Your IT Staff Has Left The Building!

It was just announced…Information Technology will be outsourced to another country. You have no option at this point. All you know is that you only have 3 months as they transition to the new company.

You must act quickly. You must protect yourself as much as possible by following these steps:

1. Have lunch individually with each technologist you depend upon. Tell them that you will write a recommendation letter for them to help them find new employment. Then ask each one of them what they feel are the critical points in the process that have not been documented. Get an electronic copy of all documentation that is available. They are more apt to help you than their replacement…especially after a nice lunch and offer of a recommendation letter.

2. Make sure you meet their new counterpart (before your regular technologist leaves). Express your expectation (what regular documentation you expect, when do you want answers to inquiries, how much time you will offer them). Make this new counterpart walk through their documentation with you to make sure they understand the process to the same level of detail as your previous technologist. Make special mention of the critical part of the process (identified during your lunch) and ask, how will they avoid any risk of failure. Get that in writing! Along with their email address, telephone numbers, and backup contact.

3. Set up a meeting with all your coworkers in the business community. Arrange to have the CIO present to the business community the countermeasures for any risk in business disruption. Technologists are overly optimistic. You must force them to plan ahead for the worst. Something ALWAYS happens during outsourcing turnover. Once the CIO leaves the meeting, talk among yourselves on countermeasures by identifying the most critical points in the business process. Document any financial penalty for possible outages at those points. Issue your findings to the C-Levels (CEO, CFO, COO, and CIO.) This information will be passed on to the outsourced technology group who will prioritize their learning, provide additional backup during crucial time periods, and put their top people on any request that affects them.

Outsourcing is growing in popularity. It is best to plan ahead and stack staff in your favor. The more you do… the better your chance of avoiding risk and outages.