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Operation vs. Transformation

In an ancient kingdom, the king took great pride in his gardens. From the time he was a young king he ensured that the gardens were faithfully maintained by the finest people with the finest materials and plants.

A master gardener presided over the garden. He knew more about plants than anyone in the kingdom and proudly maintained the finest specimens from the local countryside and from distant lands. The gardens were called the wonder of the world.

As the kingdom prospered, the king sought to make his gardens even more impressive. “Master gardener, I wish to make our gardens three times larger! I have ordered that no expense be spared! You have always done an excellent job with my gardens. Please make them worthy of my kingdom!”

The gardener proceeded to assemble his workers and expand the garden. Word went out throughout the kingdom and beyond. Some of the finest workers and plants began arriving to the capital. Before long there was the sound and appearance of progress in the garden.

The king saw this and became excited. Soon he would walk through new gardens. Which part would be his favorite? He began planning an elaborate celebration.

One month later, the king checked on the progress. What he found greatly troubled him. The construction site was in disarray. Some workers were arguing. There were piles of dirt everywhere and some new buildings were being torn down. Even more troubling, many plants in the old garden were starting to turn yellow and some had already died.

The workers, seeing the kings distress, made every attempt to appear busy. They dug more dirt. They carried water on their backs to water the plants. They built more walls and buildings. At the direction of the master gardener, they showed him the elaborate drawings of the coming splendor.

Despite his concern, the king trusted the gardener. “Loyal and faithful gardener, you have always done an excellent job with the gardens. I trust you to make this garden even more wonderful! I have ordered my treasurer to double your resources. Whatever you need is yours.”

The workers and the master gardener doubled their efforts. But 2 months later there was more dirt and more arguing. One of the new aqueducts collapsed and flooded a large section of the garden. Only a small section of the old garden survived.

The King was greatly disturbed. “How can this be? I wanted the finest gardens in the world and you are the master gardener! Now I have no gardens!”

All work in infotech falls into two categories: Operational and transformational.

The operational concerns doing the same things over and over again, with great reliability and accuracy.

The transformational involves taking a situation from one state to another state successfully.

There is no function that is both operational and transformational. There may be operational tasks performed in a transformational effort, and there may be transformational tasks performed in an operational effort. But any given technology task or group of tasks belongs distinctly to one of the two categories.

However, it is very common for technologists to incorrectly assign an activity into one category or another. It is also common for management to fail to recognize the difference in categories. When that happens, many disasters occur and many resources are wasted. Many companies have perished while still struggling with these two concepts.

A master technologist understands the difference between these two worlds and can manage both categories. A company employing technology in any way must understand both categories.

Posted 22 April 2009 † admin § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

The Language of Organizations

There were once two towns. One grew carrots. One grew rabbits. Obviously, these towns had much to gain from each other.

“This year we will have an amazing carrot crop!” Said the Carrot town leader.

“We and our rabbits cannot wait!” said the Rabbit town president. But when harvest time came, they received a delivery of Apples.

“We’re sorry, we know we said carrots, but the apple trees were so ripe we decided to harvest apples!”

The rabbit village could only watch as 1/3 of their rabbits starved.

“Please grow some carrots, quickly!” said the rabbit farmers.

“It has always been our intention to grow carrots” said the carrot growers.

But when harvest time came they brought paintings of rabbits that their children had painted in grade school. The rabbit village looked on with anger as another 1/3 of their rabbits starved.

“Why have you treated us like this?” fumed the rabbit people. “You are killing all of our rabbits! Had we known you were not going to grow carrots, we would have grown them ourselves. Now we only have 1/3 of our rabbits left!”

“We understand your frustration” said the carrot people who had not grown carrots. “But unforeseen circumstances required us to sell our carrots to another village. We promise that our next crop of carrots will go to you.”

“If you do not grow carrots, we will find someone else to buy carrots from.” Said the rabbit people.

However, the next day Rabbit village formed an army and attacked the Carrot village. Carrot village was defeated, and the Rabbit people took all their money, possessions, and carrot fields.

“How could you do this!?!?!” wailed the carrot people as they watched their belongings carted out of their smoldering city. “You never told us you would attack us without warning over carrots! You are dishonest!”

“You are a people who don’t do what you say you will do.” replied the rabbit people. “we are a people who do what we don’t say”.

In this way, rabbits died while people who grow carrots lost everything.

You can sometimes trust a person’s word, but organizations do not have a “word”.

The language of organizations is always what they do. This is particularly true in Infotech, where so much of what actually happens is obfuscated from view. Pay attention to actions. They are the most important form of communication.

Posted 17 April 2009 † admin § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

Don’t forget, we use systems too

There was a blacksmith who was known far and wide for his fine work. He grew older, and decided to take on an apprentice.

The apprentice learned quickly and the blacksmith was very impressed. But after a year, the apprentice asked for better tools.

“Master, if only I had better tools, I could learn faster and do much better work.” Said the apprentice. “Could I take a few days and fashion some from the extra metal in our shop?”

The blacksmith grew inwardly angry. How dare he ask such a question! He was just an apprentice and clearly forgetting his place! But before talking to him, he calmed himself and thought of a more rational reason.

“My apprentice, your work is too valuable for me to spare one minute of it.” Said the blacksmith. “We work with the tools we have.”

But the apprentice was too foolish to listen to his teacher. He was ashamed of the items he was making for the people of the town, and he was frustrated that it took so long to make them. So he stayed up late for several weeks and secretly created new tools from scrap. Some of them were of a design never seen.

The blacksmith, unaware of the secret, grew very proud of the speed and artistry of the apprentice. Surely he was the finest teacher in the town to have a student of such progress!

But one day he opened the cabinet where the apprentice hid his secret tools. When he discovered them, he was very ashamed. “My apprentice, you were right. My shop is old and in need of better equipment.”

So the blacksmith and his apprentice took a few days and fashioned new tools. When they reopened the people of the town could not believe the quality of the products and the speed at which the blacksmith finished them. Soon people came from far away to employ his craftsmanship.

Ironworking professionals take pride in the fact that they only need some metal and a fire to get to work. The idea is that they make their own tools, and it makes them more self-sufficient and creatively excellent.

In Infotech, there is a similar spirit. The technology infrastructure we build is used by everyone, including the people who run the system for others.

Too often, technologists forget that the people who use software and hardware in serving end users are themselves users of the software. Their ability to serve is directly dependent on the system itself.

The ability of a support person to refund a purchase, or reset a password, or check on the status of an order, or run a nightly process has a direct impact on the end user.

Make sure that support staff, operations, sysadmins, dbas, network engineers, and developers have the tools they need to serve others. If you see their needs taking a backseat to the perceived needs of an end user, it would be wise to stop everything until everyone realizes exactly what’s happening there.

Posted 21 October 2008 † admin § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

The Expert is Always from out of town

There was a king who had a 64 trusted advisers. However, he trusted none of them.

“My general wants my job!” he would mutter.

“My engineer only cares about the stones of the city walls!” he would bellow.

“My magician is not a people person!” he would snarl.

“Who then can I trust?” he thought to himself.

Just then, his guards dragged a man into the kings chambers.

“This man is from our hated neighbor province!” they said. “He was knocking on our front gate and asking to speak to you. Surely he is an assassin or a spy! Should we put him to death?”

Before the king could answer, the man interjected.

“This is not so!” exclaimed the shackled man. “I am not a spy! I am a man of great skill and intellect who was kicked out of my home province by the incompetent leader, which is your hated enemy.”

“If you will pay me 10 pieces of gold per day, you may use my skills to your liking. In fact, I will live outside your city gates so that you will have no concerns of having a spy within your city.”

The king’s trusted advisers were appalled that someone would insult the leader in such a way. Just last week, the king’s favorite cook had asked for an additional piece of gold per week, and had his hands chopped off for such a question. Did this stranger not understand the nature of this kingdom?

They looked forward to what terrible things the king would do to this hated enemy of the kingdom.

However, the king was pensive. Here was a man of great benefit to the king! He would have nothing to fear from him because the stranger would not live within the city gates. The man could give him an objective opinion of the obviously tainted views of his advisors. And if he did not help, he could have him killed at any time.

So the king hired the man, who eventually became so rich that he was able to build a kingdom of his own.

Meanwhile, the king’s general (who was not a stupid man) had an idea. He sold all of his belongings, and made the long trip to the castle of the king of the hated neighbor province. He knocked on the door and said “I wish to speak to the king!”

Within an organization, there is always competition amongst the members. Sometimes it is friendly, other times not so friendly. Sometimes people will join together in to factions to compete against other groups. Other times it’s more of an individual approach.

This is not inherently unhealthy or dysfunctional. Competition is good. However, it leads to some important situations.

When you are a technical person in an organization, your position will make you a potential threat to the plans of someone in that organization.

When you are a technical person external to an organization, your knowledge is a potential asset to the plans of someone in that organization.

Thus, the natural tendency is to define a technical expert as “someone from out of town”. It is often too politically dangerous to let technologists (and other subject matter experts) play this role.

Do not be offended by this. Instead, use it to expand your knowledge and meet new people. Again, knowledge and friendships are the most important parts of a career in Infotech.

Posted 14 October 2008 † admin § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

The Functionality vs. the Appearance

A town lord was designing his city’s defenses, as there were terrible roving hordes of bandits sacking cities just like his. He had finished half the walls, when the emperor of the entire province happened to travel through the town.

“These are the worst looking walls I have ever seen! They need to be painted!”

The town lord, who feared the hordes but did not want to anger the emperor, immediately stopped building the walls and started to paint them. When he was finished, he hurried to finish the walls and build the town gates. But because time was short his engineers used unfinished timber instead of smooth planks.

Then the emperor, hastily retreating from bandit attacks, traveled back through the town on his return journey.

“That gate is the klunkiest thing I’ve ever seen! Replace it!”

The town lord, who knew the hordes were coming but did not want to disobey his leader, ordered his engineers to destroy the gates and build gates made of smooth planks. Just then, the hordes of bandits rounded the corner and made short work of the town. They captured the town lord, killed the people and burned the buildings to the ground.

As the flames lit up the sky, the leader of the hordes patted the town lord on the back and said “this is by far the best looking town we have ever destroyed, and it’s people were too exhausted to fight”.

Users of technology and the ‘deciders’ of technology invariably end up with two separate goals.

Users want the technology to work. Deciders want it to look good, and because they are deciders they tend to get the lions share of input.

Both of these constituencies are important. Deciders make technology possible. But Users of technology are what make a solution successful.

Thus, the most successful technologies are those that work. Myspace, Ebay, Amazon, Craigslist, and de.lico.us, are all (web based) examples of very successful technology that didn’t look great (some looked absolutely terrible) but had huge user-driven success. The corporate world of infotech has similar examples.

So if you’re working for deciders, make it look good. If you’re trying to attract users, make it work. Both of these are valid activities, but finding the balance is key to being an effective technologist.

If you’re a decider…spend plenty of time thinking like a user. Realize the penalty for failure in this.

Posted 06 October 2008 † admin § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

Nothing but nets

An old fisherman had grown too old to mend his own nets. He asked his son to help him with this task.

“Father, your nets are fine” his son said. “You don’t need my help”.

The old fisherman continued to fish with his failing nets, until at last the material gave out and he returned with no fish. He went to the village and asked for someone to help him with his nets.

“you don’t need a net” said one of the villagers. “You need a better boat.”

So the old fisherman spent his remaining money on a new boat. It was slightly bigger, slightly newer, but not much different than his old boat. But still, he returned from his day with no fish.

At last, the fisherman returned to the village, desperately looking for help with his fishing.

“I will trade your new boat for this fishing spear” said one of the men in the market. “This will help you fish.”

So the old man took his fishing pole down to the river. There he sat on the banks, but he was not good with a fishing spear.

People walked by on the way to market but did not notice the old man staring blankly at the water

When the reached the market, they marveled at the high price of fish.

We can manage users emotions. We can even manage their expectations.

In short, users of technology can be “handled”.

But we can never manage their needs. What they need is determined by forces outside of our control. Finding a user’s need is a key part of being a technologist.

Posted 29 September 2008 † admin § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

All Infotech is Vanity

There was a town known far and wide for it’s exquisite buildings and bridges. These structures were designed by 3 famous architects, and the buildings they designed were unmatched in beauty and function. They would walk through the city of their creations, and the people would say “surely these are the finest buildings in the world! and you are the finest architects!”

They experienced great joy from watching the people walking amongst the buildings of the city. But when they had finished 900 buildings, they said to themselves “what more can we build? Let us go to the mountains and rest from our work.”

So they went to the mountains and contemplated the stars and the streams. One year became two, and two became four. After 128 years they began to grow restless. “Let us return to our town and see the work we finished so long ago.”

So they started the journey back to their hometown. As they walked they discussed how great it would be to see the exquisite buildings they had designed and the joy on the faces of the people who looked upon them.

But when they returned, all the buildings had been destroyed. In their place were structures of foreign design and function. They asked a boy walking by “what has happened to our bridges and buildings?

The boy looked upon them with suspicion, and said “you are strange old men, and you speak of strange things. Who can own a city! My mother would beat me for speaking to you!”.

With that, the boy ran off and disappeared behind a glass door.

The men looked at the reflection in the glass and realized they were indeed strange old men in a strange city.

This is the first thing anyone should realize about a career in Infotech.

The things you design and build are extremely short lived. They will soon be replaced, upgraded, deprecated, sunset-ed, consolodated, merged, sold, modified, ported, or otherwise removed from reality.

A physical engineer will be able to look at his buildings and bridges for the rest of his life. A doctor is able to think of the babies he delivered or the lives he saved. Bankers can look at the houses they financed. Even lawyers can look back on results of the deals they closed.

However, in Infotech none of this is possible. In a short time it will all be gone.

This may initially seem depressing. But it is not.

In infotech, the things you must value are your relationships, your knowledge and your ability to learn. These are what are valuable and what last. If you focus on these, you will have a very rewarding career.

Posted 22 September 2008 † admin § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °