Category Archives: IT Management

IT Change Management: 8 Reasons You Need a Checklist for Implementing IT Projects

feedback checklist(updated 1/5/14) One of the habits I push in my shop is to over-rely on checklists and to game plan any change we put on to our Power boxes or in our Data Center. A good checklist is invaluable in situations where you have to take down a critical piece of equipment, make some significant change, and bring it back up again in a short amount of time (say in three hours on a Sunday morning).

IMHO, a good checklist does the following things when you make changes Continue reading

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RPO, RTO, RTA: Explaining 3 Common Disaster Recovery Terms

RPO, RTO, and RTA are valuable management tools for communicating your goals for a BC/DR/HA solution and how well you are doing in meeting those goals. Continue reading

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What’s Your Glove Display for Making IT Changes?

gloves

Try employing the glove display strategy for difficult IT scenarios, where management sees the need for change due to a visceral reaction to the problem Continue reading

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IT Purchasing Math: 8 Ways that Confusion = Profit

There’s a simple equation to keep in mind if you’re not sure you’re getting a fair deal when making a major IT purchase:

Confusion = Profit
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What Does IT Operations Management Do? (ITOps)

network operations center--wikipedia

What is IT Operations Management, what does it do, and how can it be managed in an overall IT department? Continue reading

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The Animal Farm Rule of Help Desks and Network Management

Running a Help Desk or a Data Center can be confusing in that while you try to treat all customers the same way, there are just some people who need extra-special assistance. You may go all out for your internal and external customers but there are always certain classes of people who you really have to go ALL OUT for. Continue reading

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Help Desk Management: What is Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 Help Desk support?

Help Desk tech from commons wikipedia org

One of the confusing things about Help Desk management and talking to people about an IT Operations Help Desk, is that people don’t understand what Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 Help Desk support is (as well as Level 0 support and Level 4 support, which not everyone talks about). Here’s my quick primer on what each of these functions do. Continue reading

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IBM i Incident Management Planning, Part 1

0-IT Jungle Logo

From IT Jungle, the seven critical elements of an IBM i Incident Management Plan and how to implement them. Continue reading

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IBM i System Monitoring: Everything You Need to Know

#preferred IBM i graphic

Here’s an index of articles I’ve written over the past few years covering IBM i system monitoring. Continue reading

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And then someone gets fired: IBM i ERP Implementations Gone Bad

Here’s two cautionary tales and lessons learned when migrating to a new IBM i ERP system, and some ideas on what to do when things don’t happen as planned Continue reading

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An IBM Technical Delivery Assessment Primer

question mark sign

When you buy an IBM hardware product, the business partner or IBM will generally perform a Technical Delivery Assessment (TDA) meeting with you to insure that the solution you’re going to buy is appropriate for your environment and meets your needs. Continue reading

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IT Infrastructure Heartburn: The Right and Wrong Way to Send Company-Wide Email

email envelope from wikimedia

For your consideration: a case-study in how not to turn company-wide emails into company-wide aiiiiieeeee-mails. Continue reading

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WordPress 3.8.1 Maintenance Release Now Available

wordpress w

Nine weeks after releasing the latest version of its WordPress 3.8 environment, WordPress has issued a new maintenance release for its software, WordPress 3.8.1. This release was available as of January 23, 2014. Continue reading

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Why Not Include a Not List in Your Project Charter?

When putting together a project charter, I find it valuable to always include a Not list along with the other sections of my project charter.

As the name implies, a Not list is a list of things not included in the project.
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From the Field: Notes on Data Center UPS Battery Replacement

data center image

Here are some notes and tips I picked up from my recent Data Center UPS battery replacement project Continue reading

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