If you don’t want to read the whole post – please just take this one piece of advice and then move on with the rest of your day:
Effective Logistics Make Or Break Your IT Project
To make your project work, you must have the tools and the equipment and the knowledge in the right place at the right time. Forget any three of these and you’re on the floor trying to screw a 2-post rack adapter kit in with a Leatherman while your PDU doesn’t have the proper pigtail adapter to plug into the client’s UPS. You’ll do what I did and go to Fry’s I’m sure but let’s take a second to talk about how you can do it with one trip and minimal wasted time.
1. Get the Shopping List – think absite and do a quick inventory. Do they have what you need? Assume nothing out everything a server needs and write the checklist down. Power, LAN, KVM adapters, rack equipment. Tools to install said devices (those special star bolts that HP is shipping now…they need a special screwdriver bit). Give yourself 5 minutes to come up with that.
2. Survey – Get to the client – if you don’t see a 25’ LAN cable, buy one, you’re saving money in the long run instead of spending billable hours searching their dusty inventory boxes.
3. Buy – Save your receipts for reimbursement. I’m sure you know why.
I’m sure you’re aware that sometimes you can’t think of everything and I’m not saying you should. Just give it a 10-15 minute think and you might be saving yourself 2-3 days of wasted time. If you need to order parts, keep the customer posted but whatever you do – DON’T SHOW UP AND THEN HAVE TO RETURN IN 3 DAYS BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T ORDER A PART. That’s what surly construction contractors do and this is why they’re competing with the day laborers in the parking lot of Home Depot.
We’ll talk more about this later – right now I need to reboot.
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