A DCOM can be compared with a ship captain, steering the best course possible to reach a destination. While underway, the captain must inspire the crew to keep the ship working well and to manage any unusual or threatening conditions that may occur.
Assignment and Work Load
As noted, each data center member must understand his work assignment and how it relates to the data center goals. The work load assigned to him should be within his performance capability. The project/goal charts de-scribed earlier facilitate appropriate work assignments, both at the individual and at the group levels.
Performance
Once the framework is established, it is necessary to appraise performance at these levels. Project milestones function as measurement standards. Peri-odic appraisal in relation to project milestones and services levels provides indicators of personnel efficiency and identifies training and education re-quirements for further performance improvements.
Performance appraisal, in this regard, is not intended as the basis for merit review and salary increase but as the basis for developing the individual as a valuable resource for the data center and, therefore, for the company.
Policies and Procedures
Ensuring that the assignments and the work loads related to those assign-ments are commensurate with the employee's abilities can increase effi-ciency. Policies and procedures are needed, however, ~f data center personnel are to perform well consistently and attain corporate goals.
From a hierarchical standpoint, policies can be regarded as rules and regulations needed to enforce the data center's goals. The procedures provide the methodology needed to ensure that those policies are enforced in a prede-termined manner, particularly at lower-level positions where individual initia-tive is limited and in areas where the nature and structure of the organization (or perhaps the personalities involved) require that tasks be performed in a very specific way.
There are times when adherence to procedures is so important that the DCOM and senior management must approve them for enforcement and compliance. Some procedures are administrative in nature; others are produc-tion oriented. Examples of the former are purchase order approval and cost justification; examples of the latter are master terminal operation, tape re-trieval, and backup and restore. No matter what they entail, these procedures must be viewed as a vital link between desired performance and data center goals.
DEVELOPING ORGANIZATIONAL EFFICIENCY 13
The DCOM must be careful to ensure that procedures do not become complex and confusing and that they remain pertinent, clear, concise, and current. Procedures can be less burdensome if a training and education pro-gram for personnel is established. This propro-gram might use the set of written procedures as references, allowing personnel to assimilate procedures as part of their formal training rather than forcing them to interpret them on the job, where the result could easily be erroneous application.
Some of the dangers of generating too many procedures are as follows:
• People do not always pay attention to methods and procedures (perhaps because they are inaccurate or incomplete, are not given to those who need them, are too complex, or are not enforced).
• There are too many forms to be completed (pemaps because no one takes the time to audit existing procedures or the information that must be captured is not really necessary).
• Captions on forms do not apply (perhaps because sufficient explanation has not been provided or the forms have not been updated with changes that have occured in procedures or in the organization).
• Disagreement frequently occurs about the necessity of a procedure (perhaps because no one can relate it to a data center goal).
• Forms are frequently sent to the wrong people after they are completed or are returned to the originator because they do not contain the proper information (perhaps because the procedures are inadequate).
• Delays in projects can be traced to bottlenecks created by forms (per-haps because forms are not completed properly, not taken seriously, or delayed because they are time-consuming).
• The methods and procedures department has become an end in itself (pemaps because it tends to exert more control over functional depart-ments than is advisable).
• Committees are continually reviewing existing procedures and recom-mending new ones (perhaps because such committees are self-perpetuating and have no specific, task-oriented goals).
• Procedures are keyed to politically oriented policies and are therefore a vehicle for regulating rather than guiding (perhaps because the nature of the activities being performed must be controlled or restricted).
• No clear defmition exists between high- and low-level priority proce-dures (perhaps because the procedure writers are not aware of those priorities) .
Another sign of bureaucracy is "memoitis," the practice of writing memos about anything and everything. The greatest danger is that such memos can become a substitute for personal contact in a dynamic organization. Memos are a necessary part of business activities in a data center (i.e., to issue directives, confirm agreements and actions, or for general communication).
They are only one part of the communication process, however; overuse decreases their effectiveness. They are not a substitute for concise, clear, and well-conceived policies and procedures that must be institutionalized through-out the organization.
14 DATA CENTER OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
STRATEGIES
No department within a company, nor a company itself, can afford not to have a long- and short-tenn organizational strategy. Such strategy permits development to occur smoothly and effectively and is the basis for growth and stability. There is no such thing as a static organization. The market, financial considerations, and people change; with that change comes aneed to adapt.
Adapting to Change
To adapt the data center to change, a DCOM must have a complete understanding of:
• Current staff capabilities
• Jobs and tasks being perfonned
• Short- and long-tenn plans and goals of the departments and the data center
• Requirements for accomplishing those goals
Once the DCOM understands these prerequisites, he should then know the current status of the data center, what the center should accomplish within a defined period of time, and the requirements to meet that goal. If, in addition, there is a built-in flexibility and adaptability within the data center, most unforeseen events or changes can be readily absorbed with minimal impact on the center and its staff.
Anticipating Change
What is the probability of change? Is it correct for a DCOM to assume that because the data center has operated at a certain level for the past five years, it will continue to do so in the future?
In most data centers, such a static condition is unlikely because of the effects of technological change, increasingly favorable trends in the computer price/perfonnance ratio, new storage and telecommunications breakthroughs, and greater numbers of packaged application systems. The DCOM who ig-nores these factors may one day find it impossible to adapt without experienc-ing a rnajor and disruptive impact on the center.
Reorganization
Successful reorganizations don't just happen; they are the result of consid-erable planning and conditioning and are smoothly coordinated. In some cases, a reorganization is so smooth that the parties involved are not even aware that it is happening.
Reorganizing is sometimes viewed as a panacea for correcting many man-agement problems, but reorganization can obscure or exaggerate the real issues. This is not to imply that reorganization is not a viable approach to solving management problems and adapting to change, but it does mean that reorganization, as an alternative to attacking basic management problems,
DEVELOPING ORGANIZATIONAL EFFICIENCY 15
must be carefully scrutinized to make certain that it is the solution to the basic problem. If the DCOM has followed the prerequisites identified earlier and reorganization appears to be the answer, then, by all means, it should be undertaken. .
As the term implies, reorganization introduces change into the structure and operation of the data center. For this reason, it is sometimes avoided or used only as a last resort. In its extreme forms, it means a major reorganiza-tion of the company. In a moderate form, it means little more than a reassign-ment of duties among a few people or work centers. Even in its moderate form, reorganization cannot be performed rashly. It is precisely for this reason that an organizational strategy is mandatory.
CONCLUSION
Developing organizational efficiency and maximizing data center produc-tivity require that the DCOM effectively manage his staff as well as their work environment. To manage the work environment effectively, the DCOM must:
• Minimize crisis management by establishing realistic goals and objec-tives, identifying important tasks and activities, and installing a project management and reporting system to track the progress of tasks and activities
• Maximize personnel effectiveness by carefully assigning tasks and ac-tivities and by establishing policies and procedures to aid data center personnel in fulfilling their assignments
• Develop both short- and long-range strategies to deal with change.
~ Career Planning . In
Operations
by Dr. William A~ HansenINTRODUCTION
Anyone who has been in the DP industry more than a few years has witnessed substantial changes. Many people remember when the operations department was only a huge room filled with EAM equipment. The author of this chapter entered DP in time to see the last of the ffiM 1401s and the first of the Systeml360s. The Systeml370 generation has reached maturity; in fact, some DP experts argue that this system is now suffering from advanced old age. Card systems have given way to tape, and tape has given way to disk.
Mass storage, online systems, teleprocessing networks, and data bases have expanded the capabilities of new systems and the way in which systems are perceiVed by users.
These innovations have affected the capabilities of systems as well as the people in the systems and programming departments. Specialized jobs have been created, including data base administration and teleprocessing special-ization. Instead of requiring only one systems programmer, which was suffi-cient in the past, most medium-sized shops now require one programmer for the control program, another for the access methods, another for the job entry subsystem, another for the telecommunications software, another for the data base software, and several more staff members for the software that comprises a complete operating system. In larger shops, a team of people is required for each of these functions.
Although there has been a tremendous growth of career opportunities in systems and programming, nothing much has changed in the area of opera-tions, except the equipment. Many, if not most, operations departments have the same job descriptions and organizational structures as those developed 10 years ago. This lack of organizational change has both institutionalized old problems and introduced some new ones. This chapter describes resultant problems and offers the data center operations manager (DCOM) several suggestions for facilitating the future growth of data center operations person-nel.
18 DATA CENTER OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT