Seven little Foxes that spoil the Vine
All of these, with the possible exception of #4, are about people; about the team.
Many, or most, of your team will most likely be new to object oriented technology and
methodologies. Train your team. Sometimes training seems expensive -- in either time or
money, or both. Let me say, “Anybody who thinks education costs too much has not paid for
ignorance yet.”
Find your guru -- and be certain this expert 00 knowledge disseminates to the whole team. 00
is a paradigm shift, but today there are a few experts in almost every organization. The real
reason to find your guru is to avoid the common mistakes and pitfalls, and to make good, timely
decisions. Balance consensus reaching and quick decision making. Long decision-making
debates, or procrastination, leads to very bad timing.
From the lessons learned, there are seven skills and abilities that are required in people for
success. They are:
- Common understanding and respect;
- Experience and competence;
- Multi-discipline management;
- Effective followers;
- Feedforward;
- Right to lefl planning; and
- Finishiative.
AM/FM/GIS projects are complex and challenging undertakings. Having the right ~eotde who
possess these seven skills and abilities will make success.
Communicate, communicate, communicate! !
You can not change form where you are not
Perhaps the deadliest of the Seven Little Foxes that Spoil the Vine is kidding ourselves, or not
being fully and correctly informed about the real situation. You can not change from where you
are not.
How nice it would be if we could magically move to a better starting point. Wouldn’t it make
things so much easier? Maybe we could get past the politics, or the IT roadblocks, or the
engineers unreasonable requests, or the user’s demand for better performance, or purchasing’s
rules and regulations. Wouldn’t it be nice? But solving real problems starts with a crystal clear
understanding of where things really are.
User is four Letter word
With drugs and technology user is a four-letter word. Investments in technology, and
particularly AM/FM/GIS technology, are made with the intent of making a dramatic
improvement in one, or several, operating areas. To simply be a user of technology is a mistake.
Individuals and organizations must extioit technology if they are going to be fully successfid.
To create value with an investment in technology, we must know today what will produce profits
in the future. We must exploit technology to create value. The value may be premium service,
lower cost or competitive advantage. Anybody can be a user of technology, and must be just to
simply survive in today’s business environment. But the organizations and projects who exploit
technology and make dramatic improvements of 50 or 10OOAwill succeed and be the big winners.
To exploit technology requires creative thinking, innovation and hard work. Indeed, innovation
is the heart of solid design with new technology. Sophisticated techniques serve as the basis of
flexible and robust design. Because of continuously changing business forces, AM./FM/GIS
projects often see big “late changes” to software. With robust design and innovative techniques
built into the project, necessary changes can be made in a day or two with high quality. The
same business forces often contribute to a requirement’s instability or churning. But if we set out
to exploit technology, not just use it, with innovation and hard work these challenges can be
turned into competitive advantage.
Know the estimating story
Unrealistic expectations are often the result of not knowing the estimating story. Estimating may
be the biggest of the Seven Little Foxes that Spoil the Vine. Estimating an AIWFM/GIS project
is difficult and what some people try to do with project estimating is not even theoretically
possible. People who don’t understand estimation’s inherent difllculties can play an unwitting
role in making AM/FM/GIS projects harder than they really are.
Basically estimating is a process of gradual refinement. You begin with a fuzzy picture of what
you want to build, and then spend the rest of the project trying to bring that picture into sharp
focus. Because you start with a fuzzy picture, your estimate will be fizzy too. Only as the
project takes definite shape can the estimate become more definite. Aristotle is quoted as saying,
“It is the mark of an instructed mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which
the nature of the subject admits, and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of
the truth is possible.. .“
Researchers have found that project estimates fall within predictable precision at various stages
of a project. At the time when rough estimates are typically requested, there can be a factor-of-16
difference between high and low estimates. Even after requirements have been completed,
when most organizations want exact dollar estimates, you can only know the amount of effort
needed within about 50°/0.
The goal of estimating is to seek a convergence between your estimates and reality. By strict
definition, estimates and reality converge at project completion. The sooner the two track
together, the better the business and project decisions you and your customers can make; the
tighter all of you can plan your project and its interdependencies; the better the relationship
between project participants, managers and end-users will be, and the more rapid a development
schedule you can attain.
To tell the estimating story, you need to explain four points:
- An AM/FM/GIS project is like constructing a house: you can’t tell exactly how much
it is going to cost until you know exactly what “it” is.
- Like building your house, you can either build your dream house, expense be hanged,
or you can build to a budget. If you want to build to a budget, you have to be very
flexible about the project characteristics.
- Whether you build to budget or not, AM/FM/GIS development is a process of gradual
refinement, so some imprecision is unavoidable. Unlike building a home, with
AM/FNUGIS projects the only way to refine the product concept and thereby the
estimate is to actually build it.
- Estimates can be refined over the course of a project. Promise your manager and
customer that you will provide more refined estimates at each stage of the project.
Understanding now that estimating is difficult and an imprecise art, how do you actually make an
estimate? There are three specific steps:
- Estimate the size of the project (number of applications, number of lines of code,
number of installations, etc.). This is the most challenging step.
- Estimate the effort (man-months).
- Estimate the schedule (calendar months).
Around these three steps wrap a more general step, a meta-step:
- Provide estimates in ranges and periodically refine the ranges to provide increasing
precision as the project progresses.
Executives and senior managers understand the estimating story. AM/FM/GIS project managers
must know and understand it as well. If our projects are going to be successfid, we must
understand the process of gradual refinement and manage the convergence between estimates and
reality.
SAY “NO”
Saying “no” may be the toughest of the Seven Little Foxes that Spoil the Vine to slay. Saying
“no” is always unpopular. It is often challenged, but it only makes sense. If we can not or
should not, do something, simply say “no.” It will avoid all kinds of trouble and wasted time and
energy. It will avoid scope creep. It will avoid the creation of unrealistic expectations. It may
save a good project from going downhill. Saying “no” can help make a good AM/FM/GIS
project be a very successfid project.
Saying “no” makes more money than saying yes ever does. It makes good sense. Say “no”
when you can not or should not do something and you are contributing mightily to success.
