I've worked in the technology business for more than 20 years,the last 15 of those years as a CIO and as a director before that.One of the more difficult tasks I faced was trying to manage thedemand for IT services with the limited resources I had under my ITcontrol.

Even in positions where I managed a $20 million budget, I neverhad enough hands and feet to effectively get all the work on myplate done.

Despite the best efforts of a PMO, I somehow always had an ITdemand overload. With each additional project I would try and arguethat I needed more resources to handle the growing demand. I had afixed amount of full-time employees I could have, period.

Creating a New Reality

A CFO once told me that I could not get any more FTEs because ofa hiring freeze. Instead, he told me to be creative in my approachto assigning resources to projects.

He wasn't really trying to be helpful, more he was telling menot to bother him and to figure it out on my own. But, I took hismessage literally and ran with it.

I scoured my budget and “found” several places where projectshad discretionary funds available and began using those funds forwhat I liked to call “elastic staffing solutions”.

It wasn't a stroke of genius, but it also wasn't operating inthe strict spirit of the budget. I remembered the words of my CFO,“Be creative,” and so I was.

I used these funds to bring in temporary help as projectsrequired and to utilize off-shore resources to get more bang for myIT buck. If I needed a skill set I didn't have internally, I wouldeither bring in an expert or get training for a FTE who was capableof learning the skill set

I was getting more accomplished without an increase in my FTEs.Ironically, my FTE numbers were the most-consistently scrutinizedbudget items, with far less attention paid to how I useddiscretionary money, even if I went over budget.

As I networked with my peers at conferences, I found that manyof them had similar constraints placed on them with too much workand not enough arms and legs to get the work done.

Most senior IT people were in the same boat with the decliningeconomy and hiring freezes.

Real Benefit

I quickly found this staffing model beneficial withtemp/contract employees. Should one of these employees not workout, I would simply contact the staffing agency and have anothertemp/contract person in my office within days.

When the project was complete, the temp/contractor simply leftwithout severance or unemployment to pay.

I must admit that this was contradictory to the way I wanted totreat employees, but let's face it, CIOs are being required to domore with less every day.

Short of off-shoring everything, I found this to be a middleground. I kept my staff in place and supplemented them as needed,still using local staff, just not FTEs.

I'm meeting more and more senior IT executives who are becomingreceptive to this type of staffing model and are testing the waterswith staffing agencies.

Chris Barber isa partner at Antillus Personnel Solutions, a Southern Californiastaffing firm serving the financial services industry.