Thomas Limoncelli - Time Management for System Administrators

This brings up an interesting conundrum. What if my boss had said the criteria he was measured by was something that I felt wasn't good for the company? For example, if I felt that what the company needed most was to strive for technical excellence, but he was being measured by growth metrics? You have to trust the judgment of the superiors who set up your boss's criteria. Or, strive for both goals. Sound difficult? Well, if you're smart enough to know more about what's right for your company than your boss's boss, it shouldn't be very difficult to find a way to meet both goals at the same time.

I don't think it's cynical to give higher management exactly what they ask for. However, sometimes your boss is measured in a way that unintentionally promotes bad behavior. For example, I once visited an IT helpdesk whose manager was rewarded based on whether he was able to decrease the average initial response time to customer requests. (You can see where this is going, right?) Soon, everyone he managed was answering calls on the first ring (or very soon after receiving an electronic trouble ticket) and putting the caller on hold. Service wasn't getting any better, but they were meeting their metrics. The following year, management started measuring performance based on average time to resolution. As you can guess, tickets were closed very quickly whether or not the issue was really resolved. The statement, "I'll close this ticket; you reopen it if my suggestion didn't fix your problem" became commonplace. Again, customer satisfaction didn't improve.

If management thinks the only way to drive a business is on metrics, but is incompetent at creating metrics that successfully encourage the desired behavior, then they should either learn how to make better metrics or not manage using metrics.

Tip

A friend once worked at an ISP that measured the sales team based on T1's booked, with no penalty if the order was cancelled later. The boss encouraged everyone to get customers to sign contracts and cancel when the technician came to perform the installation. Unethical? Maybe at first, but after more than a year of this, the management that set up the criteria didn't change the criteria. Therefore, they must not have seen this as a problem, right? The boss, and his staff, enjoyed a long string of bonuses for meeting their superiors' goals. Did the ISP eventually go out of business? Absolutely. The Internet is a better place for having one fewer ISP with incompetent management.

A friend asked his boss what his boss's goals were and was completely surprised by what his boss revealed. His boss was getting near retirement and really just wanted a quiet last year with no surprises. He was, essentially, told not to work very hard for the next year because work meant new projects, and new projects meant new risks. The boss really just wanted to sail through to his last day. My friend realized he had three choices: (1) have a relaxing year, (2) work hard to position himself for a promotion to succeed his boss, or (3) update his resume and start job hunting. He chose the first option. It was his most enjoyable year at the company. He spent the time sending himself to various kinds of training conferences and workshops. Coincidentally, the training positioned him for a promotion. After his boss retired, he was promoted to replace his boss. I guess it all worked out in the end.

When you visibly contribute to making your boss a success, it opens many doors. He will spend extra effort helping you with your career path, you will increasingly receive first pick at the "fun" projects, and it opens the possibilities to small but important rewards such as cool equipment. Of course, it can't hurt your potential to receive better raises and bonuses. Best of all, if your boss is successful enough to receive a promotion, an ethical boss will take you with him.

From that perspective, the ultimate criterion for how to prioritize your work is to center it around what will make your boss a success.

Action expresses priorities.

--Mahatma Gandhi

Summary

When you have a lot to do, prioritization becomes more important. When you have more to do than you have time for, prioritization is extremely important. When you have very little to do, any prioritization scheme works pretty well.

Doing tasks in order works fine when you have a small number of tasks. Since older items bubble up to the top of the list, they will tend to get done. This is a good scheme to use when you are otherwise at a loss for what to do. Doing the first task on your list is better than spending time fretting about which task to do first.

Prioritizing based on customer expectation means first doing the tasks that customers expect will be done quickly. Customers expect small requests to be done quickly if the problem will delay their larger projects. You spend the same amount of time working and have more satisfied customers when you prioritize this way.

When deciding which projects should have higher priority, base the decision on impact. A high-impact project that requires a large effort to complete will benefit you more than a low-impact project that is easy to achieve.

Requests from your boss should have special priority. Your boss's requests often have dependencies that you are unaware of. Don't be the reason his larger project is delayed!

To manage your boss, you must do three things: make sure your boss knows your career goals, use upward delegation only when it leverages his authority, and understand his goals and be part of accomplishing them. When you do these three things, you are in better sync with your boss, and he becomes more flexible with your requests because he knows that you have his best interest in mind.

Chapter 9. Stress Management

Stressed? Of course you are! You're a system administrator!

I'm not a doctor, and I'm not an expert on stress, but I will share with you what little I've learned over the years. I'm quite a stress puppy—ask anyone I've worked with. However, I think I manage it better than I used to.

This chapter is about some common sources of stress and what to do about them, some advice about vacation time, and a little story about how I learned to relax. It is advice that I've found myself giving time and time again, sometimes when lecturing on the road or when socializing with fellow system administrators or coworkers. A lot of this is more philosophy than science. It is not a complete or scholarly discourse on the subject, but it should give you some useful advice and point you in the right direction to find more information.

Stress is the wear and tear that our bodies and minds feel when things change. There is positive stress and negative stress. Positive stress adds anticipation and excitement to our lives, helps us be creative, helps us win a race or an election, or pushes us beyond what we previously thought were our limits. Negative stress is destructive. It causes heart disease, depression, and gray hairs. Managing stress is a big part of maintaining good mental health.

Oddly enough, the same situation can be positive stress for one person and negative stress for another. It's all about how we deal with it. For example, people have different reactions to compliments from a manager. For some, such a thing would be good. Others might have the opposite reaction. They might think, "Oh, now I'll always be expected to be so successful! I can't handle the pressure!" They might think, "He said that in front of everyone. Now they all hate me!" and worry that the rest of the group might be jealous and vengeful.

It is not what happens to us that causes stress, it is how we react to what happens to us. I've found Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (Collins) and The Feeling Good Handbook (Plume) to be extremely helpful and highly regarded books in the area of managing stress in productive ways. Many people have turned their lives around with the help of these books.