Monday, 24 August 2009 00:00

Technology's Stab in the Back

Rate this item
(1 Vote)

"Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other." This quote, delivered by C. P. Snow, is one we should all live by. Mr. Snow was a physicist, a novelist and a bit of philosopher. Technology brings about great benefits that many of our projects rely upon. We are using it right now. However, take pause to reflect on how technology is also our nemesis. It haunts our projects with its false promises and lures us into implementing superfluous functionality.

Our admiration for technology is what gets us into trouble, drawing us into the sales pitch, believing something is easier to implement than it is or finding out that the environment we are trying to use it in actually is unique.

Consider the last 20% of functionality. It is in the specification, however, is it really needed? The condition affecting us is the added functionality is the Garage Syndrome—where "precious items" increase to fill the garage. The same thing happens with technology. At the hands of the implementation staff, the scope increases to fill the technology. As you work with the customer to manage scope, technology stabs you in the back. Look back at the discussion on extensibility. Over designing falls into this class of scope expansion.

The method to solve it is to get some form of the product to the customer as early as possible. The sooner they see the basic functionality the quicker they realize that all the bells and whistles are overkill. They reprioritize their needs quickly and the real requirements bubble to the top. This action focuses the team on the real requirements and away from the distraction of the neat functions that are not important to the customer.

Technology, though, does not stop there; it gets us in other ways. Unexpected core design issues in the product can cause troubles in the implementation and make life very difficult. Soon after design, the team starts to exercise the technology and problems arise. With a focus on early delivery to the customer, engineers need to start working with the technology sooner. This does not eliminate the problems arising, but it exposes the problems sooner providing more time and options to solve them. It also focuses the customer on the real needs of the implementation.

Is this just a thinly veiled promotion of Agile? Probably. However, the philosophy, as opposed to the methodology, is applicable in many environments that are unfavorable to changing the methodology. One such place is project recovery, where the idea of implementing an entirely new methodology to fix one project is nearly impossible. Save the evangelizing for when the project completes successfully. Use it as a showcase for implementing some of the philosophy to solve the problems. People have a difficult time arguing with success.

Read 21623 times

Related items

  • Filling Execution Gaps: How Executives and Project Managers Turn Corporate Strategy into Successful Projects
    What Filling Execution Gaps Covers

    Filling Execution Gaps

    by Todd C. Williams
    ISBN: 978-1-5015-0640-6
    De G Press (DeGruyter), September 2017

    Project alignment, executive sponsorship, change management, governance, leadership, and common understanding. These six business issues are topics of daily discussions between executives, middle management, and project managers; they are the pivotal problems plaguing transformational leadership. Any one of these six, when improperly addressed, will hex a project's chances for success. And, they do—daily—destroying the ability companies to turn vision into value.

    Check it out on Amazon or the Filling Execution Gaps website

    Without the foundation of a common understanding of goals and core concepts, such as value being critical to success, communication stops and projects fail.

    Without change management, users fail to adopt project deliverables, value is lost, and projects fail.

    Without maintaining alignment between corporate goals and projects, projects miss their value targets and projects fail.

    Without an engaged executive sponsor, scope increases, goals drift, chaos reigns, value is lost, and projects fail.

    Without enough governance, critical connections are not made, steps are ignored, value is overlooked, and projects fail.

    Too much governance slows progress, companies cannot respond to business pressures, value drowns in bureaucracy, and projects fail.

    Without strong leadership defining the vision and value, goals are not set, essential relationships do not form, teams do not develop, essential decisions are not made, and projects fail.

  • Process Mapping

    Process is at the core of any business. It makes work predictable, repeatable, and transferable. Without it we cannot scale our businesses. However, process can be a bane to making progress. Processes that work for a $10 million company have difficulties supporting a $30 million company. Trying to scale them to a $300 million company will not only fail but not address the issues that larger companies have that were never dreamt of in a smaller organization. Processes need to be discarded, revamped, and built—all of that without creating an overburdening bureaucracy.

    Anytime you need to go someplace, you first have to know where you are. Processes are never static and your company's current state is probably far from where you think it is. Hence, the first step is mapping out you company's current state followed by defining the future state. This is more than a logical map of the process; it must also include physical maps. Whether your process is solely to provide a service (say, website development) or physical (say, manufacturing) there are logistical issues that complicate the process flow. Without fully understanding those nuances, future state processes will not reach the desired efficiencies.

    For more information about process mapping fill out the form to the left and we will get in touch with you.

  • Kill The White Knight

    There is a reason we hesitate to teach classes on fixing failing projects. Many a cynic feels that we simply do not want to teach our trade, however, our reason is far nobler—we should be teaching prevention rather trying to create white knights to save the day. It is the same philosophy as building a fence at the cliff's edge rather than an emergency room at its base. Our language is replete with idioms telling us to look past the symptoms and address problems at their root cause. 'An ounce of prevention versus a pound of cure' or 'a stitch in time saves nine.' Please, feel free to supply your own in the comments. Unfortunately, most of our businesses loathe this philosophy, waiting to address an issue until it is irrefutably broken.

  • IT: We Don't Need No Stinking Leadership

    I have never posted email marketing results, because... well, let's face it... it is kind of tacky. Now and then, however, there is a story to be told. In my opinion, this set of statistics is a little over-the-top in what it shows. I can only see one way to interpret it other than Information Technology "leaders" simply do not care about leadership.

    To understand how I can make such a brash statement, you need a little background...

  • Alignment: Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies
    Alignment: Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies

    Add To Cart

    Author:Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton
    Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
    Released: April 2006
    Type: Hardcover
    Pages: 320
    ISBN:978-0201835953

    Projects build capabilities to met corporate goals. If you are a CEO, you need to make sure your employees and vendors know what those goals are and how they fit in to the plan. If you are a project manager, you need to know the bounds of you project. If you are anywhere in-between, you need to understand how all the pieces fit together and keep it all aligned.

    Most organizations consist of multiple business and support units, each populated by highly trained, experienced executives. But often the efforts of individual units are not coordinated, resulting in conflicts, lost opportunities, and diminished performance.

Leave a comment

Filling Execution Gaps

Available Worldwide

Filling Exectution Gaps cover

Filling Execution Gaps is available worldwide. Below are some options.

 

PG DirectLogo
Limited Time Price $20.99
Amazon logo
Book or Kindle
Flag of the United States Canadian Flag Flag of the United Kingdom Irish Flag Deutsche Flagge
Drapeau Français Bandiera Italiana PRC flag
Japanese flag
Bandera de España
Flag of India
Bandera de México
Bandeira do Brasil
Flag of Australia
Vlag van Nederland
DeG Press Logo
Barnes and Noble Logo
Books a Million Logo
Booktopia Logo
Worldwide: Many other
book sellers worldwide.

Rescue The Problem Project

Internationally acclaimed

Image of RPP

For a signed and personalized copy in the US visit the our eCommerce website.

Amazon logo
Buy it in the United States Buy it in Canada Buy it in the United Kingdom
Buy it in Ireland Buy it in Germany Buy it in France
Buy it in Italy Buy it in the PRC
Buy it in Japan
Book sellers worldwide.

Other's References

More Info on Project Recovery

Tell me More!

Please send me more information
on fixing a failing project.

Upcoming Events

Sitemap