The Binomial Bookstore

MOVE IT (INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY):
THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MOVING A CORPORATE DATA CENTER: THE STAFF, THE
WIRE AND THE MACHINES
by Paul Friday

"This is the definitive 'how-to' guide for anyone involved in office moves or data center
moves. The book gives concise and clear instructions on how to plan the physical move,
organize the people, manage the communications and move the computing services. All
aspects are covered, from seating positions to data communications. The book is
conversational and practical, rather than being a dry management checklist. The author is an
experienced practitioner who has used the described methods in the real world.

"The book is suitable for people with responsibility for IS/IT or Facilities, or anyone who
is planning to relocate their office or business.

"If you have ever been at the receiving end of an office move where computers were
involved, you will appreciate that they often have the same impact on productivity as a bomb.
It is often a good idea to book your holiday to coincide with it.

"It need not be like this.

"If you are responsible for a move, or if you stand to get the blame when it goes wrong,
this book is for you. This is the survivor's guide to moving people and computers around in
modern office environments. This book is the condensed and clearly explained experience of
moving the worst sorts of IS and office set-ups. The clearly explained planning points and the
simple methods used will help you survive the madness.

"This book covers the two basic scenarios: the office move involving desks, chairs and
people, and the data center move involving computers and systems. This is not a technical
guide: it is intended to be as useful for Building Services people as it is for IS people.

"The actual instructions are in the form of a ten-point plan. You will doubtless have seen
the usual business-guru management handbooks that dispense numbered plans for
reorganizing your business. I hope that this one is different in that it has been tested under
real conditions and is achievable!

"There are three main players in any move: the Facilities or Building Services
department; the IS Department; and the people being moved. Facilities will usually be
responsible for the overall move and will cover relocation, desks, chairs and
accommodation.
The IS Department will be responsible for the telephones, computers and computer services.

"In my experience the problems that can arise do so because these two players do not
recognize each other's importance. To the IS Department, Facilities is all desks and chairs -
the things that keep the computers off the floor. To Facilities, computers are bits of office
equipment, like desks and chairs. Take them to a new place and they will keep working just
like they did in the old place.

"The people being moved add an extra complication to the situation. They will want a
'zipless move' - where everything happens overnight and there is no impact on their work.
This is the ideal but it is often possible to gain support for major inconvenience, providing
you
handle these customers well.

"Moving employees is expensive. According to the International Financial Management
Association, the average company moves 41% of its employees
every year, spending $1,000 per moved employee. [Source: Forbes, April 10, 1995]

"How it Begins: If you are lucky, your office move starts with a wild gleam in somebody's
eye. This means that there is still time: no-one has started to pack removals crates yet. Tell
the wild gleamer that it is a wonderful idea, but will need just a little planning. Give them a
copy of this book. If you are really lucky they will read it and realize what 'just a little planning'
really means. The problem is that you can't persuade fanatics with reasonable argument (and
people with bright ideas about moving count as religious zealots). They will read this book
and know that it is possible to move people and computers without major disruption. With
their belief thus strengthened, you had better start planning in earnest.

"Read this book through from the beginning and expend at least twice as much effort
planning as doing. It pays.

"If you are unlucky, you are the last person to find out about the move, typically on the
Friday afternoon with everything set to roll on Saturday. Go straight to the 10-point checklist
and the list of Action Points. When the dust settles, read this book to prepare for next time.

"You could always run a satisfaction survey after the move to find out how successful it
was. Compare this with how good it could have been if you had been able to do it properly
and sell the difference. You might get more warning next time! There is an example survey in
the appendices.

"Traditionally, office moves have been the responsibility of the Office Services or
Facilities department, employing a firm of removals people. In the good old days they could
just pile everything into some boxes and move it. Now that businesses use computers, you
will find that the computer systems and data are worth more to the business than physical
assets like desks and chairs. Most people could work sitting on the floor with a packing crate
for a desk, as long as their computer systems and their phones were up and running.
Conversely, you could give them the nicest desks in the smartest layout, but if their phones
and PCs don't work, you have failed!

"In planning office moves these days you have to consider things like Service Levels,
customer support and quality. 'Bung it in a box and budge it' is not good enough any more.

"In the moves I've been involved with, the computers and printers are usually the
responsibility of the people who support them day-to-day. Depending on your circumstances,
this could be anything from a barefoot computer doctor in a small business to the PC
Support
Team in a large Corporate office. This book is aimed mainly at the large end of the scale. If
you are alone and moving a handful of PCs unaided you should be just as careful, but you will
have far less hassle.

"Most of the comments and techniques described here apply to large moves, where you
can employ a team of people. If you have less to work with, then adapt things. Where I refer
to
specific teams of people, you will have perhaps just the one team and you will have to give
them different tasks to cover the necessary work.

"Modern office moves are a team effort: no one group of Support staff can manage
anything bigger than a simple desk shuffle on their own. Everyone will have their own
responsibilities and will depend on the others for help and support. Facilities people need
the
IS people to make the phones and computers work. IS people need the Facilities people to
provide office space, desks and chairs. Both sides will have their own specialist teams to be
coordinated and communicated with.

"The implications of getting it wrong can be expensive: I've seen people spend
thousands reorganizing desks in a building that was about to be demolished. I've also seen
people reorganize their own office layout, then call Support to complain that all the phone
numbers had changed and the PCs had stopped working.

"On the other hand, I have seen examples of success. One was moving a Trading Floor
plus associated offices from one building to another across town. The whole move was done
between closing down on Friday night and starting work at 6am on Monday morning.
Everything worked.

"Another example was the move of 500 people to a new building, done over six
weekends. The move was phased so that people who worked together moved together. At
the same time as the move, we also installed a new LAN, a complete new suite of PC
desktop applications, and email. All the existing IS services kept working and all the new
ones were available for use on the first working morning after each move.

"It can be done!

"All this planning assumes of course, that you are part of a business large enough to
have separate IS and Building Services departments. In a really small operation, you have a
charmed existence: the fewer the interfaces, the fewer the opportunities for politics and
misunderstandings. All the rules and lessons described here still apply and the results
should
be no less professional. It will just be easier to get things done.

"One final idea: even if you are not planning a move, read this book. The groundwork of
creating and maintaining an inventory plus the knowledge of how to move IS equipment and
services could form the basis of your Company's disaster recovery planning."

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
Your move
How this book is organized
What to do if you are not moving immediately

PART 1 - THE OFFICE MOVE
Plan
How it begins
The Basics
Planning checklist
Who and When
Tell
Control
Plan
Do
The Move
Mend
Rectify
Review
Measure and Report
Recognize
Document
The last word

PART 2 - THE DATA CENTER MOVE
Basics
Planning the move
Types of move
Planning the new Data Center
Communication Testing
If things go wrong
Problem solving

PART 3 - PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Basics
Role of the Project Manager
Project Definition Document
Creating a Help Desk
Satisfaction Survey
Meetings
Bullets and Rations

APPENDIX AND INDEX
Action Points
Sources of Help
Index

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

"Paul Friday is an 'experienced practitioner' in IT service management. He has worked
in
all aspects of IT/IS service delivery and management, before progressing to consultancy. His
particular experience used in this book is from moving Trading Floors, office buildings, staff,
computers and services, while maintaining the business functionality of the information
systems. To quote him directly: "I believe that the highest standard that business computing
can aspire to is to 'just work' - to be dependable and useful and unremarkable. My
consultancy work is at the practical and useful end of the scale: analyzing and
recommending
solutions, then implementing them. To use my analogy of move projects being like wars, I'm
more likely to be shouting "follow me!" than asking how things are going up at the Front. This
book is written for the people in the trenches."

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1998, 244 pages. Order #DR282, $110.00

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Management Issues

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