If you're an organization forced into quickly creating a work from home (wfh) strategy, how tough can it be? This is a brief overview for creating a strategy. Not a sales pitch!

1. Corporate
Work From
Home
Strategies
UntilThe
Zombies Are
Gone
•Bob@Simplex-IT.com
•Twitter: Simplex_IT
•Blog: http://Simplex-IT.com/Blog
•Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SimplexITBob

2. Caveats for
today
• I am going to share all of my healthcare expertise. Which is
none. So don’t look here for that.
• Any opinions shared on the health aspects of this are
strictly mine.
• We’re primarily discussing Small-Medium business that do
not currently have a work-from home strategy/policy.
• All topics here are from a 30,000 ft view. A lot of glossing
over details here.
• Specific products are used as examples. There are a lot of
tools out there for this situation.
• I will probably say a couple of “funny” things that could be
taken as inappropriate. And there’s nothing new there.
• I am an Condescending, Opinionated, Arrogant Crotchety
Old Geek. But I take it as well as I dish it out.

3. Takeaways
• Throughout this chat we’re going to try to identify
specific takeaways, or things you should be able to use
from this presentation. There will be two types:
• Brain. This is something you should think about
before you do anything.
• Brawn. This is something you should actually start
doing.

4. Agenda (until Derailed)
• Challenge
• Technology
• Collaboration
• Planning

5. Topic for the
Day
We want employees to be able to perform job duties from
home that meets the following criteria:
• Productive
• Secure
• Economic
• Realistic

6. Keep it
Realistic
Remember the eternal project
triangle. Any change to one side
impacts the other 2.

7. Takeaway #1:
• Start with a conversation of what’s most
important in terms of business continuity.
• Don’t try to solve everything for everyone on
every day.
• Know what you can be flexible on.
• (More on this stuff in Planning)

8. Technology
Topics under technology:
• Where’s the data?
• Plumbing
• Where’s the work being done?
• Tools
• VPN
• Remote Desktop
• 3rd Party
• File Sharing

9. Where’s
the data?
Data is usually in one
of two places:
•Cloud based data isn’t
dependent on remote
users connecting to
corporate.
•“On Premise” data is.

10. Takeaway #2:
• Cloud-Based systems can usually be done from
different locations with minimal effort.
• The exception to this is for security reasons
(more on this later).

11. On Prem Data
and Plumbing
• Data is transmitted across networks (and the internet) in
packets of data.
• Think of it as plumbing.
• The thicker the pipe, the more data can be transmitted.
• Too much data or not enough pipe? Data congestion,
and problems.

12. Internal Network
Plumbing
• All traffic moves internally
at 1GB (1 Billion bits) of
information per second
• EXCEPT the firewall to
Internet connection,
which is usually <10% that
speed (and only one pipe)

13. Complete
Plumbing
• Home workers go through all
these hops to connect to
corporate IT resources
• The FASTEST POSSIBLE
speed is the slowest
connection here.
• The Home Network and ISP
are supporting all data needs
in the home
• The Corp Network and ISP
are supporting all data needs
in the Office

14. Examples
Your mileage may vary on this example, but consider a
100MB file:
• Internal 1Gb network: About 1 second.
• 10 Mb (or .01Gb) network: About 1 minute, 23 seconds.
• Every user connecting through the corporate ISP and
firewall adds to that load.
• Services likeVOIP (phones) add even more load.
• A slow/underpowered Firewall can add to bottleneck.

15. Takeaway #3:
Key questions to ask:
• “What’s our Internet Connection Speed?”
• “Where’s our data located for each application?”

16. 4 Common
Tools for
Remote
Data
Access
VPN (Virtual Private Network)
RDS (Remote Desktop Services)
File Sharing
3rd Party Solutions

17. VPN
• Software that makes the
connection between the Home
User andCorporate Network is
Encrypted and Secure
• Usually Provided/
Controlled/Managed through
the Firewall
• VPN’s do absolutely nothing to
improve performance
• Mapped drives and the like
“work” withVPN (w/config)
• Performance is dependent on
plumbing (will be worse than on
prem)

18. Remote
Desktop
• Creates a connection between the
Home User and the desktop at the
office.
• All the real work is done on prem.
• Should *ONLY* be used with a
VPN connection.
• Can be done with a Remote
Desktop Server set up (but that’s a
longer term solution).
• Printers need to be set up
separately.

19. 3rd Party
Solutions
• Similar to Remote Desktop, but
more robust.
• Expense, but better solutions
• Don’t usually requireVPN
• Some options include:
• Logmein
• Slashtop
• Teamviewer

20. File Sharing
• OneDrive for Business/SharePointOnline
• Google Drive
• Drop Box
• Anchor

21. File Sharing
• Great for document sharing (excel/word, etc)
• Some setup required at home computers
• Don’t forget to uninstall if appropriate
• Not so good for applications (including MSAccess)
• Don’t assume your data is being backed up
• Some tools (ie, Anchor) have greater centralized
Management and reporting capabilities

22. Takeaway #4: • Choose strategies based on need, ease of
implementation, and priorities.

23. Collaboration
• You probably already have tools necessary to
maintain good connection between your
employees…it’s time to use them.

24. Offer
• Email me at Bob@Simplex-IT.com and I’ll get
you hooked up with a single account for our
training service with access to about 140 online
courses, including 2 MSTeams courses and one
on G Suite.
• It’s a whopping $8 value! And no, we won’t
automatically charge you at the end of the
month trial.

25. Planning
• Value
• BYOD/Security
• Performance Measurement
• Culture
• Business Continuity
• Supplier/Vendors/Customers

26. Value
• Increase Revenue
• Decrease Costs
• Maintain/Improve Infrastructure

27. Security/
BYOD
• How secure are the devices at home?
• If corporate owned, can they be used for anything else?
• If employee owned, how do you know they’re healthy?
• Slippery slope of support

28. Performance
Measurement
• How are you going to engage your employees in terms
of their performance?
• Don’t expect the same level of performance, especially
in the beginning.

29. Culture
• Take some time to review how well you think your
organization will handle this?

30. Business
Continuity
• Are you sure that work done at home is properly backed
up?

31. Supplier/
Vendors/
Customers
• Are your fellow stakeholders going through the same
thing?
• If so, how can you help them get through this?

32. Takeaway #5:
• Have a tabletop discussion with key folks about
what this means, and how to implement.
• Make sure you discuss this with your IT support
folks!
• Be creative, but keep a realistic perspective on
things.
• Remember theTriangle!

33. If you don’t mind…

34. FEEDBACK!
• Please give feedback!
• Book Reviews on Amazon
• Bob@Simplex-IT.com

35. Resources
• FreeTeamsTraining:
• https://getbiggerbrains.com/coronavirus-help-free-
microsoft-teams-training/
• Good article about IT Management responsibilities:
• https://www.comptia.org/blog/the-cio-s-challenge-in-
confronting-corona-virus