Book Review: Offshoring Information Technology

Carmel and Tjia have written an excellent book that is full of penetrating insights into the advantages and difficulties associated with offshoring.

Anyone who manages globally dispersed teams is familiar with the problems that arise due to differences in culture, time zone, language, education, and professional expectations. Carmel and Tjia take a hard-nosed look at what the research actually shows about each of these topics.

In some ways, the research confirmed what I was already seeing in terms of the difficulties associated with managing a dispersed team. But the applied research has provided me with new insights and ideas about how to overcome the obstacles and exploit the advantages of a dispersed team. I've read the book several times now, and I never come away from the book without a fresh idea of something I can try to make my team work together more smoothly.

To Cloud or Not to Cloud

When you pick a new solution of any sort, you will need to decide whether or not you want to put it on the cloud.

The "cloud" is a generic term describing solutions that are housed by a vendor and accessed over a remote network connection. There are several different variants of cloud-based solutions:

• IAAS: Infrastructure As A Service. Virtual servers and storage are provided to run the customer's applications.
• PAAS: Platform As A Service. Platform vendors typically go one step beyond IAAS vendors. You will usually have access to an operating system and program execution environment. Frequently, this will include database, web server, and application layer environments available for running custom-written code.
• SAAS: Software As A Service: SAAS vendors typically provide the entire software environment to customers. The advantage is speed to deployment and ease of administration. Vendor lock-in is much more of a concern than it is with IAAS or PAAS.
• NAAS: Network As A Service: This sort of solution outsources the responsibility for the network connnections between different components in the cloud.

The main advantages of a cloud model are:

• Cost: Cloud solutions are typically much cheaper than traditional alternatives.
• Speed: It is almost always faster to deploy to a dedicated cloud environment than to build out your own system.
• Flexibility: Because the deployment costs are usually lower, there are fewer sunk costs and lower barriers to entry to consider for new upgrades.
• Easier maintenance: Maintenance belongs to the cloud vendor, removing an important distraction that you would otherwise have to plan around.

There are some disadvantages to a cloud model as well:

• Loss of control: You can have any flavor you want, as long as it is vanilla. Your vendor decides what options to make available.
• Lock-in: Your future becomes tied to the future of your vendor. Especially with SAAS, migrations become difficult.
• Performance: Depending on the solution, the performance may or may not be better, but it will certainly depend on the quality of your network connection.
• Security: Similarly, the level of security available is determined by what your vendor makes available.

In the end, you have to weigh your options and do what is right for your employer.

Looking at Résumés

How important is a good résumé? That depends on the sort of opening you are trying to fill.

A well-written résumé is certainly a nice indicator. But it may only indicate that the candidate has hired a professional résumé writer.

For technical jobs, sometimes a poorly-written résumé can hide a good candidate. Try to look for experiences that reflect originality, leadership, and commitment. Sometimes a poorly-written résumé has a certain magnetism behind the scruffy prose.

Here are some danger signs to watch for when you are reviewing résumés:

• Emphasis on training over experience. Make sure this candidate has some real-world experience.
• Gaps in service or lots of short-term jobs. This may just indicate someone who has been doing consulting, but you need to find out.
• Lots of years of the same job description. This may indicate someone who has stagnated. Some candidates seem to have repeated the same six months of experience over and over for eight years.
• Too much variety in work experience. It takes effort and time to become an expert, and you need someone who has the discipline to develop expertise.
• No meaningful description of interesting projects or accomplishments. Me-tooers are a dime a dozen

Leaving a Job

IT jobs are anything but permanent. The average duration of an IT job is less than three years--and those are the ones that are considered "permanent!"

The way you leave a job can have a huge impact on your overall career. Our community is really not that big. Forget six degrees of separation. After you've been in IT for a few years in a few different companies, it is surprising to find people who are more than 2 connections away from you on LinkedIn.

It can be tempting to leave a job in a dramatic way. Who among us hasn't had the urge to tell people exactly what we think and storm out? Don't do it. That would be a really bad idea.

In the first place, it is far easier to find a job when you have a job. Grit your teeth. Be professional. Continue to do an exemplary job. And start looking for your next employer.

You'll be in a much stronger position when you are negotiating salary or other requirements if your new employer thinks you are perfectly happy to stay where you are. Use that to your advantage. You'll have to live with whatever deal you cut for a while; you may as well make it as sweet as you can.

Then, when you leave, make sure that your transition is purely textbook. Leave behind documentation on what you do for a living and how you do it. Try to leave as few loose ends as possible. Leave a clean desk. The people you leave behind may be the ones you need to provide you a reference when you are ready for your next job search in a few years.

PS:

Here's a nice article from Ladders about how to resign gracefully.

Book Review: Making Things Happen

Project Management Made Interesting

Making Things Happen is a project management book that breaks away from the usual mold. There is so much emphasis on a PMP certification that many project management titles have become dry recitations of the PMBOK. Not so with this book!

The book is eminently readable, and the advice is well-grounded in real-world experience. As I read the book, I found myself taking notes for how to apply the information to deal with issues that were coming up in my own projects.

The tools from the PMBOK are valuable, but there are only so many times you can read a re-hash of an exam cram. "Making Things Happen" was a delightful read that reminded me why it is fun to run a project.

Alternatives to Admitting Mistakes

Scott Adams' strip today suggests one alternative to admitting management mistakes. Take a look if you didn't catch it yet: Dilbert.

Book Review: The First 90 Days

Right From the Start

Starting a new job is hard enough. But when you're the boss, there is even less margin for error.

When you start a new management job, you usually have a brief window of opportunity to make the changes that will set the tone for the rest of your tenure as a manager. Most companies no longer have a management transition program to help you; it is on you to make quick, correct decisions and get them implemented before your window of opportunity closes.

Michael Watkins' book The First 90 Days is an industry classic on navigating a job switch successfully.

Watkins provides a concrete framework that allows the new manager to organize his or her transition into the new position. The framework he provides may need adjustment for particular positions or industries (like the ones I suggest in From Techie to Boss), but Watkins' framework is always a valuable starting place and a good foundation to build on.