It's actually one of the top tips for having a frustration free, smooth experience with your IT provider (or a colleague, or outsourced service partner).
We're very proud of doing the fast things fast, but the reality is, for any business of any size with limited resources, that means you must do the slower things slower (note: not “slow” 😉)
Trying to do the slow things fast is a hiding to nothing. It's very expensive and it's a lot of stress for all parties. Imagine if your boss walked in right now and said, “Stop what you're doing - I need you to do this right now." You might think that's normal, that it happens most days, or even happens all the time.
And the trick for working well with an IT provider is do the fast things fast, and the slow things slow.
So how can you do that? Really simple, with just a little planning ahead. A new user shouldn't be a surprise. Very rarely does someone just show up at your office saying “I've decided to work here.” There's normally been a notice period - give us that advance notice - we can do a great job for you with a little bit of a heads up.
On that basis, if it's urgent, tell us - it's really important. Most relationships, most things in life, are about meeting expectations. If you tell us that you need it quickly, we’ll always do our best to meet your expectations, and common sense overrides any other business rules or processes. We're all human here, we make decisions on a human, common sense basis. Sure, the system is the system, the process is the process, but only until it isn't. If you say to us, “please, do me a favour, I need this in a hurry”, we'll always accommodate that - and we can we regularly do, of course.
At the same time, this might be a little bit less intuitive, if it's not urgent, tell us that too. It really helps with planning our work.
That's my tip for today in terms of whoever you're working with, and maybe other areas of life and business, where they're working with or on your behalf. Tell us if it's urgent, tell us if it's not.