Getting and keeping everyone on the same page is a critical success factor for leaders.  It is also one of the hardest things to accomplish due to the human meaning-making.  Each of us sees, hears, and feels things differently.  We all develop different sets of filters that we use to interpret what we read, see, and hear.  Our mood or state of mind at the time of input also influences what we get from the input.  Thus, things can have different meanings and produce different reactions and actions.  Our interests, situations and conditions also play a large role in the meaning-making process.  There are several aspects involved in the process of getting everyone on your team on the same page:

• Self-Clarity
• Conviction
• Motivation
• Shared Meaning
• Repetition
• Perseverance

Self-Clarity: The first step to getting everyone on the same page is to get you on the same page.  That means you need to be very clear about what it is that needs to be accomplished.  You need to know the goal, purpose, mission, desired outcome, etc.

Conviction:  You need to become very certain in what needs to be accomplished.  You must have no doubt about it and be able to show that in your body language.  It must show you are convinced of it.

Motivation:  Next, you need to build motivational energy by ensuring the key players feel they can accomplish whatever needs to be accomplished, they know the rewards of accomplishment, and the rewards are of value to them.  This will ensure they have the motivation to follow-through.

Shared meaning: You need to develop definitions for the key terms necessary to accomplish clear communications and understanding.  Everyone involved needs to give the same or very similar meaning to the key terms.  When things have different meanings to people, they cannot communicate effectively.

Repetition:  Nothing is more important than repetition in the alignment process.  Repeating the aim or goal, purpose etc. is very important.  Repeating the meaning of things is also valuable.   Never assume people remember, got it, know it, etc.  You need to keep repeating where you are going, what it means… and on and on.

Perseverance:  You need to be relentless about it.  Never give up.  Keep trying and keep repeating it until it gets ingrained.  Don’t stop until it gets done!

These are some of the key factors or aspects of getting and staying on the same page.  It is hard work and it starts with you and ends with you as the leader.

Are you on the right page?  Is everyone on the same page?

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO

In her 1995 national best-selling book, Jesus CEO, Laurie Beth Jones uses the story of Jesus Christ as a metaphor for visionary leadership.  Her book is divided into three sections:

• Strength of Self-Mastery
• Strength of Action
• Strength of Relationships

I read this book a long time ago.  Today, I got an email from one of my managers pointing out a decision I made should have been made differently.  Reading what he said made me feel like “kicking the donkey” and that reminded me of a particular chapter in her book based on one of the stories she used as a leadership metaphor in the “Self-Mastery” section.  It goes something like this:

A man was heading up a road with his donkey.  All of the sudden the donkey stops moving and refuses to move.  The man kicks the donkey to try and get it to move (donkeys are known to be very stubborn). The donkey moves a little more and stops again refusing to move. The man kicks the donkey again…  

To make this short and simpler, it turns out that in the end the donkey was actually trying to let the man know there was possible trouble ahead. It was, after all, looking after his best interest. 

How often do we kick “donkeys” in life?  How often do we refuse to listen, pay attention, and get mad at people who have good intentions and whom may be looking after us, our teams, our companies, etc.?

Any time you hear or read something that makes you “mad”, stop and think before you kick the donkey.  I almost did today and God knows how often I have not realized I had.  We need to learn to explore those things that trigger strong emotional responses in ourselves and others.  If someone else is kicking a donkey, you or someone else, use this metaphor to trigger meaning exploration.

• What did that mean to me or the other person?
• Why am I or why are they reacting this way?
• What is their intention or purpose?
• Do they have my/our best interests at hand?

It takes a lot of presence of mind to be aware that you are about to kick a donkey and to be able to withhold the “kick” from starting or hitting.  It takes practice.  Start by keeping a daily reminder of recalling any possible donkey kicking moments of the day.  Tell the story to your team and ask them to use the term to remind you if you are doing so (kicking a donkey).

Finally, here is some advice for the “donkeys” — Make sure you have a solid rationale and as much factual basis before you refuse to keep moving or pointing potential issues.  Sometimes the kicks we get as donkeys result from our approach rather than the content of our messages.  When you do so, take time to think how to best present the case for caution.

And by the way, independent of personal beliefs, this little book offers a wealth of leadership ideas well worth keeping in mind!  I highly recommend you explore it with an open mind. It is an easy read!  I am amazed at how she was able to extract so much from the story!  AMAZING!!!

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO

I was watching the Science Channel show Build it Bigger recently.  The show was about the process of designing and building a VERY large and unique hotel and entertainment complex in the Middle East.  It was amazing to watch the show at many levels.  What came out of it for me were the following lessons:

• Strategic design goals and a solid design process can influence a lot and enable accomplishment of incredible, seemingly impossible feats.
• Computer modeling is a very powerful tool for enabling design process and testing goal and design scenario’s feasibility.
• Significant cost and time savings can be obtained by setting high expectations and imposing “impossible” constraints (engineering/design, time and cost) from the onset.
• Prefabrication and modularization have significant impact on time-lines and cost-lines.
• Motivated by the challenge (tough goals and tight constraints), very smart, strategic-thinking, highly creative people can accomplish and produce incredible things much faster and cheaper than us “dummies”J.
• Almost nothing is impossible.

In the show, these folks built a monster size, first of a kind, and HIGHLY unique structure in something like 24 months (in 30-40% less time/cost than usual I’d guess).  This thing structure is amazing!!!

As a result of watching the show, a number of pondering items emerged that you may be interested in considering:

• How can some of the structural engineering approaches used in this project be applied to your business or area?
• Is there a way you can follow their approach at home or at work?
  • What could be “prefabricated”, “modularized”, etc.?
  • What high expectations can you set for self or others that would drive creativity and unique design features and functions?
  • How many constraints can you place on what you are trying to do?

I hope this will give you something unique to think about and inspire higher creativity in your endeavors.  Check the show if your get a chance — I am sure they will replay it again one day.

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO

I keep telling my team that they we need to be more proactive all the time.  On our website (www.remotedbaexperts.com) we talk a lot about proactive monitoring, proactive problem prevention, etc.

Proactivity has several meanings:

1. Having an orientation to the future, anticipating problems and taking affirmative steps to deal positively with them rather than reacting after a situation has already occurred.
2. Acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty.
3. Psychiatrist Dr. Viktor Frankl, describes a “proactive person” as one that takes responsibility for their life, instead of blaming outside circumstances or other people for their situation.

As you may infer from the above definitions, there are several aspects to proactivity.  Proactivity is an attitude or mindset.  My first exposure to the term came from Stephen Covey’s book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, a few years ago.  He treats the subject better than anyone else.  According to him, being proactive is the first of seven habits that highly effective people develop and live by.  His model of proactivity claims that humans, unlike any other living forms, possess four abilities or capacities:

• Self-awareness
• Imagination
• Conscience
• Independent will

These capacities enable the “freedom to choose” how we respond to a stimulus—the things we see, hear, think, etc. or the conditions and circumstances we find ourselves in.  Covey points out that, “highly proactive people do not blame circumstances, conditions, or past conditioning for their behavior.”   Their behaviors (responses) are based on values, not on feelings.  Reactive people tend to be affected more by their environment and by things outside their control such as weather.  If the weather is “bad” they feel “bad” — they suffer and get down because of it.  They worry about the war, the economy, and about many other things that they have nothing or very little to do about or control over.  They worry about others and what they did, do, will do, or did not, don’t, or will not do.  They are also highly affected by how others treat them, react to them, etc.  They live at the mercy of others.

Covey poses that until a “reactive” or “non-proactive” person realizes, acknowledges, and accepts they are what and where they are today because of the choices and decisions they have made, as opposed to external conditions, circumstances and conditioning, they cannot become proactive.

Reactive people use a different language than proactive ones.  Reactive people tend to say things like:

• Nothing I can do
• I can’t help it
• I have to…
• I cannot…
• I wish…
• There is no way…
• It’s impossible…
• If it wasn’t for…
• I have no control…
• Why are they doing this to me?

Worst, they believe these things and allow them to control them.  They put their time and energy on trying to change things and people they do not have any control over.  On the other hand proactive people focus on things they control and can do something about.  According to Covey, when you do that you actually increase your “circle of influence.”  By focusing and working on things you can control, you become better able to affect things that you otherwise did not before.  That is the key point and most powerful lesson regarding this concept.

Covey describes three areas where the problems we face in life fall:

• Direct control (problems involving our own behavior)
• Indirect control (problems involving others’ behavior)
• No control  (problems we can do nothing about)

He goes on to recommend that in order to solve “direct control” problems we need to work on our habits.   To solve “indirect control” problems we need to work on our methods of influence.  And in order to deal with problems we do not control we need to learn to accept there is nothing we can do and then move on.

I mentioned earlier that the first step to change our stance from reactive to proactive is recognizing and accepting it.  The “language” list above can help you monitor your own language and assess your stance.  Once you do make a list of all the things you worry most about, then determine which area of control they lay in: Direct, Indirect, or No control.  With that inventory complete, move on to identifying the change strategies that will best deal with them including habits to change, new or different methods of influence, etc.  If you do so, you will see your “circle of influence” grow bigger and bigger — Imagine what that would be like — And what it would mean to you and others important to you?

If you have not read Covey’s book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People yet, get a hold of it ASAP — It is GREAT — it may change your life!!!  And NO, I did not get a free copy of the book to “promote” itJ! In fact, I think it is one of the most sold business books of all times.

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO

The purpose of this post is to stress the importance of keeping the results we seek in mind all the time.  When you keep results in mind, you are better able to align your time and effort to accomplish the results you desire.  Being highly conscious of the results enables you to better decide what to do when.  It allows you to better prioritize and focus.   “Beginning with the end in mind” is the second habit of highly effective people according to Stephen Covey’s bestseller Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

The challenge is that end results are usually not very clear for many of us.  Whether it is because we are not clear ourselves or others have not clearly communicated what they want, need, expect, etc.  Thus, many of us spin our wheels and end up wasting time, effort, and energy on things that do not contribute to the End Results.  If you want to add value or be most valuable, you need to make sure you clearly understand the key results you need to align to your efforts.  End Results get accomplished by a “chain of results”.  The best way to align your efforts is to develop a simple diagram to help you develop and visualize the chain of results necessary to accomplish your desired end results.

Here is an illustration of what one would look like:

Thinking about results and sub results all the way to the end result help you develop a result-oriented mindset that should enable highly efficient and effective accomplishment of what you want or need to accomplish.  The process can clear up lots of activity and action that may or may not yield impact on the next result link along the chain. Another advantage of doing this is that conflicting results can be identified earlier and clarified easier.  So often we work at cross purposes without realizing it until it is too late.   This approach also enables you to communicate more clearly and effectively up or down the chain of command.  It also makes resource allocation much easier.

Think about it — play with it — And do not forget that It is all about results.

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO

In this post, we will continue our discussion on effective communication skills and the role they play in our careers. This two-part blog entry is a somewhat lighthearted look at my own life’s lessons on effective communications (or lack thereof).   In future posts, we’ll look at different mechanisms we can use to communicate and coordinate more effectively with others.  We’ll also learn how we can use effective communications to keep our customer base happy.

Verbal and Written Communication Skills
I think people read this blog because they take pride in their work and want to become better at their chosen profession. So here’s my second piece of non-technical advice: The importance of improving your communication skills can not be understated. I don’t care how strong of a technician you are, if you can’t communicate effectively with your peers, you won’t be able to succeed in this profession. In the old days, you might have been able to get by with just your technical skills. That is definitely not the case in today’s business world.

Take a look at your last performance appraisal forms, I’m betting that most of the criteria you are being judged upon depends upon communications. The key words and phrases to look for are “ability to work in a team environment”, “keep supervisors informed”, “maintain good communication with the user community”, “ensure the content of the communication is at the appropriate level for the intended audience”, “provide system and user documentation for projects and system enhancements.” I pulled all of the aforementioned phrases verbatim from one of my own past performance appraisals. I reviewed all of the criteria that I was being evaluated upon and found that almost ninety percent of the items depended upon verbal or written communications.

If you don’t have good communication skills, all is not lost. Like anything else, these skills can be learned. I still consider myself to be only a fair writer. I am in awe of people like Craig Mullins who can just sit down and let the words flow. I often find myself agonizing over every word and sentence. When I first started working in a corporate environment (20 years ago now), my writing skills were terrible. My original career was not database administration, it was construction—a job that didn’t require you to excel at written and verbal communications. One on the job accident, 9 operations and 11 months of vocational rehabilitation training later and I had a new career as a COBOL programmer. I went from working with a construction crew to working with computer programmers. My first employer was a very large and somewhat stuffy financial institution. When I was employed there, men couldn’t leave their floor without wearing their suit coat.   That’s the way it was in the 80’s.

I quickly learned that getting caught wiping your computer screen off with your tie didn’t really show your managers that you were good at thinking “outside of the box.” That was about the only thing I thought that piece of knotted cloth around my neck was good for. For the first six months, I refused to tie them. Being the non-conformist that I was, I just loosened them up, slipped them off and hung them up. Saying that my communication skills were rough around the edges when I started my career would be an understatement. But I had the good fortune of having a manager that understood the importance of both verbal and written communications. I would write a memo, she would correct it with her red pen and send it back to me for a rewrite. Many of them had a “Nice Try!” and a smiley face on top.

After becoming exasperated because of the numerous rewrites (and seeing all of those smiley faces), I thought I had better improve my writing skills. I read books, practiced writing, and became involved with as many company newsletters and related communications as I could. When I asked to join a newsletter, I always started with “I’m not the greatest writer, but I’m trying to learn.” I also asked my peers that worked on the newsletter to critique my work. The more I was critiqued, the better I became.

The same was true with public speaking. My first speech could be described as being “somewhat less than stellar.” Craig Mullins would gently prod me from time to time until he finally convinced me that speaking was something I should be doing from time to time. Craig promised to sit in the back of the room for my first speech and give me hand signals if I was speaking too fast, too slow, too loud or too soft. Halfway through the speech, my knees were knocking and his hands were in constant motion.

I found that like anything else, experience helps. But I will say that my speaking career was not without excitement. I learned that you really shouldn’t drink a carbonated beverage wearing a tie mike that is attached to a set of 6 12-foot speakers. When I was done chugging the pop before the speech, I looked around and saw everyone laughing at the noises I had just made.

I also learned that some podiums are on wheels and those wheels aren’t always locked. I started my first sentence, leaned against the podium, and it began to move. I tripped a little trying to stop the podium from moving and ended up heading for the end of the stage at a very rapid rate. It was a raised stage too, about six feet higher than the first row of seats. As I quickly approached the end of that raised stage, I noticed that the people in the first row were making motions just like the extras did in the old Godzilla movies- right before they got stomped on. Lucky for me one of my work buddies in the first row had the good sense to jump to his feet and stop the podium (and me) from killing a few members of my audience.

At a very large conference, the speaker (who now works for a competitor of mine), that was using the room before my session, left with the tie mike.   The moderators and technicians searched but couldn’t find a spare in time.  What they did find was a 4 foot corded mike that they plugged into the middle of the floor.   I then gave half my speech to 500 participants bent over at the waist.  Luckily, they rounded up the cordless version.   I got over those little snafus and kept plugging away. With each subsequent speech, I started to improve.

The point I am trying to make is that you can improve upon your communication skills. IT shops are no longer evaluating technicians purely on their technical skills. I have seen the soft skill evaluation pendulum swing a little more each year. It is the total package of skills that you bring to the table that you are being evaluated upon. We all know the importance that our technical skill sets have upon our success in this field. But you also need to be well rounded in all of the skill sets your managers are looking for.

In my next set of blogs, we’ll look at some of the different mechanisms we will use to communicate to our customers.  Whether your customer is across the hallway or across the globe, these mechanisms can be used to coordinate your activities with others and keep your customer’s informed of your progress.

Thanks for Reading,

Chris Foot
Oracle Ace
Director Of Service Delivery

The following post is intended to help the reader understand the power of taking full responsibility for problems or lackluster results of the groups and organizations they lead.  By doing so, they will identify what really went wrong and better develop solutions and take actions that effectively resolve the situation permanently.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins identifies a number of leadership levels with Level 5 being the top or ideal level.  One of the key character traits of such leaders is that they look in a mirror when things go bad and they look out the window when things go well.  What that means is that great leaders take responsibility for what goes wrong and they give credit to others when things go well.  It takes one mature person to do that.  It is very hard to do.  It is so easy to blame, especially when you are at the top of your business.  You can blame so much and so many.  Also, it is easy to take credit for all the great things that happen.

Blaming and taking credit are bad habits many develop early on.  We learn these bad habits at home and in school since these “social systems” punish those who make mistakes and reward those who do well.  As humans, we avoid pain and thus avoid the punishment that comes from making mistakes and taking responsibility for them.  We also enjoy the fruits of success and will do whatever it takes to succeed, sometimes including taking credit for things we may not have totally been responsible for.

I have recently had a number of opportunities to blame others for things that have happened.  I chose not to do so.  Instead, I chose to “look in the mirror” and to reflect upon the factors I controlled and influenced what had transpired.  I took responsibility for the results.  This allowed me to figure out the root cause.  And typically when root causes emerge, better solutions ensue.  More importantly, I felt really good about it.  It felt good to take responsibility and it felt good to see how others (my board and my team) reacted to my doing so.  It was so good that I now walk around with a small mirror to constantly remind me.

Ever since I read another great business book by Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, I tried to live by one of his Laws:  There is not blame.  However, that never got me to look at myself as much as to look at “the system” for what went wrong.  When something went wrong I would ask lots of questions to see what went wrong.  On the other hand, the mirror metaphor makes you look inside.  It forces you to ask several questions:

• What did I contribute to the results?
• What could I have done differently?
• How did my actions or the lack thereof contribute?
• What or who did I miss, avoid, ignore, forget, etc.?

Once you get clarity regarding your role, you can proceed with much more comfort to examine all the pieces of the system that need improvement.  Taking responsibility does not preclude others from being held accountable.  It does not mean you are the only “guilty” party.  It means the buck stops with you.  And that gives you a lot more power to fix and improve things the first time out.  Fixing problems without dealing with the root cause does not fix them permanently.  They come back to hunt you or someone else one day.  According to another one of Senge’s Laws, “The easy way out leads right back in.” Top leaders look in the mirror, identify what really went wrong, and they take full responsibility and action to resolve whatever went wrong.  And they feel great about it and others do too!

Have you looked in the mirror lately?  — Try it, it feels great!

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO

In an earlier post, I introduced six Key Value Factors that I consider to be drivers of high value perception:

• Timeliness
• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Responsiveness
• Quality
• Integrity

In this post, I will expand upon the final factor:  Integrity.  I will do so by defining what it means and discussing what it entails.  While the focus of this post is based on my experience and approach at Remote DBA Experts, these factors are universal and thus applicable in multiple individual and business contexts.  Being timely, efficient, effective, responsive, and delivering quality output with high integrity will score big on anyone’s value scorecard.  That is why awareness of them is so important!

What is Integrity?

In this context, Integrity is doing what we say we will do.  That is simple, and very powerful.  It is the foundation of trust.  And trust is perhaps the most critical factor in any relationship.

What does Integrity entail?

There are two aspects to the Integrity Factor:

• Making commitments
• Keeping commitments

Integrity starts when you make a commitment.  To ensure integrity, you must make sure your capabilities are in line with your commitments.  In the service business, there are a number of elements that make up commitments and impact our ability to deliver.  Before you commit, you need to understand all the aspects of the commitment and the factors that can affect your ability to deliver on it.  Service deliverables may include one or several of the following:

• Tasks
• Information
• Results
• Etc.

Your ability to deliver is based on a number of factors such as:

• Resources
• Time
• Knowledge
• Etc.

These and other considerations must be taken into account when determining your ability to deliver what you committed. Once you are confident that your capabilities are in line with the commitment, then you can move on to doing what it takes to keeping the commitment.

Keeping the commitment requires full awareness of these aforementioned factors as well as some action.  To keep your commitment, you need to manage it.  If you are like most of us, you need to manage several of them.  Keeping them takes continuous planning and organizing.  You need to prioritize and reprioritize.  You have to keep an eye on the balls you have up in the air.  It is hard work, but when you make it happen, it feels great!  Delivering on or ahead of expectation is a great feeling!  Meeting commitments builds trust and strengthen relationships.  It gives you credibility and “power” unlike any other.

Before you make a commitment, first make sure you can actually deliver it. Then, work hard to make sure you ultimately do so.  High integrity is one of the best virtues to be known for.

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO

As we all know, effective verbal and written communication is critical to the success of any business activity.   The more complex the activity or the more coordination that is required to complete a given task, the more important effective communications becomes.    There are very few tasks in the DBA profession that don’t require some level of coordination between DBAs, other support units, and end users.   No matter how well you execute the technical activities required to complete the administrative task, if you don’t efficiently coordinate and communicate with others, bad things usually happen.

I use change management as a simple example.  Oracle states that 90% of all database failures can be attributed to human error.   Poor communication is certainly one of the problems that we can categorize as a human error.    The last thing you want to hear from an operator when you are requesting the restoration of a tape backup to a different disk is, “I thought you wanted me to restore the files in their original location – not to that spare disk.   I think I just overlaid your prod database…”

Remote DBA Experts provides remote database administration services to organizations across the globe.   We perform 100% of our administrative activities to customers that we rarely see in person.   We have become experts at effective verbal and written communications.   So, let’s talk about communication skills and the important role they play in our careers.

This two-part blog entry will be a somewhat lighthearted look at my own life’s lessons on effective communications (or lack thereof).   In future posts, we’ll look at different mechanisms we can use to communicate and coordinate more effectively with others.  We’ll also learn how we can use effective communications to keep our customer base happy.

It used to be that you could get by with a total lack of interpersonal skills in our profession. Well those days are long gone. If you want to succeed, you’ll need to learn how to communicate effectively and play well with others. These posts contain a few pearls of wisdom, and a story or two, to help you become a well-rounded technician that is on the fast track to a successful career.

The DBA’s Evolving Role
You have read numerous articles on the changing role of the DBA. How the various database vendors are making their products so easy to administer that, sooner or later, DBAs will no longer be required to be expert technicians (or be required at all). If you have been reading this blog, you’ll know that I totally disagree. It is my opinion that database administrators will always need to be just as technically proficient as they had to be in the past. I will agree that database environments are becoming easier to administer. Oracle Grid Control allows us to administer, monitor, tune and troubleshoot an Oracle database without having to go as deep technically as we had to in the past. Although, we won’t have to know as much about the internals as we used to, our skill sets will become much broader in scope.

The database engine is taking on a much more strategic role in most organizations. It provides the mechanism to store physical data along with business rules and executable business logic. The entire application environment (data storage, business rule enforcement, application program storage, communication, system monitoring) is now controlled by the database. Over time, the database engine will store more information related to the understanding of the business, the meaning of the data stored (metadata), and the mechanisms to control and track versions of the database, access programs and related software. As the database’s area of influence expands, so does the DBA’s. Can any one of us predict what IBM, Oracle and Microsoft have up their sleeves in their next “latest and greatest” release? Not me. But THAT is what makes this job exciting. Our area of technical influence will be expanding, not contracting.

The Importance of Soft Skills
Now that I have expressed my opinion on the expanding role of the DBA, let’s talk about the importance of soft skills. Before we begin, I define soft skills as the ability to communicate in both written and verbal forms and the ability to interact with fellow employees in a positive manner. In the past, a technician’s lack of interpersonal skills was often overlooked. The more technically proficient the technician was, the more leeway he or she was given. Let me provide you with a couple of quick examples.

When I first started in this profession, I attended a meeting at a large financial institution that included some pretty high-level representatives from both the business and technical areas. One of the technicians that attended the meeting was a mainframe operating system support technician. The guy was well known to be very good at his job and as nasty a person as you would want to meet. The meeting started and it quickly became apparent that most of the issues being discussed would be about business processes. The O/S expert slammed his pen and pad down on the table and declared, “It looks like this is going to be a waste of my time. I have work to do. Call another meeting with me when you need technical advice.” He then promptly walked out. Being a junior level programmer, I was in awe. I asked my boss after the meeting who he was. He stated “one of our mainframe gurus, don’t act like he does until you get as good as he is.”

A dozen years later, I saw a technician raise his hand at an enterprise-wide IT meeting when the CIO asked (rhetorically I think), who was the most important person in the organization. I think the CIO thought the answer would be “the CEO.” The techie who raised his hand said “I am.” I think every manager attending that meeting shrunk down in his or her seat. When the CIO asked him why, he stated, “When my computers go down, all business stops.” At a previous job, I had a 20-minute conversation with a UNIX admin who never bothered to turn around from her screen to look at me.

Although my examples may be over the top, they show you the mindset that often plagues our profession. As the years have gone by, I have migrated from DBA to DBA Unit Manager and now DBA Operations Manager. I have seen too many excellent technicians end up with a mediocre career because they achieved a reputation for “not playing well with others.” I talk from experience. If you want to excel as a technician, you will need to be technical, but you will also need to work well with others.

Next week, in the conclusion of this two-part blog entry, we’ll continue our discussion on the importance of communication in achieving customer happiness with more words of wisdom and personal experiences.

Thanks for Reading,

Chris Foot
Oracle Ace
Director Of Service Delivery

In an earlier post, I introduced six Key Value Factors that I consider to be drivers of high value perception:

• Timeliness
• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Responsiveness
• Quality
• Integrity

In this post, I will expand upon the fifth factor:  Quality.  I will do so by defining what it means and discussing what it entails.  While the focus of this post is based on my experience and approach at Remote DBA Experts, these factors are universal and thus applicable in multiple individual and business contexts.  Being timely, efficient, effective, responsive, and delivering quality output with high integrity will score big on anyone’s value scorecard.  That is why awareness of them is so important!

What is Quality?

My definition of quality comes from my days at Westinghouse.  Their Productivity and Quality Center came up with what I consider to be a great definition:

“Doing the right things right the first time”

It is a straightforward, yet meaningful, definition.  So let’s delve into what it all means.

What does Quality entail?

There are three aspects to the definition:

1. Doing the right things.
2. Doing them right.
3. Doing them right the first time.

Before getting into them, let me say that Quality, like the other Value Factors, is an Attitude embedded in individuals and in the organization’s culture.  Quality has the same enablers as the other factors:

• Processes
• Procedures
• Methods
• Tools
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You must want to “do the right things right the first time” and be expected, enabled, and encouraged by the organization to do so.  Now let me get back to what it entails:

Doing the right thing means that the first thing you need to do in order to deliver quality is to know what the right things are.

• What are you supposed to do, deliver, accomplish?
• What are the expectations, requirements, specifications, SLAs, etc.?
  • When is it expected?
  • How is it expected?
  • Etc.

Once you know what the target is, you can deliver it better.

Doing them right means that you have to meet the expectations, requirements, etc.  It means delivering what the customer needs, wants, or expects.  Not only are the quality attributes important, but the time dimension also plays a key role in perception.  The right thing has to be done right at the right time.  It can be well done but late and make the quality aspects be less meaningful.  While I have treated Timeliness as a separate Factor, it is also a critical dimension for this Factor!

Doing them right the first time has internal and external implications.  It means that you minimize rework and thus save time and money on the company side.  The external implication is a time implication.  Rework implies taking longer to complete a project, and thus, affecting the Timeliness Factor perception, and its influence on the Quality Factor.

Probably more than any of the other factors, Quality is in the “eyes of the beholder”.  You must set and manage this expectation more than any other. Quality can become a fuzzy factor if not carefully managed.  Keep that in mind!

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO