ways your it team makes you look like a hero

They look out for each other
 1. Our team is constantly watching each others backs, communicating, teaching and responding to each others needs and our clients needs, said Daniel Riedel (@riedelinc), CEO,New Context. This collaboration means we deliver our services on time, respond to incidents quickly, and keep operations going strong. .....
They anticipate organizational needs
 2. The best way my team makes me look like a hero is by anticipating what the organization will want to have before the organization realizes it, and building the capability to satisfy that need in a pleasantly surprising fashion, offered Andy Ellis (@CSOAndy), CSO, Akamai. Andrew Auderieth (@datarealm), president, Datarealm, concurred: The single most effective action anyone on our team can do is prevent an issue or concern proactively. .....
They offer ideas
 3. The ability to anticipate problems doesnt happen on its own. An IT leader must foster an environment that welcomes forward thinking behavior. For example, at Egnyte, co founder and CSO, Kris Lahiri (@KrisLahiri) has developed a positive culture that encourages everyone to learn from each other and innovate. This enables my team to be creative and develop new features or functionality that I did not originally have on my roadmap, said Lahiri. Bi .....
They understand the business
 4. Mark Herschberg, principal, White Knight Consulting, said that his team can identify problems before they become problems by working to understand the business. They dont just follow given requirements but understand how the business operates, said Herschberg. This thinking like the business clich? is critical, agreed Alex Hutton (@AlexHutton), faculty member, IANS: My experience is that the best conversations tend not to be fascination with .....
They take on other responsibilities
 5. No one on our team ever uses the phrase thats not my job, said Tim Mullahy (@tmmullahy), general manager, Liberty Center One. They make us look good by tracking down answers to questions even if they arent the ones responsible for the task. .....
They are informed and aware of organizational goals
 6. Making sure that everyone knows what is happening is fundamental to a well functioning team, stated Bruno Scap (@MaseratiGTSport), founder and president, Galeas Consulting. When everyone is aware of what exactly is expected of them there is accountability, which keeps team members focused on what they should be doing. Other groups and individuals will notice that your team delivers on time in a consistent and predictable fashion, which will help .....
They prepare and practice
 7. Teams become heroes because of how they act during a crisis, said Bruce Schneier (@schneierblog), CTO, Resilient Systems. If youre going to do best, youre going to have to prepare. Practice, not because what you practice is whats going to actually happen, but because thats how you learn how to respond to the unexpected. Get to know each other. Build understanding, build trust. Run drills. Equip yourself with an incident response platform that is .....
They dont just sell services They scope client needs
 8. Many organizations want to jump right into building out a private cloud or consuming public cloud services without a clear understanding of what they want to get out of it, said Terence Ngai (@TerenceCNgai), head of cloud delivery management for HP. As a cloud solution delivery professional, my team identifies clients desired outcomes of a cloud solution before we begin the implementation so we dont fall into a scope creep situation. .....
They focus on clients
 9. Every client is different, after all; a plan that works for one isnt going to work for another, noted Daniel Page (@aseohosting), director of business development, ASEOHosting. If your sales associates are skilled at working with prospective customers to design a plan that fits their specific needs, youre going to enjoy a lot more business than if youve just got a rigid set of do or die options. Mike Martin (@1mikemartin), CTO/CIO, nfrastructure .....
They keep the business safe and operational
 10. The old answer to how does your team make you look like a hero was by keeping you out of the news and keeping a low profile, said Davi Ottenheimer (@daviottenheimer), president, flyingpenguin. That still holds true, continued Ottenheimer, but simply working hard to ensure nothing noteworthy happens doesnt get as much notice as completing projects, such as a self service portal for password resets or end to end encryption. Protecting the brand a .....
They accept constructive criticism and act on it
 11. No one likes to be criticized, but IT leaders need to manage and grow their team. If you, as an IT leader, can comfortably describe areas where team members need to improve to meet your expectations, in a way that is constructive and honest, without a hint of malice, then what you are giving them is the gift of growth, advised Thom Langford (@ThomLangford), CISO, Publicis Groupe. Their personal growth is something they will always respect you fo .....
They are proactive about project planning
 12. IT teams create heroes through effective project planning, said Steve Prentice (@stevenprentice), senior writer, CloudTweaks. Proactive planning is not simply about managing a schedule; it is about giving peace of mind to end users, who in turn will be less prone to demanding instant action. People who feel comfortable tend to be easier to work with. .....
They are a motley crew with varied strengths
 13. I surround myself with people who have strengths different than me, said Kirk Herath, VP, chief privacy officer, associate general counsel, Nationwide Insurance. I try to choose people who have strengths different from each other. We all have pot holes. My team fills in my pot holes and always provides me with all of the information and solutions necessary to make me look brilliant. Vik Patel (@fhsales), president and CEO, Future Hosting, agre .....
They shine
 14. The best way you can have your team make you look like a hero is to make them look like heroes; then you can bask in their reflected glory, said Marcus Ranum (@mjranum), senior strategist, Tenable Network Security. Ensure that they are given the room to grow and to prove themselves, and the results will stand for themselves, added Quentyn Taylor (@quentynblog), director of information security, Canon Europe. If your team members look like heroes .....
They measure success
 15. Tell your team that you want to start measuring things so you can tell where/when they are making things better, or more efficient, or faster, or cheaper, said Tenables Ranum. With metrics youll be able to clearly demonstrate your teams hero status. The goal, explained Ranum is to be able to say something to the effect of "Since we started this, the team is now doing twice as much as they did before, with an improvement in their overall quality .....
They learn from failure
 16. In a culture of continuous improvement failure is an option, said Theo Beack (@theobeack), CTO, Vertafore. We view our mistakes as opportunities to learn how to improve our products. This requires a fearless level of transparency and accountability to ourselves, internal stakeholders, and our customers. My team instruments everything, from our core software engineering process, product UI, core product, and production infrastructure. The ability .....
They make it look easy
 17. When trying to make my CIO clients look like heroes, the key is making everything look really simple, so that people feel empowered to solve business problems, said Ty Rollin (@tyrollin), CTO, Mobiquity. In the same vein, my team makes complicated mobile worlds simple. They simplify all of this so I can present it to the next level. To me, this is the essence of making a hero: enabling me to easily use this condensed information to make bigger de .....
The team works better than the individual
 18. My staff continues to demonstrate that no single member of our organization is as powerful as when our combined expertise, talent, and teamwork have us all moving in the same direction, said Steven Russo (@Certainsafe), EVP, Certainsafe. They continue to make upper management look like heroes or stars. .....
The team acts like theyre the best
 19. My colleagues are committed to the concept that we act, every day, like a top one percent firm (the Harvard Business School of IT services) and that we make a positive impact, said Ken Brindamour (@kenbrindamour), SVP for service delivery, Atrion. They are phenomenal at detailed execution (I often gloss over the details); they are super attuned to whats going on with the team (I might be overly focused on clients or numbers); and they get stuff d .....
They allow you to deliver
 20. They allow me to keep the promises I make, boasted Cortney Thompson (@CortneyThompson), CTO, Green House Data, while reaffirming many of the aforementioned qualities IT leaders appreciate in their staff: They are heroes themselves and breed that culture into the company. They anticipate problems and bring me into the loop before Im asked what we are doing to resolve it. Our team continually trains and pumps the latest research and techniques into .....
Chourishi Systems