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The Lone WolfSmall companies face a challenge once they've gotten to a particular size. You're big enough to hire a full time person, who we'll call Natasha, to manage your computers and networks. But you're not big enough to have more than one individual. This puts you in the danger zone. Let's talk about each problem that can make this a messy situation. 1. No backup. What happens when Natasha is sick? Or maybe she had a rough night and doesn't show up on time? Or she has a family emergency? Can you survive without her for a couple of hours...or a couple of days? In a perfect world, you'd have everything documented, all of the processes happening on automatic, and there would be no emergencies. But we all know that it's not a perfect world, and that we're up to our necks in alligators most of the time. So if Natasha isn't at work, you're going to feel some pain. How do you solve this problem? In most cases you don't, other than to have Natasha's pager number memorized. 2. No training. Since Natasha is so critical to your computers, how does she take any time to keep her skills updated? She needs, no she MUST be able to go to vendor seminars and demos, as well as multi-day training on a pretty regular basis. While you can at least plan for these events, my guess is that her pager will still get a workout. I frequently sit in the back of the room at industry seminars. I've also done more than my share of speaking at these seminars. You can always tell the ones in the audience that are the "Natasha's" of the world. They are constantly getting called or paged. Every problem at their office requires their involvement. They haven't had the opportunity to sit through a seminar without a cell phone call in five years. 3. No alternate perspectives. While Natasha may be a whiz at what she does, you're not getting alternate views of a given situation. Natasha may think that one type of technology is the best, but she might just be wrong. If that's the only technology she's learned, that's the only one she's going to like. You've heard the old saying that "if your only tool is a hammer, than every problem looks like a nail." That might apply here. If the only thing you know is Microsoft Access, than every problem looks like lots of data that has to be organized. If you've pretty much turned over the responsibility for all things technical to Natasha, then you might be missing a better solution, just because she doesn't know enough about it, or has developed a bias against it for unknown reasons. Having a one person IS department prevents you from thinking "outside the box." And it discourages Natasha from broadening her outlook because she never has time to go to seminars. And when she does, YOU keep interrupting her. 4. Turnover. Most engineers like to grow. They're constantly on the hunt for new technologies to learn, new certifications to add to their business card, and new technical books to buy at Borders. However, two things can happen to Natasha. First of all, now that she's got a nice job where she's only working 60 hours a week, and she can actually take a Saturday off now and then, she might stagnate and become your "network janitor." She'll become resistant to change, reluctant to learn new technologies, and she'll be really mean to sales reps. Scariest of all, she'll take to wearing gray overalls and wearing a tool belt. On the other hand, maybe her desire to learn and grow won't wither, in which case she'll be chomping at the bit to squeeze as much technology into her computer room as space, power and ventilation will allow. She'll spend as much as you give her and cry for more. If you don't support her need to learn (and you can't afford to), she'll either find another company that promises her the opportunities she craves, or she'll (gasp!) become a consultant. You lose. Not only will you have to hire a replacement, but the other company will probably pressure her to start right away, so she may not give you enough notice. And even if she did give you, say, a month's warning, that still isn't enough time to find someone in today's market, particularly a qualified someone. So we're back to my original comment about having backup. So what's the solution? Yeah, you guessed it...use consultants, at least until you can justify hiring two good people in your IS department. But dang it, they're expensive! You're right. One less expensive approach would be to hire a full time staffer who can help with the routine maintenance and support issues, but have an outside engineer available on a weekly basis to help with the more advanced projects, and to give you ideas about solving your thornier problems. Plus they can provide backup if your technician is sick, wants to go to the odd seminar without her pager, takes vacation, or decides he wants to move up in the world and take another job. I know of a couple of companies that do this, and it seems to work pretty well. The only other way to avoid these problems is to hire someone who really is a plodder; someone who'll be happy with the occasional Labor Day off. But then you get less adventurism, less creativity and more ticked-off sales reps. But at least she won't want to go to any seminars. So your cellular phone bills will be lower. But you'll still have to buy her a pager. She does have to go home once in a while.
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