For technology leaders finding that their Citrix environment isn't as good as it should be
How to get the most out of your Citrix investment, even if your staff aren't experts.
Two 60-minute sessions, one a day for two days. Why every fix you have tried left you where you started, what it is costing you on your own numbers, and what the organizations with steadier change windows had in place that you did not.
Every environment is different. What is shared here is what DJ has seen work, and it is not a promise about your outcome.
Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or representing Citrix Systems or Cloud Software Group.
The night this room knows
It is ten at night and the patches should have finished by now.
Three hours ago somebody kicked off another round of after-hours work, because that is when the fewest people are logged in. Here is where two different people in that window are standing.
The morning before tonight
Somebody senior asked you a straight question about why the environment is built the way it is, and you could not answer it. The consultants who built it are three companies ago. Whoever understood it left before you got here and took the reasoning with him. There are diagrams in a folder from a version that is no longer running, and there is nobody left in the building to ask.
Four in the morning
Your alarm is already set, and it is not so you can get the kids to school. It is so you find out whether tonight went badly before anyone else does, because nobody on your team is going to call you. You will not be sleeping anyway. You will be lying there running the version of the conversation where the board has finally had enough of hearing your name attached to this.
You used to have a support number you could call. Now there is an AI chatbot standing between you and a trouble ticket, and twenty minutes of it before a person picks up.
Even then, that number is useful after something breaks and useless before it. That is what went missing around the middle of 2023, when proactive consulting became something you were left to find on your own.
Why this held on for so long
You were handed a black box and told to be accountable for it.
You were sold software described as a solution, and you bought it the way anybody in your seat would have. When the proactive guidance went away in 2023, the expectation was that the partner ecosystem would pick it up. In DJ's experience, for organizations your size that often did not happen.
The market changed shape and left a category of organization standing in the space where the help used to be. Nobody handed you a way to tell a qualified expert from an unqualified one.
What has already been tried
Six things, and every one of them was you, on your own, buying a thing.
Keeping it running
Triage is a real strategy and it works right up to a ceiling. It can only return the system to the state it was in before the last thing broke, so every hour holds the line and buys nothing.
Calling support
Support exists to restore service after a break. It does not tell you what to build, or whether what you have fits what the business is trying to do.
The boot camp
Your people sat in the room with a laptop open and a phone buzzing, working the queue all week. The environment was already running them, and a classroom cannot fix that.
The licensing partner
You asked the desk that sells you licenses and they brought in a third party. People who are excellent at the commercial relationship are not the same people who are excellent at the architecture.
Hiring the architect
Your team worked out inside an hour that the candidate had memorized an exam and never run an environment. A hire does not fix a system nobody can explain.
The cheaper pilot
A vendor stood up a proof of concept, did a lot of the work for free, and it could not hold the performance your users need. Per-seat price is not the same thing as total cost.
Not one of those gave you a person who knew this technology, knew your environment, and had nothing to sell you.
You are invited to
The VDI ROI Reset
Two 60-minute sessions with DJ Eshelman, one a day for two days.
$7 · Two days · Live on Zoom
Why none of it held
Every one of those was a single lever, pulled against a structure that was never built underneath.
- A course does not fix a team with no room to learn.
- The next hire gets swallowed by an environment nobody can explain, the same way the last one did.
- Changing the license changes the invoice, not the design.
That is why none of it held, and it is why the next single fix will not hold either.
What the two days cover
Day one is the diagnosis. Day two is the method.
Why you are here
- Why every fix you have tried left you where you started, from keeping it running day to day up to the ones that cost real money
- The live arithmetic on your own environment, worked on your figures rather than on anybody else's
- The arithmetic you work during the event is an estimate based on the figures you bring. It is a starting point for a conversation, not a forecast of savings.
- The one thing all six of those attempts had in common
- What the organizations that got their complaint volume down had in place, in DJ's experience, that you have been going without
The riskLESS Methodology
- All four parts: Understand, Plan, Change, Maintain
- Why the sequence is not decorative, and why the people who fail at this tend to have started at part three
- The part that answers the question most of the room actually came with, which is who do I call
- Why the large consulting firms run something structurally similar, and why their version can be hard to leave once you are in it
DJ teaches what each part is and why it matters. How you run each one, in your environment, with your people, is the work.
Before you register
Who these two days are for.
Come if
- You are running this technology today, or you are seriously evaluating whether it is the right fit.
- A real answer matters more to you than a comfortable one.
- You inherited an environment and a team nobody trained.
- You are the one who would normally send somebody else to a thing like this. Come yourself. Bring whoever else needs to be in the room, and come anyway.
- The decision belongs to somebody above you. Come anyway, get the real picture of your own environment, then go and have that conversation holding an estimate instead of a worry.
Give it a miss if
- You are looking for a free answer. There is a great deal of DJ's material available for nothing and you should go and use it.
- You have already decided to move off this platform. What you need is a migration partner, and that is not him.
- You want a change made before anybody has understood what it is meant to achieve.
Your host
DJ Eshelman
In 2004 he was keeping a Citrix deployment alive for a regional youth healthcare organization, one a vendor had set up and then walked away from. He was there after hours and found clinical staff still at the clinic at night, because remote access had never been turned on. He turned it on.
On his next visit one of the providers spotted him walk in, ran the length of the hallway and just about tackled him with a hug. She had not been able to tuck her kids in for over a month. The night before, she had.
That settled something. The technology was never the point. What it does to somebody's night is the point.
- Independent Resident Consulting Architect for Citrix Consulting Services, contracted from 2011 to 2023 to lead engagements and train their consultants
- Twenty-five years in the field, with Fortune 500 engagements across the US, Canada, Brazil and the EU
- Author of Just Do THIS: A Simpler Way to Succeed in I.T. and Be a Citrix Hero
- Certified Independent Executive Director facilitator and coach with Maxwell Leadership
- Published on IT leadership in DigitalTrends and IBTimes
“I do not work for Citrix or Cloud Software Group and I do not represent them. I do not sell licenses, and no vendor pays me a commission for what I recommend. What I do have is my own consulting practice, and you will hear about it on day two. Nothing I say about which technology is worth your money is bought by anybody else.”
Questions
Before you decide.
What if I cannot make it?
All ticket sales are final, so there are no refunds. If you can't make it live, you will still get the replay.
How much of my time is this actually?
About 60 minutes on each of the two days, and that is the whole ask. It is not two days out of your calendar. Both sessions are live and start at the same time, so you can put one recurring hold in and forget about it. Each session may be followed by optional Q&A for anyone who wants to stay on.
Is there a replay?
Yes. Replays through the end of the week.
I am in a different timezone.
The times listed above are 12:00 PM CT. Your confirmation email carries the full schedule and a calendar entry that converts to your own timezone.
How technical does this get?
It is a leadership event about a technical system. No configuration and no step by step. You get what the four parts are, why each one matters, and what it costs you to skip one.
Is this two days of pitch?
DJ says in the first five minutes that there is a chance to go further together on day two, so nothing later comes as a surprise. Then he delivers both days in full either way.
Can I bring my team?
Yes, and many do. I simply ask that you don’t delegate this. It is a leadership event, so if you have other managers or leaders who need to be in the room, bring them. My philosophy is that the team needs to Understand right alongside leadership, so all are welcome. Each attendee registers with their own email address so the join link works for them.
One more thing
A year from now the patch still goes in at ten at night.
The question is whether anybody has to call you about it.
$7 · Two days · Live on Zoom
Save your seat
The VDI ROI Reset, live on Zoom. Two days with DJ Eshelman.
$7 to register. One charge, no subscription, nothing recurring.
We use your email to send your ticket, the join link and the reminders. Nothing else.