The CIO

He was a busy man.

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Not just the sort of “busy” that we all say casually when we run into someone we haven’t seen in a while:

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“Hey, how you been?”

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“Busy! So busy.”

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This guy was actually busy. 60 hour work week and family man busy. Grey hair and sore feet busy.

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The CIO lead a team of functional directors and managers across enterprise IT covering Development, Data/Analytics, Infrastructure, Security, and various other specialized teams. His time outside of the office was spent shuttling his kids to sports, activities and school events, church, and finding time for date nights with his wife of 25 years. She'd been with him every step of the way from his first role in IT, through the job changes – chosen and otherwise, the doubt, the struggle, the certification courses, the master’s degree, to his current role as "head honcho" of technology.

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Finally.

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He'd built a good culture on the team over the years by being interested in their respective areas and plugged into the latest tech himself, because he knew that common ground is found in shared experience, both in the office and outside. They did team building events, went to ball games, celebrated project wins with drinks and food, and he knew their kids’ names.

But lately things had been tense at work. There was more work than time. More demands on IT than capacity to fulfill it, and more pressure on him to move the company to the next level through technology. He was feeling it. The pressure on his team was mounting. The week before, he'd lost another engineer, who wanted to stay, but had been offered more money - for fewer demanding hours - elsewhere. He offered a little more money, but couldn’t offer fewer hours, so the engineer left. He held his team with an open hand, and wished the engineer good luck in his new role. But it hurt. He'd lost several over the last few months, and a manager - making the capacity demands even more challenging.

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He was trying to hire new people, but salary expectations were high and the internal recruiting process was slow and time consuming. Time was in short supply as it was.

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Vendor meetings were a necessary part of his life too, but not something that fit easily - or without close scrutiny beforehand.

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I was one of the lucky few to make it through the door.

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A mutual friend from church recommended me to him. Our kids also played soccer together over the years, so we'd met and shared some common interests. We'd covered all the small talk on a quick phone call the week before...families, kids, colleges, etc.

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He looked tired when I met him in his office a week later. It was getting late in the afternoon and the lowering sun cast shadows across his modest office. His simple desk was neat, with several monitors behind him, but there was sparse decoration in his office; just a single framed picture of his wife and kids on the desk and a football with his alma mater's logo sitting on a shelf beside him. He said "I'm sorry, but I have a hard stop right at 30 minutes. Thanks for coming here to meet. How I can help you?"

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I smiled awkwardly, “Oh, help me? No, I think I can help you solve some problems," I said.

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He forced an equally awkward smile my direction, but I could feel the eye roll he suppressed. He must have groaned in his mind.

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"How so? What do you know about our team?" he said.

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"Nothing really," I said. "I don’t even know how many people are on it or what specific areas you oversee. I’m guessing all of them. But I know you're company is growing and if you’re like most IT leaders I serve, you need help. ?I'm sure you're being asked to speed growth along with IT. And I'm sure you run lean like most IT shops in town these days. That’s all I know,” I said. “Am I right?"

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"That's right," he said. "More with less. More work than time. More demand than capacity."

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His phone buzzed on the desk. He instinctively picked it up, looked at it, grimaced, and typed something in response.

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"I'm sorry. There's always something that needs my attention."

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We talked about his teams and his project pipeline – including a cloud migration, integration work from acquisitions, a data warehouse build, security concerns, and a lot more. We talked about the growing demand and his lack of man hours to get it all done. The strain that is putting on his team. He told me about the knowledge gaps in his team and the growing capacity issues.

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“I’m not going to ask you what keeps you ‘up at night’”, I said. “I already know the answer…all of it. And knowing it can’t all get done.”

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“How’d you know?”

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“Almost every CIO, CTO, and VP of IT I talk to has the same problems: knowledge gaps, capacity, and attrition,” I said. “Right? People problems. Not tech problems.”

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“Nailed it,” he said, looking at his vibrating phone again. “I’d add having someone to ask about architecture and best practices to the list, but those are the things.” He returned a text again. “Sorry,” he said. “I do this at home too. Drives my wife crazy. Especially during dinner and weekend games.” He tried to smile as if it were a joke.

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?“I can help you with all 4 things that are bugging you and taking so much time:

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·??????Knowledge or expertise gaps,

·??????capacity,

·??????attrition,

·??????and strategy.

·??????And I can make budgeting easier too.

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I have a single solution for all of it.”

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Another text came to his phone. He laid the phone face down this time and didn’t respond. It kept vibrating on the desk. Instead he looked at me, “I have 10 minutes left before my next meeting…I’m listening. How can you help?”

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“It’s called ConciergeIT. ?????????????????????? gives you domestic, budget controlled, pre-planned, discounted, just in time access to exactly the engineering and architecture skills you need fractionally. You have access to all of our in-house teams of domestic Sr. level engineering and architecture experts, 150+ of them, as you need them.”

“What kind of engineers and architects?” he said.

“Developers, Data Engineers and Architects, DevOps engineers, Cloud Engineers and Architects, Network Engineers and Architects, Security Engineers and Compliance experts, Salesforce admins and developers, and advisory services.”

“So I use these people of yours fractionally just as I need them to either execute projects or augment my staff as needed?” he replied.

“That’s right,” I said.

“How’s the budget work?”

“?????????????????????? gives you an easy way to spread your money -as little as $2500 a month or as high as you want, constantly monitor the spend, throttle or flex the amount, and expand your Engineering and Architecture capabilities without hiring an army of new hires (who will require more money than your existing team).?You get access to basically anything you need from anywhere from $30k to $120k a year, paid monthly. When you need to hire FTEs, ConciergeIT also provides discounted recruiting fees to our seasoned team of in-house tech recruiters.”

“I’m interested,” he said. “Let’s talk more. It’s hard stop time. I have to run and get my youngest from soccer practice – but then log back on tonight to finish up work after dinner. I could live without the ‘log back on’ part of my life.”

We shook hands and walked out of his office into the parking lot together. He drove off towards the soccer complex with his hand out the window waving as he pulled out. I knew I could help him slow down, because ConciergeIT is kind of like hiring every kind of?IT engineer you’d ever need, but only using them as you actually need them, and never having them leave.

ConciergeIT gave him another conveyor belt of production that allowed his thin team to get their work done, while additional capacity and projects through our team as a partner.

I’m sure his phone still vibrates on his desk a lot, but the days of fire drills and drama are behind him, because he has the expertise he needs at his disposal. His team isn’t stretched across too many projects to complete, so they’re happier seeing things get completed. Their team culture has returned to better times, because work / life balance has returned for all of them.?

Chad Nikazy is Executive Vice President at Provisions Group, a Franklin TN based IT consulting, project delivery, and recruiting firm. He resides south of Nashville with his wife and 3 children where he consults with business leaders and shuttles kids between practices of all kinds. Reach out and let's talk about your career or business challenges at [email protected]