Silicon Shecky

So, being in the world of IT, there are many hats we all tend to wear. Sometimes many at once, sometimes at different times. Within all of the different hats there are certain things that stay the same, and can make each of us better. Here is the list of things I tend to do to try and make life easier, not only on me, but on my clients and company.

1) Plan Plan Plan! I can’t stress enough how important a good plan is for anything. Whether it is a move (physical or jsut moving shares), a new deployment, or even trying to fix a problem. Having a plan of attack will always make things go smoother.

2) Keep an open mind! We as techs tend to keep our sight narrowed, but this honestly is one of the worst things we can do. Closing your mind to the possibilities, no matter how far out they might seem, limits us, and can cause problems down the line. A great example was years ago when I was learning how to build machines I spent 6 months trying to figure out why I was getting no sound. The one thing I didn’t try until I was cleaning up my work area was making sure I had the jacks plugged into the right spots. Turned out I have the mic plugged into the speaker spot and the speakers pkugged into the mic. My narrow focus on a hardware problem cost me a lot of time and wasted energy.

3) Think of worst case scenarios! If you think of all the things that can go wrong, come up with what you would do if those things do happen, things will go a lot more smoothly. Not only will it save you time, but you will come out looking even better in the end because you thought things through. As a rule of thumb I always add time beyond what it should take when planning out a project as a standby in case things go wrong. As Scotty from Star Trek Said about multiplying his repair time estimates by 4, “How else do you think I got known as a miracle worker?”

4) GOOGLE!!! It never hurts to google thoughts and ideas. You can come up with both potential issues, find out if people have done things the way you are planning, and other ways to complete a project.

5) Check and Double Check everything before you start! Just to make sure you didn’t miss something. Ona recent in house project not only did I map everything out, but I went over the mapping 5 times to make sure I knew everything inside and out before I started.

Using these sorts of guidlines will not only help make you  a better IT guy, but in what can be a thankless job, will make you look great to your bosses and the people who count!

I can’t express how important it is to make sure you not only document your network, but what a pain it is when you don’t.

6 weeks of planning and having to map out Active Directory comes to a head for myself this week as I take care of the last parts of the redesign. Of course a lot fo this time could have been prevented with the proper documentation.

And I don’t mean just listing out what harware you have and how its connected. Active Directory, Network Shares, Security on the shares, all of it should be documented. Not just in case you need to change things, but to show what work has been done, so others can understand what has been done, how things are set up, and more importantly why they are done that way.

It also help out when trying to track down potential causes of issues. It doesn’t matter if its SBS or not, it should be done. Use Visio, make a network notebook, whatever floats your boat, but just do it