In the world of IT management, we often encounter what are known as “crisis hotspots.” These issues, while seemingly minor, can become significant distractions from our primary role as leaders, designers, and organizers. Today, let’s explore how to identify these crisis hotspots and effectively manage them to keep your IT ship sailing smoothly.

Understanding Crisis Hotspots

Crisis hotspots are those recurring issues that grab your attention and pull you away from your strategic goals. You’ve probably heard about these if you’ve been through a few job interviews in the IT space. They’re the problems that the previous person in your role couldn’t solve, and now they’re your problem.

These hotspots can be seductive. Many IT managers fall into the trap of addressing them directly because it feels good to solve problems using their technical skills. However, this can lead you down a path where you lose sight of your larger responsibilities as a leader.

In his insightful article “The Weaknesses of Leaders in IT Management,” Jeremy Tozer beautifully captures this decline. New IT managers often neglect the essential elements of knowledge, principles, structure, process, and leadership, focusing instead solely on the technological aspect.

The Problem with Crisis Hotspots

The tricky thing about these crisis hotspots is that they don’t resolve themselves. If you don’t address them effectively, they can pose serious risks, such as:

• Taking on a technical specialist role, which isn’t part of your IT manager’s job description.
• Missing your chance to establish yourself as a credible manager. As Marc Antony put it, an IT manager who only focuses on technical issues quickly becomes one of the many who fail to solve the organization’s technical problems. Meanwhile, those suffering from poor management are thrilled with even minor leadership changes.
• Losing the golden period during which you can introduce significant changes.

If you fail to assess and decide whether these issues are genuinely significant or solvable, you won’t earn the trust of your business colleagues. A structured approach to dealing with these matters is your best bet.

The Benefits of Addressing Crisis Hotspots

When you handle crisis hotspots effectively, several benefits emerge:

1. Proper Prioritization: Some issues may seem severe on the surface but can be safely ignored once their actual business or economic impact is assessed.
2. Strategic Investment: If a crisis is indeed a catalyst for more significant problems, you can justify making a suitable investment to resolve it.
3. Emotional Control: As an IT manager, it’s your job to keep emotions in check, both your own and those of your colleagues. Emotional reactions can be destructive, undermining long-term management principles. It’s essential to avoid knee-jerk responses to these crises.
4. Realistic Judgment: A structured approach encourages a more realistic assessment of technological issues, fostering a pragmatic and goal-oriented environment for allocating resources to future projects.
5. Empowering Solutions: In some cases, you’ll guide your team members to solve their problems in a structured, realistic manner.

For those interested in a deeper dive into logical problem-solving, “The New Rational Manager” by Kepner and Tregoe is a valuable resource. The book outlines four key steps, beginning with “Situation Appraisal” — asking, “What is the problem?” and ending with “Potential Problem Analysis” — considering, “What steps are ahead of us?”

Categorizing Crisis Hotspots

A word of caution: If you’ve been promoted from within your organization to an IT manager role, you might believe you’re already familiar with the crisis hotspots. However, as Moltke wisely advised, “We tend to overemphasize what’s directly in front of us and overlook the more distant but equally important issues.”

IT managers, like commanders on a battlefield, should not be overly influenced by what’s immediately around them. Broader awareness of all the fronts is crucial. Issues fall into several categories:

1. Immediate Action Required: These are the true crisis hotspots.
2. Long-Term Issues: These require solutions within the framework of structure, process, and SLA improvements but don’t count as crisis hotspots.
3. External Issues: Problems whose causes and solutions lie outside the IT domain.
4. Minor Issues: These don’t classify as important problems at all.

The challenge is distinguishing between these categories. You should be ready to act using three tools:

1. Agreed Principles: These are the guiding standards you’ve established with your business colleagues.
2. Crisis Metrics: Define what makes an issue critical and agree on this with your team.
3. Precise Questioning: Ask detailed questions about why an issue is classified as critical.

Your first tool involves principles for judging issues. Among your comprehensive principles, there are likely some that offer solutions to specific problems.

Having specific criteria for distinguishing crisis hotspots from trivial matters is crucial. For example, consider these criteria:

• Financial Impact: Is the daily financial loss from this problem more than $X?
• Effort Required: Can this issue be resolved with X person-days?
• Available Resources: Do we have the skills, tools, and equipment needed to solve this problem?
• Public Disruption: Will this issue lead to general disruptions that could cause financial harm?

Conclusion

The key takeaway is to tailor your criteria to fit your situation, prioritizing only the most significant issues. By doing so, you can ensure that your time, attention, and resources are focused on resolving problems that truly matter.

Remember, the most powerful tools at your disposal are the questioning words of Rudyard Kipling: What, Where, When, How, Why, and Who. Keep asking yourself:

• What’s the problem?
• Why is it important?
• What are the consequences?
• What happens if we don’t fix it?
• Why hasn’t it been fixed before?
• How did this become a significant issue?
• Who is responsible?

Taking the time to think through these questions will help you navigate the crisis hotspots effectively and emerge as a stronger IT manager.