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The IT hardware lifecycle explained

In our service desk, where a device is reported as being slow, broken, malfunctioning, or for any other reason the user wishes to have it replaced, we first determine the age of the device. If the device is outside of the standard hardware lifecycle, it will be replaced, because the maintenance and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of devices older than the standard lifecycle is more costly than the replacement costs. If it’s within the life cycle, it will either be repaired, or we’ll evaluate if the user actually needs a more capable machine to carry out their role.

TCO vs age:

hardware total cost of ownership

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In very general, cumulative terms, the TCO of a device increases over time. When the annual TCO exceeds the cost of a new device, it is overdue to be replaced.

TCO includes:

  • Increased support resource costs.
  • Cost of replacement components.
  • Loss of productivity of the employee using the device.
  • Added complexity from maintaining an older (less uniform) fleet.
  • Security concerns due to older devices.
  • Power usage.
  • Staff morale.

An example of a standard hardware lifecycle is:

  • Laptops – 3 years
  • Desktops – 4 years
  • Monitors – 5 years
  • Servers and network hardware – 5 years
  • Mobile phones – 2 years
  • Printers – 3 years (but using a managed service lease contract)

This is standard across the IT industry, although many science/tech firms may have dramatically shorter lifecycles due to the higher workloads that devices are expected to handle.

The above lifecycle means that we will maintain a life cycle of replacing 33% of our laptops each year, 25% of our desktops, 20% of our monitors, and so on. This is the staggered approach; some firms employ the forklift approach which means replacing (e.g) the entire laptop fleet once every three years. This impacts cash flow harder, and can be more disruptive during the change, but has the advantage of delivering a perfectly uniform fleet of hardware each time. Many contact centre-style businesses employ this approach.

The only time I’ve modified this life cycle is when the company I’ve worked for has gone through cash flow difficulties, and we’ve extended the replacement period with a “promise” to pull it back in-line when cash allows. Of course, the promise is rarely fulfilled…

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Q. How do you know that you could improve as a leader?

Q. How do you know that you could improve as a leader?

A. You’re still breathing.

Check out Jenifer Richmond and  find out more about her excellent executive coaching services. I’ve been working with Jenifer for some time now, and she has helped me hugely in identifying my career goals and, through questioning and challenging, helped me to make difficult decisions and changes of direction where necessary. I really can’t recommend her enough.

 

 

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10 elements of managing a successful IT team

  • Give time to your team
    • 1-1’s, development reviews, PDR’s, working together on projects, or just time for a coffee and a chat. Whatever you call it, it’s important to regularly spend time with each of the team members. Rarely, if ever, will you find that one of these sessions wasn’t worthwhile. Just don’t rush it.
  • Make sure everyone has a role.
    • Every single member of your team is important, and everyone needs to feel that their efforts are worthwhile, whether it’s setting up new servers, systems, and infrastructure, or manning the telephones and taking calls. Nobody likes to feel like the spare wheel, and it’s unproductive, but it can easily happen.
  • Take them with you.
    • Going to a conference, seminar, networking event or similar? Take one of the team with you, and prioritise the junior members. It’s a great learning experience for them, and a good bonding exercise for the both of you. You don’t need to do this every time, but depending on the size of the team, it should at least be possible to do this once a year per team member.
  • Put the team first.
    • Your team get things done. Without them, you’re nothing. Put them first, and make sure they know you’re fighting their corner. Even if it means you taking the hit for something, or to the detriment of your reputation in the business, ultimately if your team see you working hard for them, they’ll work hard for you. In the long run, this is what matters more.
  • Be a good role model
    • Demonstrate a good work / life balance. This isn’t easy, and particularly in IT, where the servers don’t sleep just because you do, but if you can show that you work when you need to, and relax when you can by making the most of your free time, it’ll set an example that will help prevent burn-out and make for a more productive, enjoyable work environment.
    • Don’t be late. Set standards that the rest of the team can abide by. Get to work on time, be prompt for meetings. Don’t be a “Do as I say, not as I do” boss.
    • Be tidy. If you want your team to keep a tidy workspace, it’s going to be a lot easier if you set a good example.
    • Put in the extra hours when you need to, but make sure you take those holidays that you earn. Don’t make your team feel guilty if they ask for time off.
    • Customer service – put the customer first. In internal IT departments, the customer is the end-user, and the old stereotype of IT helpdesk staff disliking end users still holds true in many cases. Make sure your team know that while half of their job is technical, in some ways the most important half is good old customer service. Set an example by providing excellent service to your customers.
    • Respect your colleagues – set a good example by not complaining about your colleagues in the business. Even if you’ve been terribly disappointed or let down by one of your peers, don’t pass that down to your team. It’s demotivating for them to hear, and can damage relationships between departments and teams. Be open, but not negative.
    • Enjoy your job and be positive! If you don’t enjoy what you do, it’ll be clear to your team, but if you enjoy what you do, that positivity will spread.
  • Ask for feedback
    • Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from your team. This can be intimidating, especially in person, but it’s absolutely invaluable. Asking “is there anything I could be doing that I’m currently not doing?” or “What could I be doing better?” will provide you with superb information to help you develop and improve as a manager, and help to identify any issues that could be hindering the team’s productivity. If the answer to both of these questions is “nothing”, then well done – however make sure you ask it regularly and phrase it differently each time to tease out any issues.
  • Keep up to date.
    • Ask for regular updates on performance, tasks, challenges, difficulties and successes. Whether you do this via email, phone, in person, or some other way will depend on your particular circumstances. Personally, I like the “15/five” style of weekly report via email, meaning it should take them 15 minutes to write, and you 5 minutes to read, but use whatever works for you.
  • Focus on development.
    • IT careers are all about what you know, and what experience you have. If you let your staff development fall behind, not only will they become less productive, but they’ll be thinking about moving on to somewhere else to continue to learn and develop their skills and knowledge.
    • Engender a culture of learning and knowledge sharing. In our team, we share “discoveries” every Friday via group emails, demonstrating what we’ve learned or discovered that week, from how to create a new maintenance task in SQL Server, what the new features of the iPhone 6 will be, or even facts about dinosaurs, particle accelerators, or IT industry figures…
  • Follow through on what you say.
    • This should go without saying, but you see it all the time. If you say you’ll do something, do it. Or, if it turns out that you can’t, don’t have time, or the situation changes, inform your team and explain why.
  • Be the best that you can be.
    • No pressure, right? Always strive to be as good as you can possibly be. Don’t burn yourself out, but be constantly looking for ways to improve yourself, the team, the environment, your business and your role. Be awesome.

 

Have I missed anything? I’m sure I have, so let me know by commenting.

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Work in IT? Here’s how to ask for a pay rise.

Either ask for a review or 1-1 with your manager, or wait until the next scheduled one. I’d prefer one of my team to ask me for a chat about salaries rather than ambush me with a request, but whatever works with your company culture.

In terms of negotiating, use the following:

  • What have you achieved in your role in the business, and what benefit has that returned? Ignore your standard duties – that’s what you’re employed for anyway. If you do something that clearly makes/saves the business £100k pa, a few k raise is an easy decision.
  • What’s the pay grade for your job across your industry? If you’re good, I don’t want to lose you just because I didn’t pay you enough. Equally, be careful of earning over industry average – you’ll be stuck in a job.
  • Be aware of any mistakes or failures you’ve had. It’s no good shouting about the £100k project you managed if you also ran one that lost £150k.
  • Look at the financial status of the business. If the business is doing well and has turned a sizeable profit, highlight it. This not only shows that the business could afford to give you the raise, but that you’re savvy enough to understand the commercial world you operate in. If the business turned a loss, be very wary of asking for a raise.
  • Have a backup plan. Could you ask for an additional training course? A performance-related bonus instead of a flat raise? If times are hard for the business, could you suggest a post-dated raise, or extra holiday in lieu of pay?
  • Be aware that with a raise comes extra responsibility. Don’t make your manager regret their decision to invest extra money in you. If taking that raise means working an extra few hours a week and extra pressure to hit targets, do you still want it?
  • Play the long game. Don’t suddenly start putting in a few extra hours here and there a few days before you ask. Be consistently excellent long-term.
  • Be aware of the rest of your team. It’s potentially worth suggesting not just a raise for yourself, but a blanket raise for the team, or certain members. Do you want to be the one on £10k more than your team-mate?
  • Ultimately, make the decision easy to make for your manager. They’re going to have to justify it in their budget, and potentially go to ask their boss for the money to pay you anyway. They don’t want to regret their decision.
  • Finally. Don’t forget to actually ask for the pay rise.
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Get rid of tuition fees. All university education should be free.

All university-level education should be free. Those people crying out for the good old days when fewer people went to university have got completely the wrong end of the stick.
100 years ago, the same could be said for high/secondary school – why do we need our working classes to be able to read and write, do reasonably complex maths, understand any scientific principles at all?
We live in an age where (almost) everything we do, everything we work with, play with, consume and produce are linked inextricably to very complex scientific products and concepts. Some of the people arguing here went to school before DNA was discovered, for heaven’s sake.
School children now learn about the structure and principles of DNA, particle physics, climate modelling, computing science, software development, and other stuff that didn’t exist 30 years ago.
It’s simply not the case that there’s an “ideal” percentage of the population that should have a university education. As society and technology progresses, there is simply more to know and more to understand. This has been the case since the dawn of human civilisation and will continue to be the case until civilisation ceases to be.
As a society, we owe it to ourselves to aim to provide a university (and higher, if possible) education to every person that desires it and is able to do so. The progress and survival of the human race to some degree relies upon us getting this right, not penny-pinching and making people pay for the “privilege” of developing their (and as a result, society’s) skillset and knowledge.
Just as we reap the benefits of all children going to school up to the age of sixteen, the benefits of nearly everyone in society having a higher level education wouldn’t take long to be realised, through the development of life-enhancing and preserving technologies, to more rapidly developing alternative energy sources and mitigating climate change.
There is also such a thing as knowledge for knowledge’s sake. A more educated society is a fairer, more equal, and (hopefully) happier society.
Put simply, higher education benefits all of us, not just the person being educated.