I’m presently teaching a virtual course on cloud computing in libraries for Infopeople, and one of my learners recently posted a plaintive message that included this line: “Our IT department is in control and I think that it would be difficult to use even the less major services we’ve talked about in the class.” Unfortunately, from what I’ve heard over the years this is a widely held sentiment.
I understand that those who work in Information Technology departments have their own side of the story, but it occurred to me that I could think of some advice to give her and others like her who find themselves feeling this way. Below is what I told her.
- The first answer is likely always “no”. There is a reason for this. IT staff are busy, so if they say no and you actually go away you didn’t need it that badly to begin with. It is used as a gating mechanism. You have to decide whether you are going to accept that answer or not (see below).
- Pick your battles. Some hills are worth dying on and others not so much. Figure out which case you have in front of you and act accordingly. A clue — if your users will not notice any difference if you get what you want, then drop it.
- Do your homework. In some cases, when IT staff say “no” it is because they believe something to be true. However, you can often find evidence to back up your case so you can persuade them differently.
- Foster good relations. You should work at having good relations with anyone you depend on to get your job done. This can mean taking the time to find out about their challenges and frustrations. This will also better inform you as to why they may be refusing to do what you ask.
- Ask nicely. Asking nicely doesn’t just mean saying “please” although that isn’t a bad start. By asking nicely I mean asking in ways that foster a good resolution for all parties. For example, if you’re feeling the crunch of not having enough public computers, maybe instead of simply asking for more you can engage IT staff in determining the appropriate solution. Maybe they would prefer a different technology solution entirely — such as going to a server and thin clients.
- Show appreciation. Likely there are times when the IT department does something you like. Make sure they know it.
- When it really matters, don’t take “no” for an answer. When the change you seek will have a demonstrable impact on your end-users then you need to go to the mat. But if you have acted as I outline above for a considerable time preceding this event, you should be successful. IT staff are not stupid, they just have their own priorities that stem from their particular set of responsibilities. So if you make it clear to them that what you’re asking them to do is very important to you — and more importantly your mission and the people you serve — then a way can likely be found.
So that’s my advice, please share yours as a comment.
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Having spent the past two years working with developers on Drupal and Refinery website development (a valuable experience I recommend for any archivist or librarian), I would also add: Be Specific.
Which is to say, when corresponding with members of the IT department about a given project or issue, describe what you want or what you have experienced with as much detail as possible.
Don’t simply say, “I got an error message.” Take the time to write down *exactly* what you saw, copy down any messages word for word (or number for number). Explain when you saw it and what you had just done before that (or as much of it as you can remember). If you took any actions in response, try to describe what happened then.
Quite often a detail that seems only like unimportant gibberish to the client or user actually turns out to be exactly what the IT person needs to know in order to solve the problem (sometimes very, very quickly).
Richard, yes, an excellent point that others have made to me as well via Twitter. “Be specific” would be a great addition to the list.
One thing that you did not include, but is very useful for consumers of IT services, is to learn the “map” of your IT Department.
Quite often — the majority of the time in fact — end users seem to think that each of us in our IT Department is interchangeable and that is so not the case.
If you know which member(s) of the IT team deals with web servers or mail servers as opposed to networking or programming or database management or social media APIs you can get a better response or at least a more knowledgeable refusal or explanation why something cannot be done right now.
Getting to know and understand the skills and technical interests of your IT team is critical to winning allies inside the department. Armed with that knowledge you can take a request to the right person and let them champion your cause when resources are allocated inside the department.
Great suggestions. As a school librarian, I might point out that IT stands for “instructional technologist” which is a new title for educators with technology skills. The instructional technologist meets the needs of teachers which were once met only by library media specialists. These needs include new media resources, Smartboard lessons, website links, and Web 2.0 trends (all areas in which librarians are familiar). This new role (IT) is an example of the jurisdiction “battle” between IT and the “L” word…a battle I have been hearing about for over a decade.
I agree with the importance of collaboration and developing rapport with IT and other departments. The future requires it more than ever.
The more complicated the job, the more your communication should be face-to-face and not remote (as in email).
I once had Drupal set up on a university server run by Academic Computing. The last thing I wanted was some command-line interface either for the Drupal install or for dealing with the MySQL databases. (And those were only my anticipated problems.) That meant, whenever I had a request, I’d wait till I ran into the guy administering the server and only then make the request.
It’s a whole lot harder to say ‘no’ when you’re right in front of the person.
This is all fine advice, but don’t you think it’s symptomatic of larger problems when an organization’s front-line staff and management have to defer to the IT department? Yes, as you say, “IT staff have their own priorities” – and that’s exactly the problem. For years now, library customers have been putting up with tech-based services that range from mediocre to crappy, all because libraries are letting their IT departments make decisions for them. It’s called the tail wagging the dog, and if libraries don’t address this problem, they’ll deserve their impending obsolescence.
I agree with Sandra, especially when you have a library director who blows with the wind.
In my particular situation, our management is lead by an elected official who will bring in his own IT head and staff (generally because they know someone who gave to their campaign and is tech savy)and we have to conform to their standards, ideas, and goals.
The last administration was on the cutting edge of open source, bringing in new ideas, listening to everyone, creating committees of tech minded staff (not necessarily the directors) who fleshed out ideas in a cooperative environment, and was willing to try new ideas.
The current administration is polar opposite. They are top down management, with a love of everything Microsoft (not that in itself that is bad), and a closed-minded approach to everything that is new and different. For example, we had a major web re-design when they came into office, but it wound up with the same content in a new wrapper. Actually less content, because the new web god decided he would decide content for everyone’s page and with a director who doesn’t challenge anything, we wound up with less of a presence. An example of the onerous work rules we have regarding just our web pages is that several weeks ago some patron noticed a misspelling in a footnote. To change that simple error, the library director had to contact the web guru, the head of IT, and the IT person in charge of changing things. Once the change was made it had to go to another IT Staff member for review, back to the original IT staffer, the IT director, web guru, and the library director. Once all were satisfied with the change, it went live, three days latter.
My kingdom for access to our web pages and thirty seconds to make a small change.
I have ideas and things I would like to pursue with our Internet presence, but if changing one word requires this many hoops, I am going to bide my time until the next election.
Also, we are forbidden by management to use social media for any reason, I have the memo from management and ALL social media sites are blocked. This is because we would be wasting time on Facebook and tweeting our hearts out. **sigh** I graduated from high school a LONNNNNG time ago and I am really over that behavior.
My point (finally) is that in almost every setting IT is not bad and will support you. But, I always do my homework and know exactly what is to be expected and how to ask IT for it. If I am informed and know what I am doing the more willing they are to help me and do my bidding.
The problem lies with management that doesn’t have a clue or a desire to get a clue (I have never been introduced to top management in a 60 person operation that have been here six years but get their memos) and may take us back to GOPHER.
As somone on the inside of an IT Dept. I’d like to say all your points are very astute. A key thing to add would be ‘think before you ask’. A lot of folk simply want someone else to do their thinking for them, which any IT department pick up on and resent.
I wish more people would simply ask nicely, as per your article. It makes a world of difference (sometimes the difference between a yes and a no, though it shouldn’t!).
I agree with Sandra re. the tail wagging the dog. I have always seen the role of an IT dept as one that should enable the fulfilment of requests rather than decide what those requests are…