Compliance as Byproducts of Good Practices
What is all the griping about? You hear it from CIO’s, Ron Paul, technology people, managers. . . Compliance is a burden, all this documentation, all these processes, how can we keep up and make a profit, how can we compete? Every time I have ever been involved with an audit, it seems as if someone is always asking me to print something to prove we did something, that we didn’t, or looking for some document they never gave me time to write in the first place. Every audit is seen as its own quest of rules, and special information requirements, will this pass SAS 70 is this SOX compliant?
The time has finally arrived where IT is becoming more like a profession akin to accounting. The two are certainly linked, and it only makes sense. Just about anything that happens in a company can be traced electronically. With SOX, and especially the Newly Revised Rules of Civil Procedure, information transactions are finally being given the weight they have always intrinsically had. Imagine for a second an accountant trying to convince an IRS auditor that it was too hard to keep track of everything the company purchased with last years budget. That’s not your business; this is a free market, leave us alone, how we spend our money is our concern, BUTT OUT! Incidentally Ron Paul argued in favor of this in his April 2005 statement to the House of Representatives. This is exactly what the compliance detractors are doing right now, its too hard BUTT OUT!
Mind if I BUTT IN? My support of compliance does not come from any deep down desire or love of more government regulation (that would be down right strange). I support the movement toward more transparency because it forces companies to run their information technology processes like they should have always been run. It also forces upper management to actually face the decisions they cram down on IT departments. Instead of making an un-realistic request, disappearing, and getting mad when it doesn’t appear a few months later, they are forced to sit down, plan, budget, understand (at least on a high level) what it is they are asking, and how they are going to achieve it, and finally sign off on it.
In the long run (and probably, not so long), companies that are “burdened” by these compliance standards, will ultimately enjoy a competitive advantage over the companies that Ron Paul mentioned in his 2005 argument that de-listed from public exchanges because they didn’t want this transparency. As a programmer, before and after the push to standards, the most significant changes I have seen are better planning, better documentation, a surge in training to grasp industry recommended practices such as source and revision control, and some actual control on the amount of ridiculous, “do this now requests” that over time, render a system an un-supportable, un-reliable, production nightmare. Now if you tell me to break something, you have to sign off on it, and I am glad.
Compliance should not be the focus, but the byproduct of good IT practices. Knowing who has access to a system, what the system does, what changes have been made, when and why, should not be seen as a burden, anymore than keeping good financial accounting records. In a similar manner, looking at the utilization of money in an organization helps a company to determine how to allocate resources to maximize financial profit. IT systems should be seen in exactly the same way, and keeping good records should not be scary, but a way to succeed. Compliance may be the catalyst, but the outcome is a more controlled environment, an environment that is cheaper to run, and one that can be leveraged to accommodate new opportunities, because it is more readily understood. Just about every recommendation put forth by Cobit can be linked with a byproduct of a long existing best practice. Difficulty implementing these recommendations is most often the byproduct of not following these best practices. So the burden really relies in adopting best practices. Passing audits and adhering to compliance regulations should be nothing more than collecting and presenting information acquired while following good, common sense, IT practices.
So I think the complaining about adopting better practices is like a child crying because his mother has asked him to pick up his toys. The more of a mess he has made, the more he will cry as there is more work for him to do. It’s understandable that the child made a mess, after all he was just playing. But now its time to clean up, and in the process, grow up a little.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Working From Home - An Excuse To Manage
Recently a lot of attention has been seen in the media about home workers, and companies making the decision to allow workers to work at home or virtual field offices because of high gas prices. Gas prices will rise and fall, and before too long cars may be running on an efficient and cheap renewable energy source making long commutes to and from work a non-issue. But something is definitely changing and once it starts, there is no going back. That change is the work from home revolution.
Technology has made working from home not only a possibility but an efficient means giving companies a competitive advantage over their rivals that refuse to accept the perceived idea of loosing control. If eliminating the need for large buildings, parking space, increased insurance premiums, day care, etc. . . Is not enough for a company to consider allowing workers to work from home , consider the fact that wages and salaries will most likely have to exceed those offered by companies that allow employees to work from home.
Many large companies are already reaping the savings benefits of having their employees work from home offices at least part of the time. But can it really help, small to mid-sized companies with say 4 -200 employees at a given location? I say that not only will it benefit small - mid sized companies, if implemented correctly, will revolutionize their business and the way they manage it.
Business owners and managers often shudder to think of employees working from "virtual offices". The concern often is whether their employees will actually work while on the clock. Another big concern is whether the employees will be available when needed. Hiding behind these concerns are larger issues (there almost always are). Before you can effectively manage (the keyword is effectively) there are few prerequisites with almost any business. The first of these prerequisites is knowing what is expected of employees, what output does your business seek to gain by hiring these employees. The second prerequisite is how to effectively measure these outputs. The third is how to use these measurements to facilitate good business decisions. These concepts are not by any means speculation, or new, inversely these concepts are underlying patterns visible in virtually every management theory be it Six-Sigma, lean manufacturing, agile, management by objectives, and many more.
This background leads me to the point of this article, which is allowing employees to work from virtual offices should be approached from a much broader angle. The vision should be, making the business and its processes efficient enough that it allows for employees to work from virtual offices. Put away the concerns for a minute and consider the benefits, which include tremendous cost savings, increased incentive to employees that wish to work from home, filtering out employees that are slackers (firing the ones who don’t work and building a team that does), often reductions in insurance premiums, office infrastructure, etc . . . Based on those factors the decision is simple, now when we consider the down sides, the decision becomes more complex. This is where the focus should begin, and these issues should be addressed as efficiency barriers that must be overcome.
Unfortunately there is no easy button when it comes to reaping rewards from a home worker policy. Making the business efficient enough where employees can be measured by the merit of their work instead of the amount of time per day they can sit in a chair, is no easy feat. It is never as easy as a training class, or purchasing some shrink wrapped workflow or CRM (customer relationship management) software, no project manager with an impressive resume is going to come in and work magic overnight. Your business had to evolve (and hopefully continues to do so), and so shall your processes leading it to a place where there are good data, good decisions, good employees, and ultimately good profits.
Efficiency is built from trial and error, the ability to change, recognizing when to "cut and run". You are not managing employees, you are managing the processes and resources used by the business to generate profits. If you do not know how to measure your performance, you may be deferring failure. This seems like simple advice but over and over again I see companies that are sitting on a tremendous reduction in operating costs they refuse to pull out from where the sun doesn’t shine, in order to hold on to archaic ideas. They measure performance by flawed indicators like timesheets, promote the wrong people for the wrong reason, bring down morale by implementing rules sought to control only their worst employees, over hiring, under hiring, hiring the wrong people and putting them in the wrong place. When you get to the point where you can effectively and accurately use your data to make strategic decisions, and analyze your strengths and weaknesses, you have come to a point where the 20,000 SQFT office stacked with copy machines, cubicles, break rooms, etc . . becomes nothing more than fat that needs to be trimmed.
Designing a business that dominates competition is going to take much more than the traditional means many are used to. We are now in warp speed when it comes to change, local competitors, global competitors, competitors online, are all positioning themselves to take profits from you. Getting over the urge to "control" can be difficult. Hopefully you will realize this before your competition does, and offers their service at a cost 80 percent below yours because they don’t outlay 40K a month in some people warehouse located in an office park, guzzling electricity at an ever increasing cost keeping 20,000 SQFT a constant 72 degrees (you get the point) . Oh and I almost forgot to mention, hiring your best employees because they let them work from home.
Technology has made working from home not only a possibility but an efficient means giving companies a competitive advantage over their rivals that refuse to accept the perceived idea of loosing control. If eliminating the need for large buildings, parking space, increased insurance premiums, day care, etc. . . Is not enough for a company to consider allowing workers to work from home , consider the fact that wages and salaries will most likely have to exceed those offered by companies that allow employees to work from home.
Many large companies are already reaping the savings benefits of having their employees work from home offices at least part of the time. But can it really help, small to mid-sized companies with say 4 -200 employees at a given location? I say that not only will it benefit small - mid sized companies, if implemented correctly, will revolutionize their business and the way they manage it.
Business owners and managers often shudder to think of employees working from "virtual offices". The concern often is whether their employees will actually work while on the clock. Another big concern is whether the employees will be available when needed. Hiding behind these concerns are larger issues (there almost always are). Before you can effectively manage (the keyword is effectively) there are few prerequisites with almost any business. The first of these prerequisites is knowing what is expected of employees, what output does your business seek to gain by hiring these employees. The second prerequisite is how to effectively measure these outputs. The third is how to use these measurements to facilitate good business decisions. These concepts are not by any means speculation, or new, inversely these concepts are underlying patterns visible in virtually every management theory be it Six-Sigma, lean manufacturing, agile, management by objectives, and many more.
This background leads me to the point of this article, which is allowing employees to work from virtual offices should be approached from a much broader angle. The vision should be, making the business and its processes efficient enough that it allows for employees to work from virtual offices. Put away the concerns for a minute and consider the benefits, which include tremendous cost savings, increased incentive to employees that wish to work from home, filtering out employees that are slackers (firing the ones who don’t work and building a team that does), often reductions in insurance premiums, office infrastructure, etc . . . Based on those factors the decision is simple, now when we consider the down sides, the decision becomes more complex. This is where the focus should begin, and these issues should be addressed as efficiency barriers that must be overcome.
Unfortunately there is no easy button when it comes to reaping rewards from a home worker policy. Making the business efficient enough where employees can be measured by the merit of their work instead of the amount of time per day they can sit in a chair, is no easy feat. It is never as easy as a training class, or purchasing some shrink wrapped workflow or CRM (customer relationship management) software, no project manager with an impressive resume is going to come in and work magic overnight. Your business had to evolve (and hopefully continues to do so), and so shall your processes leading it to a place where there are good data, good decisions, good employees, and ultimately good profits.
Efficiency is built from trial and error, the ability to change, recognizing when to "cut and run". You are not managing employees, you are managing the processes and resources used by the business to generate profits. If you do not know how to measure your performance, you may be deferring failure. This seems like simple advice but over and over again I see companies that are sitting on a tremendous reduction in operating costs they refuse to pull out from where the sun doesn’t shine, in order to hold on to archaic ideas. They measure performance by flawed indicators like timesheets, promote the wrong people for the wrong reason, bring down morale by implementing rules sought to control only their worst employees, over hiring, under hiring, hiring the wrong people and putting them in the wrong place. When you get to the point where you can effectively and accurately use your data to make strategic decisions, and analyze your strengths and weaknesses, you have come to a point where the 20,000 SQFT office stacked with copy machines, cubicles, break rooms, etc . . becomes nothing more than fat that needs to be trimmed.
Designing a business that dominates competition is going to take much more than the traditional means many are used to. We are now in warp speed when it comes to change, local competitors, global competitors, competitors online, are all positioning themselves to take profits from you. Getting over the urge to "control" can be difficult. Hopefully you will realize this before your competition does, and offers their service at a cost 80 percent below yours because they don’t outlay 40K a month in some people warehouse located in an office park, guzzling electricity at an ever increasing cost keeping 20,000 SQFT a constant 72 degrees (you get the point) . Oh and I almost forgot to mention, hiring your best employees because they let them work from home.
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