I wonder if the years of staring at computer screens has affected my world view? OK, no doubt of that. Everything is a project in progress or a problem to be solved. Does it drive your partner nuts? My kids try to assist me in seeing just that. Here you see them checking on me. They are my pet project, or is it the other way around? People who live computers often have a twisted view. At least my kids still love me.
I suspect that computer people don’t always see, with regards projects, that a machine and its software are just useful tools. Sometimes the practitioners within a project can be much less than a “useless tool”, but I’ll curb my innuendo. If you like sci fi then you have a future view, but for now, software just comes as bundles, tools no more and no less.
Maybe a young IT practitioner is a little like a young petrolhead, or 1110000 1100101 1110100 1110010 1101111 1101100 1101000 1100101 1100001 1100100. Yes they plough heaps of their time (which is money) into their obsession, and in the case of the latter, occasionally plough their cars. We techies, well we get involved in train wrecks. Not sure why that is, but we do seem to have nerd like train watcher qualities! We “spot” language features and create equally useless lists.
But how do we get so carried away? How does our obsession cloud our ability to drive and deliver projects? Well did you check if my binary was correct? Excessive technical focus!
So, we can get carried away with the object of our desires (our latest language or platform or maybe device). But let’s think projects, the actual purpose for many of these odd obsessions. The project is the encapsulation of anything new that we do, or at least set out to achieve.
Let’s look at specifics, I’m thinking that
we don’t often see the project target too clearly
Must be all that astigmatism and close focus myopia. Or is it, as in so many areas of focused activity, that our minds just play tricks on us? We happily race towards a fictional target. Tilting at windmills?
Sometimes we trick ourselves by equating the fastest performing result with a meaningful project end goal. Yes not always the desired result. Obsessions, desires, I’m starting to feel strangely hot now, oh “Yeah, baby”.
Sometimes we show unreasonable reliance and belief in a silver bullet. Latest methodology anyone? The only way to steer a direct course? Oh please. Methodologies often rightly address the most common set of mistakes, but they can’t transmute lead into gold or does the sow’s ear to silk purse metaphor do it for you? Yes,
GOOD people over process
there was a reason for that one (lookup the Agile manifesto), but excuse the liberal addition of my extra defining word.
What else, seeing as this might be a veiled rant. Well just one more mistake we often don’t think about as techies – that a “working solution” might not actually be more important than the perceptions of the client! Hmmm, if only I didn’t keep solving my wife’s issues and just said, “Yes dear”.
Does that last issue sound too extreme to you? Well, clients not only pay our fees but present us with the outline of a project. We might fill in the gaps but they need to be HAPPY. They might then come back for more. Or not!
Maybe the biggest problem for many techies is the absence of soft skills. Maybe because acquiring the hard skills takes so damn long!?
Our industry has grown so rapidly that now we have fast track routes to becoming the leaders within our domain. Well not in all places, but I’m sure you have been to sites where the PM’s ruled the roost! Some without a background in software process maybe or with little love for or ability with technical practice!!!
Hard skills, once they set, tend to make an essential bedrock on which to lay and seat those higher level skills. Do I have to say “Duh!”.
Ok, having indicated a little dissatisfaction, I will make note of what I see (warped as it may be) and make mention of that which represents what I do like within this loose discussion on the game of
Project hit and miss
A little Yang if you will.
I do like communication. Not just the “round up the nervous juniors to see if they can be made to talk or possibly pee themselves”. Ah you enjoy this pointless abuse of a non agile group mimicking a Scrum? Yes, the session might last the length of an abstracted and quite boring Union scrum, but hey in the real world they introduced league to rectify that! It’s all about “shared thinking and shared goals”, don’t just copy a format because the course said so!
I do like that Scrum and Lean ARE giving new project focus and managerial techniques to technical teams that used to stay glued to their screens. Until the software got into acceptance!
I like the lead who checks on how things are going – both project and otherwise, and who both suggests and listens. And even understands!
I like the sharing of leadership. Take the reigns when this feature is your forte. People who buy in by sharing their enthusiasm and ability. Yes, you’ve been in such a team and liked it I’ll wager!
I like a warped sense of humour and a distorted view of the world. Turn what is requested, or DEMANDED, upside down and inside out. You will be surprised by how amenable others are to a good solution! Ok, you will also be surprised by the opposite, but we’re trying to Yang right now.
I like people who realise that their most powerful tool, in their technical arsenal, is their noggin! Computers are still a bit like cars. You can make them sexy on the outside, go fast stripes and flashing lights, but they are still as primitive as a hairy arsed baboon or a troop of PHB’s (Pointy-Haired Boss, see Dilbert)
You can’t always change the world around you. And with a skewed view of the world, maybe that wouldn’t be a safe move either. But if I have a warped perspective, it is only because I refuse to fit into a poorly applied matrix, or a pigeon holed role, or into anything which isn’t a part of a solution to a client’s real problem.
Is it time for a little closure? How about a simple credo?
make sure your project team tilts at meaningful targets
make sure your team has the most appropriate solutions
make sure the team consists of the right sort of noggins needed to implement them
I’ll be starting a new religion in my next installment.
