Podcast Episode! A Game Of Prioritization with Wade Krzmarzick

James and I talked to Wade Krzmarzick, Director of IT at TSI, Incorporated. TSI builds scientific measurement equipment (among other things). He gave us insight into budget and time questions, strategic direction he thinks about, and what makes him most proud of his team. It was a great conversation.

Highlights

• Director of IT at TSI, Incorporated — they build scientific measurement equipment, a lot of focus on health
• Started at TSI doing SAP Basis work (system administration)
• Youth sports enthusiast
• Favorite question from business partners: “Can’t we just…?”
• Depending on an org’s size, they can’t just go out there and try every single new thing

The man himself

• Key to this understanding is how much of an organization’s budget is eaten by security — it’s a growing concern.
• Super interesting tidbit about a phishing attack — listen for details
• Wade’s done work with both cloud infra and cloud app development, but TSI also still has their own datacenters
• Strategic shift a couple years ago: built a SaaS solution for their consumer air quality products
• IT is “a game of prioritization”
• Most proud of culture of all hands on deck to provide help/support.
• Wade foresees AI and automation really continuing to grow in importance in the next 5 years

Money Quotes

Wade

We don’t meet every need of the business, there’s no question there. 

[Budget] is a huge huge factor!…If we have a budget for it, and we have time, we can do it.

[IT customers] don’t appreciate the fact that we need to prioritize their ask. 

I’m always looking for the groups that will come alongside us and augment.

Paul

When you have an engaged team…that goes light-years. It’s worlds apart.

People have acknowledged that machine learning is a thing…nobody is doing it to even a quarter of what they could be…not enough people are convinced to open the door and see there’s a crystal ball there.