ways your it team makes you look like a hero

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.

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.

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. Bill Schrier (@BillSchrier), senior policy advisor, State of Washington Office of the CIO, said he never rejects an idea: I brainstorm with folks and figure out a way to use it, then I give them credit. I hope this inspires them to generate more ideas, talk well about the organization and then make the organization look like a hero.

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 unique or new technical capabilities, but discussions designed to anticipate how the business will react to technical change.

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.

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 increase your team leading reputation.

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 both powerful and flexible.

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.

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 agrees, Members of our team are empowered to do whatever is necessary to produce results and success for the customer. The best team members get great reviews from the end user, said Nestor Rincon (@RinconDynamic), founder, Rincon Dynamic. Teams that provide great customer service get noticed by top management, which in turn makes the team leader or project manager look like a hero.

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 and sensitive information is always top of mind, said Demetrios Laz Lazarikos (@vArmourNetworks), CISO, vArmour. In every CISO role Ive been in, being a hero is when the infosec team delivers projects, doesnt slow down the business, and continues to protect the organization.