471- From Code Black to No Outages w/Shane Froebel

GUEST BIO

Shane Froebel is a Chief Information Officer with more than 15 years of IT leadership. On his first day as VP at a hospital, sitting in orientation as the only VP in the room, he heard that the hospital had a code black every week: the computer systems went down for four to six hours, and staff were told it was nothing to be afraid of. His reaction: "That's going to be squarely on me and that's something I have to fix."

He walks through the fix. He met with every one of the 50 people on his infrastructure team, rebuilt rapport with the doctors and nurses, and asked what the hospital was trying to do. Then he sent a memo: "Dear staff, as of today, you're not to make any more production changes without my express consent." It slowed the team down for a while, and he was fine with that: "I'd rather have no outages than outages." He explains the standing meetings that got the network, server, project management and service desk teams talking in a set order, because "the network builds on everything else." He also tells the story from his first hospital of equipment that was signed off as implemented and turned up in the storeroom, in boxes, still not even opened.

The last part is about people. Shane translates cloud and scalability into business terms, using COVID as the example: when the hospital needed staff working from home, the software was already in place. He says IT leadership doesn't have to be the most technical person in the room, and he tells his team that if they want to leave, he'll be their reference and help them build the skills for the job they want. "The benefit of that, by the way, is not for people to leave, it's for people to stay."

Episode Show Notes

Navigate through key moments in this episode with timestamped highlights, from initial introductions to deep dives into real-world use cases and implementation strategies.

[00:00] Cold open

[00:46] From a Tandy 1000 at age 2 to IT leadership

[05:08] Code black every week, and his first three moves

[12:51] Resiliency, survivability, scalability, and keeping it simple

[20:23] "Dear staff": no production changes without his consent

[23:45] Signed off as implemented, still in the boxes

[27:32] Winning respect one win at a time

[35:49] Four teams and three standing meetings

[48:34] No judgment: why every leader needs a safe person

[56:17] What CIOs get wrong, and why infrastructure comes first

[1:09:58] Translating cloud and scalability for the business

[1:14:50] The one promise: I'll be your reference

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Put every production change through one review until the outages stop, and tell the team up front it won't be forever.

In your first weeks, meet everyone on your team one on one and ask what they think the problem is and where it could improve.

Before you buy anything, walk the inventory: list what was bought, then go find it and check it was really implemented.

Run your team meetings in a set order, starting with the teams everyone else depends on, so each team hears what's coming before its turn.

Give people a direct line to you when there's a problem, and treat the quiet as the goal: "If I don't hear from you, that means everything is going good."

When someone wants to leave, offer to be their reference and help them build the skills for the role they're after.

471- From Code Black to No Outages w/Shane Froebel