Timing is everything

This might be a short post, but it is worth mentioning. You have a trial coming up, so what kind of time schedule do you need to figure out? I’m hoping they aren’t telling you about how you need to set up a war room just a couple of weeks before they want to sit down and start working there. That sounds to me like a trial team that isn’t going to have a whole lot of services set up in an optimized way. You might get lucky and have some bandwidth. Or not.

I say you should start getting information about the trial and the team around 4 months or more before trial is set to go. Honestly, with some communication going on, you could get clued in much earlier than that. 4 months is a good time-frame though. You guys are going to have to figure out where you’ll be staying, where the war room is going to be, and how you are going to provide services such as internet access.

I have had experience in the past with having to use a phone company to deliver some type of internet service to me. Hopefully it isn’t as problematic now as it used to be, but back in the day phone companies wouldn’t schedule anything sooner than 90 days. I don’t really need to get into all of the details about contracts and scheduling headaches and delays in delivery. Let’s just say that I pretty much choose just about any service for internet before I’ll reach out to a telecom company. Again, I hope it’s improved and if you (or I, never know) have to go that route that it will be smooth sailing.

Over the last few years I have used Cable as much as possible for access. The main reasons for that have to do with high bandwidth and quick installation. I have run into a couple of instances where the cable company said they didn’t want to do short term access any more, so I’ve had to be more creative with the billing. Another option I’ve had really good experiences with is high-speed wireless. A lot of places will have a company that provides broadband wireless and all you have to do is figure out how to get an antenna up on the roof. Can be expensive, but can also provide good bandwidth for a trial.

Oh yeah, I was talking about timing. Well, those thoughts about access fall in line with the subject, because my two primary access choices usually will work with you to deliver quickly. Back on track here, you should also start thinking about how soon before trial to be getting your equipment packed up and building your servers if you don’t keep that up and ready to go.

Setting up the space needs to be done in advance of the trial team arriving. I cannot stress this enough. I always want to go about two days before people show up so I can get everything set up, have print queues configured and have everything tested. I want people to walk in and pick their space to work, and then about a minute later say those magic words. You know them. “Can I print?”

The last thing I want is people wandering around and having me stop doing work that will benefit the whole, so I can kludge something together for them real quick (TCP/IP printing, maybe). I like it to be like magic when they come in where everything just works. More on that later.

Last timing thing is the packing up after the trial. After all these years I STILL can’t believe how fast people get out of town just as soon as a trial is complete. There is always going to be someone that wants to stay back for a while and work on some stuff, and they still need to print, and so forth. You can’t start shutting down equipment as long as that is going on. Once you can negotiate with that last person that they can let you begin, then you have usually a good bit of time left yet to pack up. This is another time where it helps to have someone working with you that has done this before. Too many people want to just start unpatching cables and throwing a huge lump of cable into boxes. This drives me crazy! Seriously, keep the transformers and plugs with the switches. Make an effort to put the monitors back in boxes so they will be protected and have all the cables with them in each box. I could go on and on.

Really, the people working with you want to get home to their families just as much as everyone else. The truth is, it pays to be neat and organized when packing things back up after a trial. Order the shred truck, have the rental company come get the refrigerator. The copier and printer people need to come get their stuff. You have to make the hotel wiring closets look like you were never there (you DID promise to play nice in their sandbox, right?). Take time to show the hotel staff how very much you have appreciated their help with everything you’ve needed to get done. How about order some flowers for the person at the hotel that gave you access to do what you needed?

 So much to plan during the course of a trial, and a lot of it goes on at the front end making phone calls and meeting with people to get everything lined up. Be organized. It’s a learning process. Just don’t procrastinate with making all of those connections early on.