July 31, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Basically to address this we need to summarize the issues:
1. Understating the work atmosphere - people over their -and the employees performance in the recent past - whey they have been overloaded - what sort of ongoing issues have they been working on!
2. about the company's profile - Its clients - what kind of databases - how huge they are?
3. Company's operational structure - how are they maintaining their systems - Operational frame work (This would include the systems architecture maintenance/patching procedures/security updates/backups/replication stuff etc)
then we can come up with a plan by putting in place a process which could be a internal audit - taking all the issues and then measures to get them right in the first place.
In order to accomplish this task I would for sure as my VP to give some time and resources to be at the new office - get to know the work culture , understand people and welcome/train them with the way we work and then take up things from there.
July 31, 2008 at 12:55 pm
As many people have answered, you have to get on the ground at the new office and start looking over the environment. I'd ask for resources to get going.
On the speaking up, you are hired for your opinion in many cases. You should give it, agree or disagree with others, if you feel it's pertinent.
July 31, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Some good answers coming out here, stuff I'd never have thought of.
My response would have been: "I need to do my own audit of the systems they have, find out what they are (SQL, Oracle et al) and what state they are in. I'll need the contact details of someone on site so I can arrange a site visit. I'll need to know what the audit is actually going to be covering so I can work out what needs to be done for compliance. At this stage, any further actions are dependent on what I find."
I'm a techy, not a manager. Managing the people should be part of management's plan for the takeover. I would be careful not to step on anyone's toes, of course. I would make it clear that I am there to help support/improve their infrastructure, not take anyone's job.
Last year I found myself in a similar position - we merged two large business units, each with its own IT team and I was told the other unit had a number of SQL Servers, no specialist DBA and I was to go in there and see what they had and what state it was in. There had been a lot of "us and them" mentality between the IT teams in the units. Fortunately for me, I had only been with the company about 6 months, so didn't have that mentality, which made it a lot easier to interface with both teams. I just went in, established a rapport with the people I was to be working with, started my tech stuff, made it clear I was there to help, talk to me if you have questions/problems and just got on with it. Leave the bickering to management.
MARCUS. Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.
TITUS. Why, I have not another tear to shed;
--Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
July 31, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Stacey,
With all the detailed replies in handling the situation, I am a bit confused. I thought you were using a "hypothetical" situation to determine how you should respond to the VP at the moment and not how to resolve the situation.
I still stand by asking questions at a level the VP could answer and at most informing him that you will look into it and provide him with alternatives, after you have gotten all the details (you can obtain in the next hour or two). As most of the posts show, a detailed analysis is manadated and providing a quick hunch as to what to do would be a mistake.
"Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand." -- Martin Fowler
July 31, 2008 at 4:25 pm
This is very interesting. After reading the replies you can see that there are people who can combine tech savvy with the soft skills and those who are more focussed on the technology side of things. I am the type to think for a minute and then offer an answer. I do get nervous about speaking up but, like Steve and others have said, I was hired for my skills. I wouldn't be exercising them in benefit of the company if I stayed silent.
I would like to visit the offices and try to connect with the people. Perhaps they have plans up and running or in the pipeline that could be used, thereby saving me a lot of work. If possible it would also be good to speak to the DBA who left. There is almost always someone still at the company who knows how to get hold of the person who has left. There is a large amount of knowledge that never gets written down but just exists in someone's head. This knowledge is invaluable. After this I would start with analysing the technology.
I have benefitted greatly from some of the posts. Thank you!
Nicole Bowman
Nothing is forever.
July 31, 2008 at 5:25 pm
The question was 'What is the plan?'
The answer is 'There is no plan because this is the first Ive heard about it'. If this was merely a rhetorical question intended to get people to create a plan on the spot then the manager who asked it is foolish. You can't make a good plan by getting a committee who has no information to sit around and throw ideas onto the table.
If you want to improve your career prospects you will of course play along.
August 1, 2008 at 5:49 am
Without reading the other posts here first, my list would be this:
- ensure disaster recovery is in place
- ensure audit trails (logs etc) are in place
- ensure the software is up to date (version, patches, etc)
- ensure the servers/hardware are physically secure
- ensure the data access is secure (no blank passwords, passwords the same as logins, etc)
- run a quick, minimal audit of our own based on what we know the government will look at.
- collect whatever documentation is available on the databases that are in place (you'll probably have to answer auditors' questions, even if you've inherited a mess).
- find out why the previous DBA quit - that is sure to be one of the auditors' questions if they hear about it. He may even have been a whistle-blower and triggered the audit.
This list may sound extremely basic, but that's the first thing auditors look for. If you don't have the basics covered, the rest of the questioning gets a lot deeper really fast. I am a contractor for a Federal agency, and am a DBA. I've sat through these before, and if you answer a basic question negatively or tentatively, they grab hold of that and pull - HARD - looking for any other weaknesses in your shop.
Even if your initial survey of the new company's databases looks bad, you can take remedial steps pretty quickly on the basics, and that shows a good faith effort to bring your systems up to standards. That goes a long way to making an audit go smoothly. They may ding you for having a system that was substandard in some aspect for a long time, but they will also put in the audit that steps have been taken or are planned to correct the problem.
Saying you just inherited the system won't do anything to help you in an audit. They don't care at all about how long you've had stewardship. They just look at the status and course of your stewardship.
August 5, 2008 at 6:07 am
I would like to thank everyone for their comments, both on the "hypothetical situation” editorial and for some of you, the grammar.
First my comments on the editorial;
I wrote it because I have seen far too many intelligent people just sit on the sidelines of life and not contribute. I know these people have something they want to say, and should say, but they just do not because they are afraid to take a chance. They are afraid that they might be ridiculed or laughed at. You are in the position that you hold because someone though that you belonged there. You do yourself and your company a disservice by not speaking up. So take the chance and speak up.
Now for those of you that had comments (both publicly and privately) on my grammatical errors, I also thank you. I should have taken my time, and proofed my work before I offered it for submission.
Again thank you for all of your comments.
Stacey W. A. Gregerson
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