We wanted to share with you the three most common mistakes we see IT guys make when relocating companies.
1. Don’t Take Responsibility for Carrier Services Delivery and Coordination
As we’re sure you are aware, carriers like AT&T and Verizon always take longer than expected to install service. They do not provide accurate timelines, they tend to screw up on order details and their install technicians tend to show up unannounced. Many times we see that it falls on the IT guy to coordinate the service delivery and when things go wrong everyone tends to blame the IT guy.
Here is what we recommend.
Don’t take responsibility for the service coordination. Refer the business to a third party you trust. We use www.telecomquotes.com. Make everyone aware at the very beginning of the potential problems that carriers have. Someone must stay in regular communication with the carrier to make sure the service delivery is on schedule.
Another important note here. If possible do not get involved with phone or fax number porting and installation. Too often this becomes a mess and its better left to the phone vendor. You can always call empiretechs.com to help with that.
2. Tell Everyone to Expect some Downtime
Many times we see that Management somehow expects their systems to stay up and running during a move and in some cases they pressure the IT guy to pull this off. Even though it can be feasible to keep things running there are usually some hiccups with actually pulling it off and when things go wrong its the IT guy again that takes the blame of course.
Here is what we recommend.
Even if you have a plan on keeping all or some systems running, let everyone know to expect some sort of downtime throughout the move. Explain that you are doing everything you can to minimize the down time and give them a realistic time frame for resolutions. Make sure you communicate this to everyone in the organization to protect your rep.
3. Take Time to Plan the Project
Most of the problems that arise during a relocation are due to bad or no planning. Even the smallest projects can become complex and require someone to plan things. The relocation usually has to do with growth or expansion which can put new stress on the IT systems. Its important that there are several discussions at the beginning and closer to the move date with the organization on what, when, why, how, and where.
Here are some items that should be thought about and in most cases are essential to have:
- New Floor Plan showing where everyone will be located
- Complete list of new employees or workstations
- System Backups to be done
- Server Capacities for adding new employees
- Possible Upgrades
- New Software requirements
- Network Switch Capacities
- Relocation Timeline
Finally having the right team of people and partners in place to guide and perform is critical to any projects success.
