Re: [OT] user psychology
On Sun, Mar 23, 2003 at 12:32:19PM -0600, Alex Malinovich wrote:
> 1) Rules. Make sure you have very simple, very precise, and very well
> enforced rules. There should be no more than a dozen primary points
> (backed up with "sub-rules" of course) because otherwise people won't
> remember them. And you have to stick to them. If there's a rule that
> there are to be no emails sent between 3:13 and 3:16 on every third
> Tuesday of months beginning with the letter J, then you'd better make
> sure that if someone DOES send an email during that time you mention it
> to them. Don't threaten them with holy retribution, just tell them that
> they shouldn't be doing that and explain why. If you can't explain why,
> that rule needs to go.
As a corollary to this one, make sure you write these rules down (a
written system policy), and that you have the backing of upper
management *in writing*. If not, people will continuously attempt to
leapfrog you so that they can use the system in whatever way they want
to, even though it may present a high security risk (using Outlook when
the rest of the company is using Netscape Messenger or Evolution, for
example).
Other tidbits:
When you send out emails detailing system maintainence and/or outages,
include two levels of explanation. The first is for the "non-technical"
users, and includes information on what has/will happen, as well as
duration of the outage or maintenaince window. The second is more
technical in nature, and aimed at the people in the company who won't be
satisfied by the first.
--
Don Werve <donw@examen.com> (Unix System Administrator)
Yorn desh born, der ritt de gitt der gue,
Orn desh, dee born desh, de umn bork! bork! bork!
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