Seven little Foxes that spoil the Vine
C. Warren Ferguson Chief Operating Oflicer Smallworld Systems, Inc.,5600 Greenwood Plaza Blvd. Suite 300 Englewood, CO 80111 USA, phone 303-779-6980 fax 303-779-1051 email cwferguson@smallworld-us .com Abstract Seven Little Foxes that Spoil the Vine are those wily devils that can eat the fruit of your labor right out from under your very nose. And very often while you are watching too ! There is a big difference between success and failure. The difference however, between average and really successfid, is far more subtle. This paper will provide a discussion of seven (7) important topics that can, if left to eat on the project vine, keep a good AM/FM/GIS project from being really successful. These lessons were distilled from more than 30 years of AM/FM/GIS experiences. Some of these lessons were learned when implementing AM/FM/GIS systems as mainstream information technology. Seven Little Foxes that Spoil the Vine includes those lessons learned that can deny a project success. It includes topics like “you can not change from where you are not”, “people make success”,” user is a four letter word”, and “say no”. Introduction No success is permanent and no failure is final. Life is a journey not a destination. Learning is an essential component of the journey. Work is a big part of life. Over a period of many years it has given me the opportunity to enjoy some successes and learn from some ftilures. Much has been written about the critical factors for success. That is not the subject of this paper. Seven Little Foxes that Spoil the Vine is about seven wily little devils that can eat the fruit of your labor right out from under your very nose. These are lessons learned that can deny a good project the real success it should enjoy. The “seven Lessons Learned” to be described and discussed are:
No success is permanent nor failure final No success is permanent and no failure is final. Life is a journey and our work is a journey as well. Learning is the essential ingredient to doing things better, smarter, faster and cheaper. During an AM/FM/GIS project life cycle there are many decisions that must be made. And they will be made, if not proactively by those responsible, by the tide of events. Most often it seems that this tide runs with the Seven Little Foxes -- procrastination causes more problems of bad timing than anything else. There have been some AMIFM/GIS projects where procrastination has reduced the expected quality of the project from the best of all possible efforts to the best that can be expected given the limited time. With this attitude and behavior you might get an OK project, but not a real success. Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that really counts. Every big mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and rectified or remedied without dire consequences. AM/FM/GIS technology developments and project implementations are like live organisms and must be very sensitive to the critical nature of some decisions. And these critical decisions may vary from project to project, situation to situation. AM/FM/GIS is a technology that enables organizations to achieve an operational transformation -- it is not a cookbook kind of technology -- there is not one simple formula for success. Most of the time, issues of technology can not be separated from issues of strategy. If the strategy and the technology are not properly matched, the results will be less than real success. Real success is very rewarding. It is worth all the hard work and extra effort that it took. Everybody feels really great about it. The organization is a different place, a better place. Now expectations start a little higher. Success may seem like an event, because events are pretty easy to measure, but real success is a process that lets an organization maintain an unusually high performance over a long period of time. Don't get Hyped Hype creates unrealistic high expectations. These are expectations that can not be filfilled. We may call it different things, but we all know what it is -- it may be something that we may want to hear, but something we really know is too good to be true. Sales people are sometimes thought of as hype artists. And sometimes they deserve the accolade. Some hardware folks always pitch the next generation as the one with the performance to solve all the problems for a fraction of the cost. Who hasn’t heard of the software salesperson offering vaporware? Or whose demo is smoke and mirrors. But hype comes from every corner. How many buyers have said they would decide in two weeks after the proposal was submitted. How many customers have told conversion companies that their records were in good order? When they knew better, or maybe didn’t know at all. How many consultants have said “no problem” when they didn’t have a clue? We can get hyped by almost anyone. But know that ~ have to buy into it before you get hyped. How can we avoid getting hyped? Stay well informed. Do our homework. Check with colleagues and those you trust. And keep you BS detector well tuned. Stay well informed. Keep up with developments, successes, difficulties, and trends in your area of expertise. Acknowledge what you don’t know, and find someone, or several, in this area of interest that you can trust. Get to know them, understand the reasons for their thinking. Check references. Ask tough questions. Participate in local and national technical-professional organizations like AM/FM International. Do your homework. Think about what you really need. Try to understand the technology alternatives. Technologies are different, they offer different opportunities, different impossibilities, different futures. Understand your business drivers. Identi& your short list of critical factors. Investigate in advance of decision making. Understand your schedule, know the timetable. Recognize the risks. Realize that they are different over time, that their impact varies by situation, and that flexibility often mitigates risk. Keep your BS detector well tuned. Listen carefully and write it down. Concentrate on understanding and learning. Ask the right questions. Ask especially about the assumptions -- most of us can get the math right, but it is the assumptions that profoundly affect the answer. Best of all be realistic, encourage realism in your team, in your colleagues, in your life. Hype is about unrealistic expectations. Don’t get hyped. Equally important, don’t be guilty of hyping others. Set reasonable expectations. Meet those expectations. Understand that predictability may be as important as the result itself. People Make Success Doing the right thing is more important than doing things right. Strategy is important and technology is oflen a critical ingredient. But it is people that make success. Perhaps this is the most important lesson learned. Get good people, get good people for the job and get plenty of them. Be adamant --do not accept less than the best. Pick the best team for the job, not your friends because you like them or enjoy working with them. Remember we are talking about business here -- success or failure, profit or loss -- not our social life or our golf buddies. “Find the right people and the job is half done” is an old axiom that should be remembered. Competence is the criteria. Most of what we do is object oriented. With AM/FM/GIS technology, the aura surrounding objects is their power over the subject. In November 1996 Obiect Mamzine published an article, “Five Keys to Making your 00 Project Succeed.” Their keys were:
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:
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:
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. | ||
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