The Hot Air Balloon

Ever work in a company where the upper non-technical management made all the decisions, and the IT team had no team say in making the decisions. Why does that happen?

A man saw a hot air balloon and starts to float. He enjoys the ride. After a while he looks down and realizes
that he does not know how to get down to the ground and also that he is not in a safe place either. He hurriedly looks for civilization and finds a woman strolling.

He yells to get her attention and he gets it. He asks her if she can get him down to the ground? The woman thinks for a little bit scanning the premise, she then replies - "Your balloon is 40 feet from the ground. 20 miles from the city. The air balloon cannot last for more than 1 more hour. ...." and she went on.

The man in the air balloon interrupts her and asks her "You are in IT. Aren't you?"
The woman replies "Yes, Yes I am. How did you know?"
The man says "Well! what you explained to me is probably accurate, but it is not helping me get down!!!"
The woman thinks for a little bit, and asks "You are in upper management. Aren't you?"
The man replies "Yes, Yes I am. How did you know?"
The woman answers "You get your self in a hot air balloon without much prior knowledge about it and just expect others to fix your issues magically!!!"

Now, is this an ideal situation?
Shouldn't the people making the software make the decisions about its dates and features and all?
Well, that would seem like the ideal way to do things, but there is a catch.

Parkinson's first law - Work expands to fill the time allocated for completion. (Developers write enormous code that doesn't add value to the quality of the application.)

Parkinson's second law - Expenditure rises to meet the income. (Employees trying to create work to keep each other occupied rather than really work for the organization.)

Parkinson's third law - Expansion means complexity. (Once the budget is increased, more changes and resources are added to a project irrespective of necessity.)

Parkinson's fourth law - The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done. (Family junk expands to fill the attic.)

So, is the hot air balloon good for the projects and good for our work prioritization?

To Process or not to Process

A long time ago, there was a land lord who started the tradition of throwing a huge party for all of his town folk in his huge backyard once a year. Right before the party began, the land lord would get his men to catch his pet Cat and put her under a wicker basket and then put a brick on top of the basket. Right after this event, the party would begin.

The landlord passed away and his eldest son took over the family house and the traditions. The eldest son did not have a pet cat. But every year at the time of the party he would instruct his men to get a cat. He would then put the cat under the wicker basket and then put a brick on top of the basket.

This tradition was as important to this landlord’s family as having a real turkey or a fake tofurkey on Thanksgiving to most of us Americans. Nobody had any issues with this process, so they went on carrying out their practices.

Now, let’s try and understand about why the landlord originally used to lock his cat right before the party began?

1. The landlord really loved his pet and did not like to restrict her freedom. 
2.  The landlord liked to devote his time to entertaining his guests at the party.
3.  The landlord was afraid of his cat hurting other kids or even worse someone stomping his cat by mistake.

So, in order to take care of all the three issues, the land lord used to lock his cat up for her own safety and convenience of the guests. He used a wicker basket because he had them in abundance at his house. He used to use the red brick to weigh down the wicker basket restricting the cat to tip over it and run loose.

His son had observed his actions and followed the actions, but did not try to understand the purpose behind the actions.

What is a process?

Process is the practice of executing related tasks in a certain way to accomplish a goal.

1.       This practice could be executing tasks sequentially synchronized.

2.       This practice could be cataloging tasks in a certain way for easy identification.

3.       This practice could be to identify certain annoyances and take care of them.

4.       This practice could be to have gate keepers at certain locations.

5.       Etc.

Example of a process –

Waterfall  

Agile 

Scrum

  Etc.

Q. When to follow and not follow a process?

Many companies and projects like to implement the text book version of process without first understanding if the process will work or break with their core. And this is not necessarily the best way to implement anything.

1. Process for the sake of process does not add any value to the team and the company.
2.  Ever revised process will help the team to be efficient.
3.  Understanding of why to do certain tasks in certain way makes for a better process.

Process is good. Following a suitable process is as effective as epilating regularly (it is less painful with fewer surprises and leaves few chances for public embarrassment). Keep revising your processes and make sure it works for you. 

Digital Fast

 

A very good friend of mine recently used this word in the sentence “I was on a digital fast, so I could not reply back to your email immediately”. My friend was on a digital fast by staying away from all social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and even emails (in certain cases).

We are over stuffing ourselves with all this social media, texting and constant information update. It would be nice to take a break from all of that and go on a Digital Fast to clear our schedules and minds. It would be like tasting food and appreciating it after a food fast.

It would be kind of impossible to shut down everything we use on a daily basis. But we can cut down on one digital media one day a week.

(I would love to blabber about the pros and cons but you know yourself with your media better)