Jay Viszoki

Jay Viszoki

About Jay Viszoki

Jay is a Senior Consultant at TransAccel Group with particular expertise in standardizing and optimizing technologies, effectively managing IT projects, programs and portfolios, and physical infrastructure. Jay holds a bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering and a master’s in Telecommunications Management, both from Stevens Institute of Technology. He is also a member of the Project Management Institute (a certified PMP), earned his Certified Information Systems Security Processional (CISSP) certification, a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and has completed ITIL v2.0 Foundations certification.

What Would Bobby Fischer Do? Taking a Cybersecurity Lesson from a Chess Master

By |May 7th, 2015|Categories: Technology|Tags: , , |Comments Off on What Would Bobby Fischer Do? Taking a Cybersecurity Lesson from a Chess Master

There’s a great expression that those of you who study chess will be familiar with. A Master will often tell a student to “look at the whole board,” but this instruction is not to be taken literally. It means that the student needs to consider several things: One, the potential impact of all the moves that have been played; two, all the potential moves they can anticipate making through the end of the game, and three, all the moves they can anticipate their opponent making. A small expression to describe a herculean task! Now, although this saying could be applied to many situations, a chess game is far easier to conquer than, say, cybersecurity because you have one opponent and can study his strategy. In the realm of cybersecurity, however, your opponents are legion and their weapons are many.

Protecting your digital assets is very much like looking at the whole board. A proper defense is not just one thing, but comprises a systematic construct of what you know (past events, known best practices, proven strategies), what measures you plan on putting in place, and the anticipation of what your adversaries might try to do.  This would be augmented by an endless cascade of if/then planning and dry runs to prepare for an attack.

A security program should not be static but a living, breathing thing that is ever-changing based upon the observations you make and information you gather. It is a series of defenses and actions premised on what your opponent is doing to others, and perhaps will do to you. For this reason, technology alone won’t guarantee success. While best practices around firewalls, protection systems, network configurations, passwords and processes is essential, people—as in
[ Read More ]

Help Desk Heroes Need Not Apply

By |April 17th, 2014|Categories: Support|Tags: , , , |Comments Off on Help Desk Heroes Need Not Apply

Like many of you, I grew up thinking that being a hero was always good. Case in point: In every episode of The Adventures of Superman, the bad guys busily hatched nefarious plots to set loose upon the planet, but ultimately Superman always prevailed. In the IT world, nothing could be further from the truth: Heroes stand in the way of maturing an IT organization! Let me explain using a help desk example:

Despite anyone’s best efforts, IT customers will always have questions or need something, and IT systems will always run into issues. As an IT organization grows, there comes a time when the volume of calls for help becomes large enough to necessitate establishing a formal help desk with the goal of simply answering customer inquiries to prevent them from calling technical resources directly. In this environment, help desk analysts often take on heroic proportions merely by answering complaints and fixing IT things that break.

But there are a few troubling aspects to this.

Based upon the kinds of repetitive calls the analysts field, they develop a “tribal” knowledge that lives only in their heads of how to satisfy the needs of the customer.
One analyst’s “solution” might be different from another’s.
The “solution” might not ultimately be the correct one or follow the proper process.

The result is little to no standardization or documentation because every analyst is focused on, and praised for, being a hero.

The superhero help desk scenario would probably land the IT organization somewhere below a level 1.5 on TransAccel Group’s Maturity Model. While this kind of hero-driven help desk might seem effective in the short term, it can’t possibly scale to meet the challenges of increased business demand, more complexity or greater economic pressures
[ Read More ]

Now, Take The Apple, Dearie, And Make A Wish

By |December 5th, 2013|Categories: time|Tags: , , , , , |Comments Off on Now, Take The Apple, Dearie, And Make A Wish

In 1934 southern California, a successful animator of cartoon shorts embarked on a project to make, for the first time, a feature-length cartoon. The cost to create it was estimated to be $250,000 over two years. But when the story line kept changing, the budget skyrocketed to $1.4 million, and the project timeline nearly doubled.

If you haven’t already guessed it, the animator was Walt Disney and the film was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It earned over $7 million in its first run, paving the way for Walt Disney Company to deliver other astonishing firsts.

In terms of project success measures, the project was abysmal. Disney blew the schedule, budget and scope, but for understandable reasons:

Nevertheless, in terms of sponsorship, the project was wildly successful. Here’s why:

This imbalance of strong sponsorship on the one hand, and an insufficient project management process on the other, is fairly common for companies at the 1.2 to 1.7 maturity level. This is a people-centric model centered on passionate individuals, but it doesn’t scale when four or five projects are being pursued in tandem. Assuming everyone at a company doesn’t have the passion or vision to drive his project à la Mr. Disney, it becomes essential to install and implement process, which moves you closer  to crossing over the level 2 maturity hurdle.

Disney did just that. Over time, he learned from his project management mistakes, leveraged this learning to build a repeatable process, and further developed his visionary sponsorship to give his customers something new and extraordinary time and time again.  For Walt Disney, it wasn’t all just wishing on a star—he is one of the greatest American innovators because of his mastery of realization.

If you’ve worked on a
[ Read More ]