1. Australian Finnish Rest Home
Association (AFRHA)
From Crisis to Calm
• This is the GOOD stuff !
You made the right choice
to come here.

2. The Calm

3. Before the Storm

4. Background
• AFRHA operates a
small (45 Bed) Aged
Care Facility in
Thornlands – Brisbane.
• Also a 23 unit
Retirement Village and
• “Finncare” – a Home
and Community Care
service
• Total staff is appx. 100
• In 2008, AFRHA won an
award at the ITAC
conference for the best
Implementation of
Software…

5. Background
• By January 2012 AFRHA
was facing a major
dilemma in IT.
• The network was
groaning under the
weight of applications
and users.
• Hardware was fast
approaching “use-by-
date”.
• Management
fingernails had been
chewed to the quick.

6. So, how did we end up in an IT crisis?

7. January 2012 our network looked like
this.

8. Issues
• Years of patching-up
and doing things on a
shoe-string.
• Expertise and
knowledge
concentrated in too few
people
• The Board did not have
a big-picture of the I.T.
requirements
• Management and the
Board were mesmerised
by the software side.

9. Then it hit the fan…
• The network guru was offered a job he could
not refuse. Bye bye guru.
• 2 people with knowledge of “systems” were
left holding the bag.
• External IT company called into audit and
support the two bunnies. (What’s the
password to this server/router/software??)
• N# One bunny starts learning network
administration with great urgency.

10. Lesson N# 1
Technology = People
Someone needs to be in control of services and
this needs to be formalised.
People are the users and the users are the
drivers for what is needed and how it works.

11. Lesson N# 2
Document Everything.

12. Back to the Rabbits
• Bunny N# 1 attends
ITAC conference
• Bunny N# 1 begins to
build a network at
home to duplicate
AFRHA network
• Karma: this leads to
meeting a person who
suggests seeking out
DONORTEC !
• Que: trumpets and
heavenly choir.

13. Donortec has come into our lives !

14. Budget
• Things are still not
completely free.
• But at least we could
start to plan.
• “Interesting”
discussions ensued with
the Board
• They were still
mesmerised by
software and licencing.

15. Lesson N# 3
• Have a Budget
• If you are small, have a small budget
• If you are big, have an enormous budget
It will never be enough.

16. Lesson N# 4
I.T. people need to make the IT decisions.
(Technology = People)

17. Getting to now.
Funding was eventually
agreed and the IT partner
started work.
However, this would not have
been possible without a
partnership to ConnectingUp.
Back to Calm
• We now have a stable IT
environment.
• Software works well and
licencing is 100% up to date.
• The hardware is robust and
will see us through at least 5
years of growth (provided
maintenance happens).
• The bunnies can have a rest.