|
|
|
Troubleshooter 9
To the Travel Sector Account Manager, Mr Jones, I hoped to take advantage of the New Year lull to talk to the IT security people about removing the encryption from the BritBreak web page. It was unfortunate that the meeting we had scheduled before Christmas coincided with their party, and even more unfortunate I was accidentally omitted from the guest list, but I was confident that I could catch them now. I had not realised, however, that the Christmas break is the highest risk period for hacker attack. Because of this, the security group work across the holiday, then have Christmas a fortnight late, so I am still waiting to meet them. For the rest of the department, though, this is a quiet time, so I took the rare opportunity of having the IT senior managers at a loose end to organise an away-day on the year 2000 problem. I booked the conference suite at a country house hotel in the Cotswolds and organised an extensive programme to ensure that BritBreak was at the forefront of the action in this minefield . The day started with a questionnaire to assess awareness. While the managers tucked into their five-course breakfast, I collated the results, which were decidedly worrying. Of seven managers, three had never heard of the problem, one thought it was something to do with the millennium really starting in 2001, two had only come across it because of an article in the Telegraph a couple of weeks ago, leaving only our token woman, Fiona Rhees, who really understood what it was all about, and she was convinced that only mainframes were in danger. After a rapidly extended introduction, we set about developing a strategy, an action plan and milestones. It was quite an achievement to have managed this in time for evening cocktails, especially bearing in mind the need for coffee and tea breaks, the sumptuous lunch, and time for the managers to try out the health club. Of course there are details remaining to be filled in, but I am happy that we have a suitable framework in place. By the time I have pulled together the brainstorming output, the detailed plan will be up to the requisite 300 pages, long enough to impress the board that serious work was undertaken but discouraging anyone from reading anything other than the executive summary. The true story is rather shorter. First we tell everyone that it’s hype by software vendors. Then we start a poster campaign that is very striking, but vague enough not to get anyone asking questions. Finally, we wait for things to go wrong and fix them. If anyone complains, we point out they were warned three years ago, giving them ample time to ask for the IT department’s help. This way the changes will go on local budgets, rather than the IT department’s, and IT will be the hero of the day. A highly satisfactory outcome. ... read next column Copyright © Creativity
Unleashed Limited 2006 |
The Troubleshooter column relates the experiences of a fictional consultant. Although the context is made up, many of the experiences related in Troubleshooter have happened in real UK businesses. Take a break from the creative pressures with Troubleshooter and return to your creativity refreshed. Originally published in PC Week magazine.
Check out more articles on our creativity information page
|
