Team Rule #1 is R-I-C-E. Let’s look at Integrity…

Recently, our team event focused on the importance of integrity as a part of Team Rule #1, R-I-C-E, Respect, Integrity, Communication, and Excellence.  Here were the take aways from this event:

“We all don’t have the same abilities.  We all do have the same opportunity.”

“Failure to fulfill our potential is not because of talent, intellect, ability, or opportunity, it’s because of a lack of character.”

“A character issue can keep you from getting started, cause you to get stuck, or be the reason for your collapse.”

The three pillars of integrity:  (1) Uprightness – Oriented to the truth, (2) Completeness – Complete and Whole, and (3) Soundness – Strong and Solid.

\\ JMM

Half the R&D staff will be Programmers…

“Days before BMW’s 100th birthday, its board member for research and development described plans for a completely overhauled company, where half the R&D staff will be computer programmers, competing with the likes of Google parent Alphabet to build the brains for self-driving cars. (GOOGL.O)” – Article from UK Routers, “Exclusive – At 100, BMW sees radical new future in world of driverless cars”, March 4, 2016

Not commonly known, LANVERA is a 30 year old organization in document solutions. As I walk the print floor, it’s maturity is absolutely felt in the print operation. The professionalism of the team and attention to detail by all the supporting people. Printing documents is our business and we take it serious.

Nevertheless, why our organization is taking a turn is the recognition that this industry must include digital or eDocuments. Our development efforts have been kicked up a notch to focus on making our solution more accessible in the digital world.

Just like BMW, organizations must constantly be looking for ways to offer more valuable services to customers. And like BMW, we are shifting to meet this new challenge.

“LANVERA’s technology and delivery capabilities are the future of our company.” – John Baldridge

\\ JMM

Status Of Lanvera: Confidence Is Building…

August is my three month mark working at LANVERA. The IT transformation is in full swing and much of the work we have been working on is being felt.  The leaders report three months of network infrastructure stability and confidence is building. This is good for morale across the organization and I am humbled by the hard work.

Our highlights to this point are:

  1.  We hired our security-focused system engineer, Jeromey Lange.  A seasoned technical veteran and leader, Jeromey is going to bring a dimension to the team to reinforce the DevOps culture Steve Taff and I are trying to build.  Certifications include VCP, MCSA, MTA, ITILv3, and Tintri.  He is going to take on Alien Vault USM and run our security practice. A next level player.
  2. The commitment to VMWARE NSX and SDN. With heated discussion and negotiation, the engineers are taking on VMWARE’s NSX technology. We’ve chosen Mobius to partner with us to lead us through our NSX rollout. This milestone is particularly significant as our hopes this decision will see meaningful gains as our DevOps platform.
  3. Workstation Technology Refresh projects kicks off earnestly with work on hardware standards and continued support to develop on the Microsoft platform. Considerable time being spent working the requirements and desired specifications nets decisions of continued use of Dell hardware.
  4. McGuire Solutions has wrapped up the network engineering work and submitted his recommendations. The physical network is comprised of mostly security components on a Cisco Nexus backend. Greg’s team will be engaged to realize the solution starting in September!
  5. Investment in Coppell’s datacenter. We will be upgrading the internal infrastructure to uplift the technology foundation. Examples are patch panel rewire, electrical re-wire, electrical redistribution, and upgrading to cabinets.

Always forward!

\\ JMM

Obtains Certification = Display Knowledge = Shows Confidence

“The good news is that certification provides you with a verified foundation of expert, real-world knowledge to build on, so you’ll be ready to ramp up on the job 39% faster than your peers. If you’re still not convinced, 38% of IT pros said that certification helped them perform complicated tasks more confidently. It’s science.” – Born To Learn Blog

We’ve agreed as a team that there is a need for baseline competencies. That skills and experience are vital to our success. If any one area lacks, the team has to compensate for our weak areas that we accepted. When those weak areas accumulate because we couldn’t trust team members to perform complicated tasks, the team fails.

As such, we’ve made a bold move to mandate VMWARE VCA DCV certification as a baseline team member qualification. Expectations laid to stay current. We are implementing advanced VMWARE technologies and there is too much risk to bring in unskilled people.

Goal: Everyone on the team has VCP, MTA, and Nimble certifications.

Before And After Certification\\ JMM