (how stupid)
NEVER send a mail with just “Thanks” or “Okay” (it does not forward the conversation)
Don’t just reject a request, offer a different proposal/solution (forward the conversation)
Make a contribution, always
Do not ask for read confirmation (it only confirms the mail was opened, not read…)

Now I hear you think “I do not have time for this”. Then you MAKE time for this! If YOU start doing this, your coworkers will follow and internal mail will be much easier to deal with. Within a month you’ll do it like this automatically and you’ll save yourself and your coworkers lots of time and energy. Mail does not have to a burden.

People who know me or read my blogs every now and then, know that I am a big opponent of mail period. I believe in PULL mechanisms for information and not in PUSH mechanisms. Reality is of course that I’m also guilty of being an ordinary mail user but at least I have choice: I can also be an extraordinary mail user.

Now YOU choose

Happy mailing!

Core IO Assessments and Learning

Lately I have been doing about 10 Core Infrastructure Optimization Assessments for our customers. I do not think the outcomes are surprising, we all know we still spend most of our time “Fighting Fires”, which stands for “Basic” in the Core IO Maturity model.

I created a customized Core IO questionnaire (thanks to Microsoft’s Eduardo Kassner) which I leave at the customer after a presentation for the whole IT Team and hopefully also some non-tech decision makers. That presentation starts with an explanation of the why and what on the Core IO Assessment. Some talks on Total Cost of Ownership, Return On Investment and Capital Expenditure versus Operational Expenditure. We do some work on road mapping, creating a context for the now mostly ad-hoc type of Projects. I touch a little bit on the Business Productivity Infrastructure Optimization (BP IO) model as well. Customers think of this presentation as very valuable, a new way of looking at their own infrastructure and new ways of working in and with that model. And they really get that they are sitting at “Basic” and that there is nothing wrong with that. It gives them a way to move forward.

The second part of my presentation, hey, I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer, is on Training and Certification. The conversation goes like:

There is tons or millions invested in hardware and software
Business struggles with agility, availability, costs
IT sits at “Basic” in their Core IO (and BP IO), everybody is fighting fires
…… How Come…….?

Then I make a really blunt statement, one you should not make without having created a context like this. IT Staff is not qualified for the job. Yes, you heard me correctly IT STAFF IS NOT QUALIFIED FOR THE JOB!!! End users are not qualified to use powerful tools like Office, Exchange and SharePoint.

We treat Server 2012 R2 Domain Controllers like Novell 3.12 Servers, we treat Word 2013 like a typewriter and we use SharePoint 2013 as a Fileserver. So we buy the stuff and we’re not using it. I call that stupid, really very stupid.

I invite you to count the total number of RELEVANT certifications in your IT Department. I invite you to count the number of end users that attended an OS or Office training recently. And then you have an answer to why you are all “Fighting Fires” and sit at “Basic” in your Core IO and BP IO.

The first next IT Projects should be on Training and Certification. And see what happens with the results of Core IO and BP IO Assessments. All the hardware and software you need is already there!

Happy Learning!

Move Forward; Carving out the Future

I ran into two articles this week on which I would like to comment. Why do things not move faster in Enterprise IT is the common denominator in the two articles.

Sorry for my non-Dutch readers, the first article was posted in “IT-Executive” with the title “Automating IT is better than Outsourcing”. The second article is from “Business Insider” and carries the title “Our Obsession with Efficiency is Killing Innovation”. Let me put down a quote from each of them:

Companies spend millions trying to integrate legacy systems and they keep running slow and unimaginable inefficient systems. On top of that, those systems do not reflect business processes and put a big strain on IT putting out fires.
We are focused on the wrong metrics. Our universities are training entrepreneurs—and investors — to focus on fast and efficient return on capital investment. Efficiency innovations provide return on investment in 12-18 months. Empowering innovations take 5-10 years to yield a return.

That looks an awful lot like an ever spinning wheel with only two ways to stop it:

Break out of it
Don’t break out of it and die

Simple but true, in my opinion. I’m stuck in there as well, being both economist and IT Professional. But the second quote gives me a direction in which I was already heading. Establish long term relationships with customers, doing roadmap sessions and stop thinking in “quick wins” only. How I hate Quick Wins! But it’s a magic word…… and, it’s only a conversation. And conversations can be created.

Can we have both Quick Wins AND long term Wins! Of course we can! But in order for that happen we should start focusing on the latter and make sure we come up with significant spin-offs regarding the former. I call it future-driven projects and that is quite the opposite of how we normally run IT Projects, those are mostly passed based; we have an issue and it needs to be resolved, we have to get rid of that legacy system. Passed Based.

A major value of future-driven projects is that the likelihood of success is bigger. Let me explain that. Passed Based projects need agreement of all stakeholders and technical possibilities, and if there is one thing hard to get among IT people and decision makers it is agreement.

Projects then follow a very thin line to keep agreement (lengthy, inflexible Project Plans) in place, the agreement gets more important than the results, meaning al lot of paperwork full of agreement, meetings to re agree on the agreement, planning and re-planning. Actually, agreement is scope, and we tend to not manage scope (agreement) but only time and money. The only agreement left is time and money. And then that thin line breaks. IT projects do not have high success rates.

Future driven projects, however, only need alignment on a vision (or whatever word you would like to use here), of no more than two pages. The important word here is “Alignment” which is very distinct from “Agreement”. The next step is to plan backwards from that future to the present, getting things in place to fulfill that future. And the funny thing is, we all know how to do that, we all do it when we plan and book our holiday. We make sure everything is in place to be able to leave on the date set. Holiday planning has a very high success rate.

So, in the drawing we have a time line and the thinner blue lines indicate the uncertainty of the conditions but we are still heading in the right direction. We might end up somewhere between the two blue arrows. In the course of time we can adjust to the conditions whereas in passed based projects the conditions are always just constraints. If we know what has to be in place in 2016, we also know what has to be in place in 2015 to fulfill that. If we know what has to be in place in 2015 we also know what has to be in place in 2014, and so on. Planning back from the future to now, we know exactly what to do and what to start with. There is plenty of space to squeeze in some quick wins as well! No deadlines but milestones, which sounds much better from a motivational point of view.

Looking back at the first quote, the spending of millions, in this model we completely abandon the path of legacy compatibility because we only look at the future. Also, looking at the second quote, we create a future in which there is room for the so called empowering innovations. Sounds like a win-win situation to me!