Our six-step program to network computing success

by Randy Johnson

October 31, 2001 —

When we first started evangelizing the how-to's
of rightsizing, downsizing, and capsizing back in 1993, we spoke about
our #1 priority, a client/server production acceptance process.
It was, and still is the most critical process, the key link in
implementing the proper infrastructure to support today's enterprise.
We'll update you on the latest revisions to this process in future
columns.

After visiting with thousands of companies around the world, we've
found the biggest problem large firms face when moving from host-based
to network-based computing is not technology, it's
people!

In previous columns we outlined how to retrain mainframe and
Unix people, but education is only a small piece of the puzzle. The
biggest piece is dealing with the diverse cultures within the
organization. You must break down the walls not only between PC, Unix,
and mainframe people, but between these groups and (horrors!)
users.

It's the big guy's fault

To a) get this out of our systems, and b) place the blame elsewhere,
let's point the finger at who's responsible for underestimating the
difficulty in adopting network-based computing. It's the CIO's fault.
(If you are a CIO, feel free to change the "I" in "CIO" to an "E.")

You know the scene: Well-dressed, lightly perfumed executives
shmoozing in ivory-tower boardrooms about mergers and acquisitions,
company politics, and reorganizations, punctuated by occasional pointed
questions why computers cost so darn much, and when the board will
start to see the ROI on all of the client/server spending. (Life as a
CIO can't be all fun.) Executives aren't stupid. Some just
don't have a clue what it takes to implement this crazy new enterprise,
or don't care to listen to a savvy CIO's warnings and explanations.

Lead by the CIO, the IT team must refresh the corporate memory
in regards to how
difficult it was in years past to exchange one mainframe operating system
for another. It took months of planning and testing to move the
organization from, essentially, one tractor-trailer rig to
another. How quickly people forget the three decades it took to
establish the procedures that established the foundation for
a secure and reliable central data center.

Executives and users are demanding and impatient. Spurred by competition
and oftentimes glowing accounts in trade magazines of client/server
bliss, executives and users fail to recognize that not only is a safe
change tough under ideal circumstances, it's very difficult when the
organization is adopting a computing system with double or perhaps
triple the number of variables. If moving from one mainframe OS to
another is like changing truck brands, then switching from centralized,
mainframe-style computing to a network-based system is like trading
trucks for airplanes.

Both executives and users need to understand that today's networked
computing paradigm implies wide-ranging organizational changes far
beyond Microsoft's plan for selling Windows95 to the hoi polli and
Windows NT to the more demanding user. By change, we mean establishing
a new, fast-moving, flexible organization where information is
available in a timely manner to those who need to make decisions
rapidly.

Isolate, right? Wrong!

In our experience, the first reaction IT departments have when
contemplating a network-based installation is to isolate the
legacy stuff in a cocoon. To salvage morale, they will bring over some of
the legacy gang to work on the new fun stuff. A nice gesture, appease
the troops right? Oh, what a mistake that is!

You need to mesh your entire organization. Never, ever separate legacy
(usually mainframe) and client/server. Don't even refer to part of your
organization as the mainframe group and the other as the client/server
group. That's when this barrier, thicker than the Great Wall of China,
comes up. We see it in just about every company around the world. Yet
the CIO usually has no idea it's there and that it's a virus slowing
client/server implementation. No one will talk about it, because
they're afraid it will jeopardize their careers. But how can you
successfully implement such a huge undertaking without everyone moving
in the same direction, working as a single unit?

Tear down the walls

An opportunity has arisen as IT organizations move forward with
client/server computing: an opportunity to make a change in
the way IT provides services to its users.

In the 1970's the mavens of mainframe-based corporate Information
Technologies (IT) hoarded computing resources and dictated computing
practices and disciplines to their customers. Even the computing
architecture of host-terminal technologies showed an ambivalence, if
not downright disdain toward anyone outside the glass walls of the data
center.

In the 1980's, users got their revenge. By hook or by crook and
rarely under the auspices of corporate IT, they sneaked in PCs with an
assortment of personal-productivity applications and joined the
power-on-the-desktop revolution. "Who needs IT?" they shouted! Those
renegade PCs revolutionized business but made a mess of corporate
computing, which IT is called to clean up.

Now in the 1990s, the opportunity is there for IT to be a factor
again, but not a dictator. IT needs to win its customers back. As
companies shift paradigms to distributed computing it will be the
perfect time to drastically improve customer satisfaction. This will
not be easy to do because of the damage created over the past few
decades by host-based computing. It will be extremely important for
them to pick a partner that has first-hand experience in dealing with
these issues.

To borrow a phrase or two from the self-help industry, IT needs a
six-step program to help bring itself and its enterprise not only to
health, but in fighting trim to compete in the modern global economy.
Here are the steps we advise IT organizations to follow as they
transition to the New Enterprise:

IT needs a clear understanding of how to organize and better
support the new enterprise. It needs a relevant mission, a roadmap to a
more efficient enterprise.
IT needs unity to fulfill its mission statement. All IT people
(mainframe, Unix, and PC) must work together as one team.
Before it can change other parts of the organization, IT itself
must change the way it works. It must demonstrate the ROI of
client/server computing, reengineering, or whatever catch-phrase you
choose, with real-life, undeniable evidence.
The IT staff needs to learn and use techniques found in sales and
marketing. IT needs to sell itself.
IT needs to develop skills in identifying processes and
bureaucratic procedures ripe for streamlining.
Hardest of all, IT needs backing from an organization's highest
levels to help when encountering sticky political or bureaucratic
resistance to change.

The introduction of client/server means an opportunity for change
and by following this program, that change means breaking
down the walls between IT and its users, between mainframe and Unix
and PC people. You must take the time and implement the proper
infrastructure for the New Enterprise. It all starts with people!

Unix Insider