134. Things That IT SHOULD Be Doing To People with Michael Moore

Michael Moore

With 19 years of experience in Information Technology, Michael has helped guide organizations to develop secure and stable enterprise systems using best practice design, proactive support and cost-effective, scalable architecture. He is self-motivated and team-focused. Michael empowers his team and uses performance based management to improve their skills and increase company productivity.

Things That IT SHOULD Be Doing To People with Michael Moore

Today on Dissecting Popular IT Nerds Podcast, returning guest Michael Moore is going to unveil how to make yourself look like a big deal. Alongside our host, Phil Howard, Michael will break down his wealth of personal experience from what to ask in your first interview all the way through to visual presentation of IT solutions in a corporate business meeting.

The common factors: you must know how to ask the right questions that lead to a well-prioritized plan, how to find and eliminate duplicate budget-eaters, and regardless of being in IT, you have know how to properly tell a story.

IT folks don’t know how to translate the IT of their job into business speak.

3 Key Takeaways

Listen To The Full Episode Below

Dissecting Popular IT Nerds

134. Things That IT SHOULD Be Doing To People with Michael Moore

00:00 / 01:06:16

Episode Show Notes

[00:12] Phil formally welcomes you back to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds

Bringing on guest Michael Moore
Introducing the title of the conversation
Ask the right questions
- “Sometimes people don’t know what they don’t know. And we in IT need to tell them.” -Michael Moore

[1:52] The new section Phil wants to include on the show

The craziest ticket Michael has ever seen
- Hardware that came back with a live animal in it
Sitting on a call where the server is in the bathroom

[4:20] The things we do to people in IT

Value discovery questions that might make you look like a big deal

[5:40] When they ask “What questions do you have for me?” in the interview

Tell me about your business and what you do
How do you make money?
What’s important to you?
“If I don’t understand the workings of their business, I don’t know where they’re going to want to put their money.” -Michael Moore
- Make them talk and tell you about their pain points
  - People get upset with IT but don’t know how to explain what’s going on

[7:06] Common themes that come up

Small problems don’t get fixed
Lack of functionality in the solutions that they purchased
Not getting what they wanted out of what they purchased
Fear that their IT solutions are going to go down
“What’s easy is finding their pain points. It’s harder to decide which of those you’re going to work on first.” -Michael Moore
- They may not know that there are other solutions out there or that they’re not secure!
- A lot of people want to “go cloud” without making a plan

[10:36] Michael’s example of a recent conversation about implementing a new solution

Taking a minute to sit down and talk about the work flow
“I want to know how information is being moved around regardless of what technology we put on there.” -Michael Moore
Phil recaps Michael’s advice and questions that arose from it

[12:32] An actual sign of what’s critical and what isn’t

Close your eyes, imagine everything’s down, and tell me what you want up first

[14:00] What happens if we leak customer data?

Know what customer data you’re storing and if it’s in the right place
Do you even have a password policy?

[15:20] What do we pay our people?

You should be in between 2 and 3% of your budget for IT
- That can fluctuate depending on strategic projects
- Most are spending less than that on IT

Does this apply to a specific field?
- Some businesses have solutions that require more or less IT
- Categorize your strategic IT project in a different bucket from your general IT budget

[19:30] What happens if they don’t make any changes

Give them a high-level overview of their technical solutions
- Give them a visualization
- Then show them the risks
  - Show them how you can fix the concerns raised
  - Leave room for flexibility
The next question: what do I do first?
- Numerically identify the risk

[23:16] An example of how to calculate risk

Risk impact and risk probability
Dealing with a critical server that’s several years old
Use multiplication to write up a table
- The next question that you’ll get is “What’s this going to cost me?” followed by “How long is it going to take to get this done?”

“This is a tested method of being able to execute the products you want to ask about.” -Michael Moore
- Understand you’re going to have to make adjusted judgment calls
Phil recaps what Michael has taught

[28:20] What other metrics could we provide insight into?

Tell them in what ways it can bring them additional revenue
This is where understanding business comes into play
What happens if you do have a data leak?
Are you insured and ready for identity theft crises?

[15:20] The largest group of end-users Michael has ever overseen

Handling ~12,000 end users internally

[15:30] Where is the bleeding happening?

Was he able to find money and clean up cost?
An example of when Michael found out everything they’re paying for and to whom it was going
Challenge the team to decide if the solution is crucial or just nice to have
What about just paying too much money?
- Phil’s example of Microsoft’s increasing cost
General auditing
- Noticing these costs during remote work
- “Duplicate technology accounts for a huge portion of excess IT cost.” -Michael Moore
You don’t need duplicate tech for everybody
You don’t need to pay full price for Microsoft Teams!

[38:36] How often should people get a third set of eyes on something? And how often does IT step back to do an audit?

Audits are not being done as often as they should
The issue of getting to the IT executive table
The problem is: IT needs the business, and the business needs IT
- It’s IT’s job to make them as secure as possible
- “The biggest problem is: IT folks don’t know how to translate the IT of their job into business speak and vice versa.” -Michael Moore
  - Fixing this communication is not easy

[43:20] Michael tells a story of when he saw miscommunication happening personally

Pulling in security folks and giving them all of the information you’ve run
- They will send an executive report to the head of the office

[45:00] How long do these risk probability numbers and contingency factors take?

It depends on how detailed you want to go
- General things that you can do:
  - Go through a general project from top to bottom
Ask “What am I doing for you?” and you’ll likely see a common problem

[49:10] What would individuals get from Michael’s help?

Tell a story; what’s the narrative on this?
An interesting statistic Phil saw today
- People buy on emotion before facts
- Assuming most IT guys are analytic and don’t know how to deliver a story
Where Michael’s best college grades came from
His example of editing a colleague’s paper on women’s studies
- Phil would love to write headlines for a living

[56:44] The best way to reach out to Michael

Linkedin
Michael is the IT ghostwriter

[59:00] The important factor of not needing credit

The imaginary dream everyone is chasing
Michael is the IT coach/mentor
- Sometimes it just takes the right person
- Send something in the mail

Michael Moore

Things That IT SHOULD Be Doing To People with Michael Moore

3 Key Takeaways

Listen To The Full Episode Below

Episode Show Notes

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