What do I look for when hiring an Operations Director?

Question

We are a small (20 people) yet growing Internet Agency and we have decided it is time for a operations director. Most of the heavy lifting operationally has been handled by the Tech Director and one project manager (who is moving out of project management into product development)

• What personality type is best?
• Should they have a technical background (as a programmer? as a sysadmin?)
• Is age important? Should we be looking for someone over 30?
• Are there any specific kinds of hobbies, environments, other external indicators which show someone is an operations god/goddess (I know how to spot a tech/creative geek but not an operations one.)

Answer 1

This is by no means definitive, comprehensive or even accurate - but in my experience, the following apply.

• Personality type is really dependent upon the rest of the team. With only 20 people you should still just about be able to get some common ground on this. You're looking at a role that other people may not entirely understand the function of - it'd be useful to get a feel for the team's expectations. As you interview/meet people you should then be able to match their personality against expectations (even if those expectations are of skills and responsibilities, not specific personalities). It is very difficult to judge somebody's personality in a short period of time (even if they're ostensibly nice/arrogant/rude or whatever) - accordingly, you should set the role up so that it can wrap around their personality, not the other way around. This is far easier with a new position.

• Technical background is generally helpful. Whilst it's not necessarily (responsibilities-wise) if they don't have one, it can cause clashes if they are managing/working with people who don't feel like they can be understood. However, avoid people who have a very specific technical background or are specialists in only one area (regardless of whether it's relevant to their new role) as they will be fighting a constant battle against their better judgement (and that of others) when it comes to operational issues.

• Age is, again, dependent on the rest of the team - not their ages, but their mindset. You need somebody with good experience, a rounded outlook on things and time spent working with different types of people. This will probably get you somewhere close to 30 already, because it's very difficult to get those things otherwise.

• I've never seen anything specific or consistent in terms of other factors - however - operations gurus seem to fall into one of two categories: those with few hobbies and passions outside of work; and those with many - particularly those into sports and physical activity. This could just be a weird by-product of the decent ops folk I've worked with, but it's certainly noticeable. The typical geeky kind have tended not to be great at operations, in my experience.

Answer 2

My two (okay, maybe four) cents:

Personality - I'd look for someone who is systematic, who naturally tries to bring order to chaos, and enjoys collecting and reporting on process metrics. If you're into psychometric surveys like Myers-Briggs, one possible fit IMHO would be the ESTJ profile.

Technical Background - I think a lot depends on the nature of operations they'll be managing (for example, if it's the smooth day-to-day running of a data center, then I'd say a technical background is mandatory.) Another consideration is the culture of your firm. If your technical team is the type that perceives and appreciates value in non-technical roles (even if they'd rather not be involved in such roles), then a technical background may not be necessary.

Age - I think Age matters only if it means the candidates you're looking at have had actual work experience performing the role that you're hoping to fill. If they've had no specific experience, then IMHO Attitude is more important than Age. I personally appreciate people who are always hungry to learn, willing to try new things, and work well with others.

Hobbies and Environments - Great question. I wish I had a good answer to this one.

Parting thought: Personally, I feel that people in Operations have a thankless job. They don't get extra credit when they move heaven and earth to ensure that things are running well, because people think, "well, it's your job to keep things running well." On the other hand, they get all the flak when any little thing goes wrong.

Good luck on your search.

Answer 3

The personality type depends in part on how much leading will this person be doing versus managing the existing workload. I may be off but it would seem that the project management role is partially what this director would be doing and so there should be a clear list of what this person would be doing. If you can work out the details of what this person has to do, that may lead to some clue as things like how well organized are they, how observant of their surrondings are they, etc.

Technical background may be useful but I wouldn't think it required. The key is what kinds of people skills, conflict resolution, and motivating people does the candidate have? If the job is partially looking at the code or the system it is running on, then maybe some experience in that area would be appropiate, e.g. if they are expected to know how much capacity is being used by a web server then having been a former Webmaster may be useful.

I don't think age would be important, though maturity might. How would they feel about being given this much power? What kinds of goals should they have in mind if they get the job? Don't forget that the person over 30 may be just as new to IT as a fresh college graduate.

As for hobbies and other things, you could ask what are they passionate about, what gets their engine running, what do they do for fun? I'd look for whether the hobby is something done alone or as part of a group, how well do they believe their skill to be in that hobby and how well should it be to be part of a group, e.g. if there is an amateur theater group and he is the director just because no one else wanted it that it vastly different to my mind than someone that competed with 20 other people to get that position. Do they volunteer time or give to charity? What kind of working hours should they expect, e.g. is this going to be an almost 24/7 type of position where the person is somewhat always on-call or is it a truly 40 hour work week position.

Good luck on finding the right person for the position.