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Manager

The LAN support group has to have at least one manager. Someone has to be on staff who understands an organization’s goals and who can manage, monitor, and direct all activities toward that end and whose primary interest is doing a good job, not generating more third-party revenue.

The manager should have enough of a technical background to understand what needs to be done and generally how. Managerial experience (i.e., monitoring, directing, and motivating a staff) is necessary where the staff consists of employees or consultants. The manager has to be able to develop a long-term technological direction for the organization so that each project, each replacement, each additional facility is a part of a larger, long-term plan to achieve the desired customer-oriented results. The manager has to be in tough with the industry’s trends, in order to figure out how they will impact the business. This is the only way to accommodate trend shifts or new trends. This is not a trivial task, and could be one of a manager’s most significant responsibilities.

Many organizations hire technicians as technical managers, who are then managed by a business-unit manager. Usually this does not work out well because technicians do not usually communicate effectively in items of dollars and cents, which is how business-unit managers manage. A skilled technician is then lost to the organization. The technology manager should have enough business skills to know debits rom credits, how to define and manage a budget, and how to communicate with internal business clients in their own language. If the department is one that charges out for services (a good idea), then the manager must sell and present effectively to get commitments from internal customers departments for next year’s budget. The technical manager must also know how to manage a technical staff, be they employees or consultants. Unless effective training takes place, it usually does not work out to simply promote a senior technician.

Outside Help

The economics of outsourcing, consulting, and contracting are simple: it pays for itself, if used judiciously. A task, a project, or a full-time function (e.g., the help desk) can be outsourced so long as the economics make sense, with certain exceptions.

Even if it appears economically beneficial, it is best not to outsource department management, project management, network management, and client liaison. This leads to a lost of control of projects, of finances, of personnel, of customer satisfaction, and involvement.

Consultants, whether individual contract or subcontract workers, employees of a consulting firm or integrator, or representatives of a manufacturer or other vendor can be used to supplement an in-house staff’s expertise. The in-house staff cannot be expert at everything having to do with networks. If the organization has several standalone LANs that have to be connected but there is insufficient in-house expertise, then outside experts can be employed under the direction of in-house staff who should also learn from this process. At the end there should be a completed and completely documented project, with the in-house group knowing enough about the project to maintain it. They can call in the expert when a problem or need for expansion surpasses in-house knowledge.

If a given function’s requirements exceed the time available, it can be assigned to a new fixed outsource group. This includes communications, help desk (hardware and software support; this is first level support, especially for shrink-wrapped software), cable plant maintenance, communications, and, to some extent, platforms other than the primary one.

Technical Staff

In a small-network environment, the manager could be the whole staff. One person can maintain a dozen PCs and one file server, using outside help when necessary. A rule of thumb is to have one technician for every 100 to 150 clients (nodes). The exact number of technicians needed depends greatly on the infrastructure, because the more servers, hosts, gateways, and external network services that comprise the network, the more time will have to be spent away from the clients.

It is best to hire generalists. The in-house staff needs to know something about every aspect of the network. In some things, they will be experts, in others they may have only a vague knowledge. Their expertise should be strongest in those areas where they will be doing the technical work themselves.

The in-house staff share all responsibilities. A strict rotation need not be set, but if one employee is evaluating a new product and others are doing maintenance work, another technician can evaluate the next new product, even if they need closer supervision. This not only builds and maintains morale, it provides cross-training and backup. People tend to share knowledge when they know they are not going to own anything for very long by themselves.

Good communication within the department is necessary. Daily 9 AM meetings are a good idea when the department is still in mostly a reactive mode, to keep the manager or senior(s) informed of all activities and unresolved issues.

Junior Staff

The ratio of junior to senior staff members has to be balanced: two juniors for every senior is appropriate in smaller shops, plus one junior for each 100 customers, unless the help desk is outsourced.

In a small-network environment, with a one- or two-person staff, the second or third member should be a junior staffer. This provides someone to do the desk-to-desk work who then becomes familiar with the customers and provides an intense learning experience on the networking infrastructure and key issues. Senior staff can resolve complex issues and help with the infrastructure and planning.

In a large-network environment, there should be one junior and one midlevel staff member for each senior. This provides backup as people move and grow, or take vacations or leaves of absence.

Senior Staff

The first person hired (after a manager) should be a senior technician. They should have significant expertise in the primary technologies of the environment: NOS, cable plant, internetworking services, desktop operating systems and primary applications. This may be too much to expect of one employee; the infrastructure knowledge is more important because application vendors are getting better at help desk calls.

The next two to three people hired should be junior staff, two to three for each senior. Generally, juniors learn much faster than seniors because the junior staffers have less material to cover, in quantity and complexity. Both types of employees are necessary and can be equally productive.


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