How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs
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@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)
By not billing based on projects, base on orders.
Example:
Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.
THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.
How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.
Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.
I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.
So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth? You just buy exactly what you had?
Why would you ever buy exactly what you had? The reality here is that you're replacing for one of two reasons - aged out equipment or growth. Obviously in the case of growth, you're not buying the same thing - you clearly need more. But aged out equipment - do you really need more? heck your equipment aged out, meaning it's at least 5 years old, and could easily be 8+. Any server you buy today will crush that 5+ year old server and if necessary, should have plenty of room for expansion (in RAM and CPU) assuming you built it somewhere near the performance level of the old one.
As for storage - you might start with all internal storage - then you might move to DAS for additional storage, don't need another server (necessarily)
They were widely viewed as successful but that is only because they stopped analyzing after implementation
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@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?
Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?
Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.
Dysfunction may come about because the company only has so much money and if the charge back is a fixed cost, you can bet all departments will work VERY hard to be first in line to use up all of their fee first.
Add to that, you now have all department heads stating, "Hey, I paid my monthly fee, now give me what I want NOW! My department is more important than any other department" Thus more dysfunction within the company.
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
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@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?
Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?
Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.
Dysfunction may come about because the company only has so much money and if the charge back is a fixed cost, you can bet all departments will work VERY hard to be first in line to use up all of their fee first.
Add to that, you now have all department heads stating, "Hey, I paid my monthly fee, now give me what I want NOW! My department is more important than any other department" Thus more dysfunction within the company.
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I don't think it needs to be super hard and fast to live and die by charge backs, that could be a CFO/exec level only thing... but then the CFO could look at a department who's asking for 750 TB of storage, and look at the history of that department and might come back and say - uh, yeah.. ya know.. we're going to get you that 750, but it will be staged over years - etc...
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
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@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?
Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?
Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.
Dysfunction may come about because the company only has so much money and if the charge back is a fixed cost, you can bet all departments will work VERY hard to be first in line to use up all of their fee first.
Add to that, you now have all department heads stating, "Hey, I paid my monthly fee, now give me what I want NOW! My department is more important than any other department" Thus more dysfunction within the company.
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I don't think it needs to be super hard and fast to live and die by charge backs, that could be a CFO/exec level only thing... but then the CFO could look at a department who's asking for 750 TB of storage, and look at the history of that department and might come back and say - uh, yeah.. ya know.. we're going to get you that 750, but it will be staged over years - etc...
I agree that in Dustin's situation, it may not be so dire. Just in general, that is the possible dysfunction of charge backs. I've only been in a SMB area but I have seen CIO/CFO/CEO's (and their SMB equivalents) fight over money constantly. Yes, the C-levels will make the choice but only to the determent of the overall business.
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
I have yet to find a way to do it here and will be watching this post for others who come up with an idea. FU*&#%@ PDF's for Credentialing bloat my file server. Worse than email attachments (grrhhhh).
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@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?
Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?
Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.
Dysfunction may come about because the company only has so much money and if the charge back is a fixed cost, you can bet all departments will work VERY hard to be first in line to use up all of their fee first.
Add to that, you now have all department heads stating, "Hey, I paid my monthly fee, now give me what I want NOW! My department is more important than any other department" Thus more dysfunction within the company.
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I don't think it needs to be super hard and fast to live and die by charge backs, that could be a CFO/exec level only thing... but then the CFO could look at a department who's asking for 750 TB of storage, and look at the history of that department and might come back and say - uh, yeah.. ya know.. we're going to get you that 750, but it will be staged over years - etc...
I agree that in Dustin's situation, it may not be so dire. Just in general, that is the possible dysfunction of charge backs. I've only been in a SMB area but I have seen CIO/CFO/CEO's (and their SMB equivalents) fight over money constantly. Yes, the C-levels will make the choice but only to the determent of the overall business.
If the CIO/CFO is the one making the final OK - then there should be no determent to the business
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@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
I have yet to find a way to do it here and will be watching this post for others who come up with an idea.FU*&#%@ PDF's for Credentialing bloat my file server. Worse than email attachments (grrhhhh).
Better than being in email in my mind. are you in medical?
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@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
I have yet to find a way to do it here and will be watching this post for others who come up with an idea.FU*&#%@ PDF's for Credentialing bloat my file server. Worse than email attachments (grrhhhh).
Better than being in email in my mind. are you in medical?
Yeah a Medical SMB. The issue is they come in email, the email is then forwarded (with attachement) to a few other internal individuals and then save to the file server. Then they make one change to the document and the process starts over and no one bothers to remove the previous PDF's that no longer matter.
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@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
I have yet to find a way to do it here and will be watching this post for others who come up with an idea.FU*&#%@ PDF's for Credentialing bloat my file server. Worse than email attachments (grrhhhh).
Better than being in email in my mind. are you in medical?
Yeah a Medical SMB. The issue is they come in email, the email is then forwarded (with attachement) to a few other internal individuals and then save to the file server. Then they make one change to the document and the process starts over and no one bothers to remove the previous PDF's that no longer matter.
yeah - I have those same types of issues, but the PDFs are generally so small it's not an issue.
But to really fix it - you have to get management involved - look, we are storing a TB of dupe not valid forms - can we delete them?
how do you know they are dupe non valid? - hopefully you have some sort of naming that makes them identifiable as the same, yet updated. -
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
I have yet to find a way to do it here and will be watching this post for others who come up with an idea.FU*&#%@ PDF's for Credentialing bloat my file server. Worse than email attachments (grrhhhh).
Better than being in email in my mind. are you in medical?
Yeah a Medical SMB. The issue is they come in email, the email is then forwarded (with attachement) to a few other internal individuals and then save to the file server. Then they make one change to the document and the process starts over and no one bothers to remove the previous PDF's that no longer matter.
yeah - I have those same types of issues, but the PDFs are generally so small it's not an issue.
But to really fix it - you have to get management involved - look, we are storing a TB of dupe not valid forms - can we delete them?
how do you know they are dupe non valid? - hopefully you have some sort of naming that makes them identifiable as the same, yet updated.A hash checker could quickly produce an easily readable report for that.
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@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
I have yet to find a way to do it here and will be watching this post for others who come up with an idea.FU*&#%@ PDF's for Credentialing bloat my file server. Worse than email attachments (grrhhhh).
Better than being in email in my mind. are you in medical?
Yeah a Medical SMB. The issue is they come in email, the email is then forwarded (with attachement) to a few other internal individuals and then save to the file server. Then they make one change to the document and the process starts over and no one bothers to remove the previous PDF's that no longer matter.
yeah - I have those same types of issues, but the PDFs are generally so small it's not an issue.
But to really fix it - you have to get management involved - look, we are storing a TB of dupe not valid forms - can we delete them?
how do you know they are dupe non valid? - hopefully you have some sort of naming that makes them identifiable as the same, yet updated.It is not that they are dups per se' but the the contract needed to be signed or missing initials, no one ever gets rid of "clientMedicare (1).pdf" or the previous 15 versions of the file.
It is almost the same as dealing with the email chains. Why keep the last 15 messages if the final message contains all the replies (aka entire conversation)??? Just one of those things guess....
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@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.
I have yet to find a way to do it here and will be watching this post for others who come up with an idea.FU*&#%@ PDF's for Credentialing bloat my file server. Worse than email attachments (grrhhhh).
Better than being in email in my mind. are you in medical?
Yeah a Medical SMB. The issue is they come in email, the email is then forwarded (with attachement) to a few other internal individuals and then save to the file server. Then they make one change to the document and the process starts over and no one bothers to remove the previous PDF's that no longer matter.
yeah - I have those same types of issues, but the PDFs are generally so small it's not an issue.
But to really fix it - you have to get management involved - look, we are storing a TB of dupe not valid forms - can we delete them?
how do you know they are dupe non valid? - hopefully you have some sort of naming that makes them identifiable as the same, yet updated.A hash checker could quickly produce an easily readable report for that.
only if they are 100% identical - which he already said was not the case, a small update.
So if these were text, you could do a comparison of said text and say if something like 90% the same - flag for review, then choose which to keep, etc.
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@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.
How? It can't. Since IT has no budget. How conservative a manager is affects only his department, not IT.
Basically it is treating the IT department like an MSP. An MSP never cares if a customer orders too much, because it's up to the customer to decide, and up to the customer to pay. MSP / IT should never care or control a budget because logically it makes no business sense.
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@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.
Not at all.
- IT doesn't care, at all. Ever. No matter what the department does, IT is paid for the equipment and work. If IT cares in any way whatsoever, then this system isn't followed.
- This would expose a department not planning properly and allow management to deal with a management failing rather than hiding it.
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@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)
By not billing based on projects, base on orders.
Example:
Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.
THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.
How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.
Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.
I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.
That too. 750TB today for three years out instead of 250TB today, and another in a year is probably far better. But that's a separate decision / issue. The core issue is that IT isn't affected by good or bad decisions under this system, they simply do the work for the customers.
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@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)
By not billing based on projects, base on orders.
Example:
Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.
THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.
How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.
Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.
I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.
So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth? You just buy exactly what you had?
Not for three years out, hell no. 18 months, maybe. Buying for the future is just throwing money away...
- Because what you buy today is hella costly for something you won't use for three years because the speed and capacity will be way cheaper in the future.
- Time / Value of money. Spending early incurs a hefty financial penalty.
- You can't accurately predict the future so you take on huge risk beyond the givens of point 1&2 that your predictions are wrong. No matter how obvious they seem, they are never as accurate as people think that they will be.
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@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)
By not billing based on projects, base on orders.
Example:
Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.
THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.
How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.
Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.
I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.
So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth?
you can, but you don't have to spend all the money today.
example - you buy a server, you buy a dual socket machine, but only populate 1 socket (assuming the job can get done with that) and you populate the second when it's actually needed, same goes for storage and RAM.
What I've seen is overbuying specifically for the calculated expansion needed for whatever the refresh plan is but yeah, I guess that is too much of an upfront investment.
Yup, lots of cost up front, at higher rates, before needed, for something assumed to be needed someday. All three are negatives.
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@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
@DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan
Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.
How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)
By not billing based on projects, base on orders.
Example:
Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.
THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.
How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.
Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.
I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.
So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth? You just buy exactly what you had?
Why would you ever buy exactly what you had? The reality here is that you're replacing for one of two reasons - aged out equipment or growth. Obviously in the case of growth, you're not buying the same thing - you clearly need more. But aged out equipment - do you really need more? heck your equipment aged out, meaning it's at least 5 years old, and could easily be 8+. Any server you buy today will crush that 5+ year old server and if necessary, should have plenty of room for expansion (in RAM and CPU) assuming you built it somewhere near the performance level of the old one.
As for storage - you might start with all internal storage - then you might move to DAS for additional storage, don't need another server (necessarily)
They were widely viewed as successful but that is only because they stopped analyzing after implementation
Right, so seen as successful because neither IT nor the CFO ever checked AT ALL. 100% business failing because they aren't analyzing their decision making processes to see if they are logical or working.
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@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Dysfunction may come about because the company only has so much money and if the charge back is a fixed cost, you can bet all departments will work VERY hard to be first in line to use up all of their fee first.
If the company can't show a bank that it needs money to make money, you've got even more dysfunction. Having departments with an inability to get profitable because they can't afford to be efficient is a major problem. Companies can certainly be short on funds and unable to maximize value, but there are simple business processes that guarantee that a healthy company will never have the problem that you worry about....
- The CFO / financial department will always oversee and prioritize investments. No qualified CEO/CFO would ever allow a situation to arise where any department asking gets what they need just because they asked faster. Any that has that problem, is already screwed and lost.
- Any company that is doing all this properly would be first in line for any bank to fund their expansion needs.
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@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
Add to that, you now have all department heads stating, "Hey, I paid my monthly fee, now give me what I want NOW! My department is more important than any other department" Thus more dysfunction within the company.
They can say that, but again, management above departments would always prioritize and departments in a healthy company would never have input on prioritization between departments. No healthy company would experience this problem. It's a pretty silly thing to worry about, a CEO would have to want this for it to be possible.
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@pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:
If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.
I think his premise is fundamentally flawed... he thinks that treating departments as customers isolates IT from the organization. But that's backwards, it is in doing so that internal IT can attempt to approach the extreme functionality of the MSP model (but never match it) while making IT part of the business rather than at odds with departments. He's missed how it works entirely.
Remember that the C suite, the CEO, the financial department.... they are the most core of the business and they always see departments in this way. If you want IT to be part of the organization, this is really the only logical model. By the author's logic, CEOs aren't working and/or we should simply eliminate departments conceptually.
