Welcome
Welcome to the Foresight Newsletter, a free monthly publication of Prevoyance Group Inc. This newsletter shares tips for high performance IT organizations and observations that we hope will prove informative and enjoyable.
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Contents
CONTENTS
Foresight is published by the Prevoyance Group, and this month contains four sections:
Work
Life
Heard in the Hallways
Travels with Patrick
Work
The Systems Development Lifecycle is a stalwart of IT projects. It has been tweaked, modified and rebranded by countless implementation firms, each adding their own interpretation of its basic phases: Planning, Analysis, Design, Build and Test. Each phase has a defined start and end point, and a series of documents and “deliverables” associated with each. Derived from engineering projects, it seems like a neat and compartmentalized way to run a project. Unfortunately, it often does not work.
Frequently, managing a project with an SDLC-based methodology assumes you can map out the timeframes and budget associated with each phase of the project, and define the entry and exit criteria for each phase. Once completed, a phase is declared “done,” never to be revisited. Unfortunately, this is not true of most business projects, where rooting out every aspect of the scope of the project, timeframe, and resource or design issues in advance would be extremely time consuming if not impossible. Also, it is rare for a project to start and finish with the exact same scope and assumptions with which it started. Along the way, nuances or new information are often discovered, and the project team must react to them, reopening design while supposedly in the midst of test and the like.
So what is the answer? Perhaps the most interesting option is a transition to a rapid implementation of smaller pieces of functionality or process. Rather than attempt to shoot for the moon during a long and complex project, plan the project as a series of achievements and work out the dependencies between each. Components of the larger solution can be implemented and vetted while the team builds and tests the next component. Just as different vendors might assemble different parts of a complex machine, different teams and vendors can build and test components of the overall solution.
This process is superficially quite simple. Each component is managed as a “mini-project,” and then the whole is assembled once each piece is complete. While this shifts the traditional program management function down to a lower level, the role of coordinating each component, and ensuring it meets critical design specifications becomes far more critical. In addition to ensuring a particular technology or process design meets its design objectives, it becomes imperative that it accept a standard, defined set of inputs and outputs, lest it not fit in with the overall solution.
While there will never be a “magic bullet” for implementing complex projects, a rapid implementation methodology that builds off of individual components can benefit large projects. This implementation style delivers visible results more rapidly than the SDLC, and forces your organization to think of processes and technology in terms of their inputs and outputs, and how they can be interconnected. This thought process can both speed your implementation, and simplify your environment for future endeavors.
Life
There has been increasing press coverage of various electronic “addictions,” from mobile phones to Blackberries, the number of people furiously tapping away at a small device has been increasing. Perhaps even more disturbing are watching those that become noticeably antsy when the tiny red light starts blinking, or they feel the gently pulse of some device on their belt, and then seem to practically salivate while waiting to see what summons the device has for them. All this in the name of “productivity.”
While I do not begrudge anyone for having the latest gadget, I think that we are using these devices in the wrong way. Allowing a flashing red light, obnoxious ring tone, or the flash of a voicemail indicator to distract your thinking and make you drop whatever you are doing is anything but productive. Rather than being an interruption and taskmaster, these devices should serve as time and place shifters, allowing you to do work at the time and place of your choosing.
Rather than nervously glancing at the blinking red light, disable all the notification features and deal with new email at a time and place of your choosing, whether it is on a park bench on a sunny day, or stuck in an airport somewhere. The same goes for the telephone. When I am in the midst of focused work (writing this newsletter for example), I disable all my ringers, answering calls and returning them at my choice of time and on my terms, rather than the caller’s.
Reading email late into the night right before bed is a sure way to flood your mind with the problems of the next day, and make for a restless night’s sleep. Unless you are commanding a nuclear arsenal or a trauma surgeon, this is also likely unnecessary. I use the features of my email device to automatically shut off all notifications past 9PM, but have no qualms getting an advance start to my day when my family is out the door and I am eating my breakfast.
These devices should be “TiVo-like,” allowing you to move email and phone calls to your terms, rather than the other way around.
Heard in the Hallways
Many advocate keeping a dictionary by your side at all times, looking up any words you do not know in order to expand your vocabulary. While this is excellent advice, it is somewhat lacking in pragmatism, as it is difficult to keep a quality dictionary around at all times, and stop what you are doing to search for an unknown word. Rather than letting these words go by to be forever lost, keep a running list on paper or in an electronic device, and lookup the words en masse. Review the list at least once a week, checking that you recall the definitions and usage, and make an effort to integrate those words into conversation.
Travels with Patrick
I’ve often had visions of renting four wheel drive vehicles on island vacations, tearing over the beaches, the sand spraying from the tires as I did my best impression of the SUV commercials that show vehicles flying over rugged terrain.
My wife and I visited the Cayman Islands last year, and upon hearing that one side of the island was largely uninhabited, we decided to rent a Jeep so I could live my off-road fantasy. We travelled around the island, checking out the sights until we came across a desolate beach, that seemed like the perfect time to put the vehicle to the test. I engaged the four wheel drive, locked the differential and pointed towards the beach while gently pressing the gas.
About four feet off the road, the dramatic waves of sand were spraying from the tires, only we were not being propelled forward, rather sinking into the sand. My wife looked on in amusement as I tried various contraptions of sticks and driftwood, and attempted to free the vehicle only to dig it deeper until it was resting gently on the rear axle. If it was not for a kind islander who happened to have a tow rope in his truck, I might still be there, scrambling through the sand and cursing my off-road abilities, or lack thereof.