The Art in Change

In an earlier post I mentioned how a Business Analyst hooks up the creative talents with the business managers. Here we take a deeper look at the subtleties of this dynamic and reflect on the sociological influences that can determine its success.

Discovery (or requirements solicitation) is the stage where this dynamic plays out. Partly it's a shuffling of who knows what, as well as all of the political dynamics of control, job security, opinion, and hidden agendas. All of these make cameo appearances during the process.

Your role and title may indicate that you are simply writing a functional specification, but in actuality you are the director of a sublime process to keep the love and power flowing. To be able to effectively accomplish this you need both a mandate from a powerful source, as well as a higher set of guiding principles.

When you run into resistance from people who already have a vested interest in the status quo, sometimes you will have to appeal your principles to them, and sometimes you will need to invoke the big stick of your higher power. Nevertheless, always keep firmly in your mind the old saying that fools take to themselves the respect given to their office. Serve humbly and walk away leaving the place a better place than how it was when you started.

Artful Influence

The art of software development can be much more than accomplishing projects. Often the successful path begins by focusing beyond the project at hand -- you need to review everything you can think of: personalities, creative ideas, political issues, hidden agendas, insecurities, technical questions, doubts about the future direction of technology, everything.

You may find a need to be intensely aware of a company's culture. At other times it may appear that your real purpose is to change the culture, and your development project is just a means to achieve that end. You may also need to include a bit of an appraisal as to the strategic direction and positioning of your company: it might be wrong for you to try to turn your employer into the Nordstrom's of retailers if its intentions and strategy is to be the K-mart.

In some consulting environments your purpose is not to accomplish anything. Your project is actually an anti-project, the staff is against you, and you succeed by making the staff accomplish their own agenda. You must use grace to provide a backflow, purposefully pointing away from their objectives. Occasionally you can be successful overall (and act in the best interest of your retainer) even though your own personal accomplishments and monthly status reports might lack a certain luster.

Around one quarter of software design could be considered "art" in every sense of the word. Congruent to other creative arts a software designer encapsulates thought into both visual and written structures. Sometimes though the whole point of creating software is to go through the process of meeting with people and moving them from their preconceived positions to change the culture, nature, and very heart of your employer. So once in a while the parallels to art go deep down to its truer purpose: to move people's souls.

Artful Matchmaking

Fanning the spark of an idea for an IT project is always a tricky, precarious task. Somewhat like internal marketing, a Business Analyst is selling a vision. More than this however the analyst mentally surveys the capabilities and availabilities of everyone he knows and attempts to match this to a vision that he can impute to the desires of management. So it feels very much like matchmaking, except in the business-to-project realm.

To the managers you are selling an investment. Your job is to convince them that they will get an honorable and lucrative return on their investment in equipment and manpower. To the software developers you are selling professional advancement, knowledge enrichment, and a reasonable amount of job security.

And similar to romantic matchmaking sometimes you have to use a bit of deception in order to get the parties together despite their different opinions. Many times you will actually have a deeper awareness of the best interests of the managers and programmers than either party will know alone. Hence a bit of artful promising goes a long way. Is this unethical? Not if you're careful to make sure that the ends justify the means.

It's all about some balance and possibilities and getting folks over the hump of their current comfort levels to move them through a low spot to finally arrive at a new, higher comfort.

When an idea is just a concept -- before it is even a glimmer in a manager's eye -- when it is just a spark of "I wonder if it might make sense..." or "maybe we should look at..." the Business Analyst combs the psychic brainwaves of the company's employees and decides what is Possible.

Artful Heroics

Management tends to overlook the quiet heroes; this is especially true in Information Technology. When the hardware fails -- the server crashes hard -- the folks who patch everything up and get it working again get a slap or the back, accolades, and a nice mention in their performance review. But the guy that quietly monitors performance every day, cleans up the old files, optimizes indexes, and releases old record locks, goes completely unnoticed, even though his work keeps things running smoothly.

Naturally since I.T. folks are smart and recognize this, you tend to find that they decamp into two philosophical groups. The first group maximizes their perceived value by purposefully being lackadaisical in maintenance, all the while squirreling away the tricks they know for recovery. Then they can spring out of the phone booth in their Superman suit when the time is right to be the eventual heroes.

The second group though, the Artful Heroes, quietly and unselfishly keep plugging away, patching and making small unnoticed incremental improvements to keep things running smoothly. For they recognize their reward when they look into their manager's eyes and see the acknowledgment that their manager indeed knows their value overall.

The Art in a Demur

It doesn't happen too frequently, but every once in a long while you will get partway into the design stage of a project and run into political interference under the dreaded guise of "company policy." It goes against company policy to purchase abc. It's against the policy to outsource this. Et cetera. And in your heart and in your experience you know that the manner you had planned is the correct method, regardless. For times like this keep this little story in your back pocket; it's a handy urban legend I use to employ just for the purpose.

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Back in the 80's a gentleman gained control of an airline in an effort to turn them around from bankruptcy. On one of his earliest flights on his new airline, he flew into Washington D.C. during the middle of winter to meet with federal regulators at the FAA. After his meeting, he boarded a passenger flight on his airline again to head back home. It had sleeted earlier and was now quite cold; the plane sat grounded on the runway. After half an hour, feeling frustrated, the new owner motioned to the stewardess and asked her what the problem was. She explained that, due to the inclement weather, the wings were covered with ice, so they couldn't take off. The gentleman identified himself as the new company president, and asked to leave the plane.

They reconnected a portable stairway exit ramp, and the owner grabbed his carry-on luggage and walked down the stairway and onto the tarmac. He approached the crew chief, identified himself as the new company president, and asked what the problem was. The crew chief explained the icing problem. "Well," the new president answered, "that's easy to fix." He opened up his carry-on bag and took out a portable cordless hair dryer. "Here", he motioned with the hairdryer on, back and forth over the wings. "Just use this." He handed the mechanic the hair dryer and reboarded the plane. After a half hour of de-icing, the plane was able to take off and the new president flew back home. The chief mechanic spread word of how he had been approached by the new president and given instructions.

Sometime later in the year, in the middle of the summer, the new president had occasion to once again visit Washington D.C. After his meeting, he boarded his airline on a passenger flight to head back home. He sat on the plane, waiting for it to leave the terminal, growing more and more impatient. When he glanced out the window, he saw a mechanic, standing on the top of a four-step rollable staircase, gliding a hair dryer back and forth over the wing. He motioned for the stewardess, identified himself, and asked to leave the plane. Once on the tarmac, he walked over to the mechanic, and being angry and in a rush, without even a hello, he tapped the mechanic on the shoulder and asked "what in the hell are you doing?". The mechanic turned to him and said "sorry for the delay sir, but it's company policy".

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The moral of the story of course is that just because an important person does something, it doesn't make it a policy. And an action that might make sense to perform some times is not universally correct. So listen to the wisdom in a company policy, but use your noggin and demur when appropriate. (ed. note: I checked with the owner mentioned in the story and he assured me it was entirely fiction).

The Art in the Vision

Once in a great while you end up in the right place and at the right time in the flowing river of people, companies, and technologies, where you are able to offer a Vision. You know something about a specific technology that your employer can leverage to a competitive advantage. This presents both amazing opportunities and complex personal challenges.

On the one hand, the impetus to share and promote your vision is intense. You know in your heart that it has great value, and if you don't take action on it then after a while it will lose its competitive advantage. At the same time though sharing it puts you in an awkward position with your peers. They may resent what they interpret as your self-important viewpoint, or they may simply be jealous of the attention you receive for your ideas.

Is there a way for you to proceed that doesn't get you laughed out of town? The key to this is actually twofold: first comes the "progressive reveal," and second comes the retained ever-expanding ballast.

To accomplish progressive-reveal you need to explain enough of your idea to the highest person in your company that would logically support you, at a level of detail to convince the listener that this is something you can achieve. You don't want to give away the whole tamale -- don't explain the "how", just the "what." Then assume the responsibility to make it happen. In return get a firm commitment from the person in charge; you will be progressively revealing more of the "how" as the project proceeds.

Once you actually unfold your idea into reality you will need to expand some "ballast." The ballast is the counterweight that keeps control of the idea's implementation from floating away from you, and prevents the debt the company owes you from sinking your soul. The method to accomplish this varies, but generally always remember that "control" provides the compensation for the actuarial value that you create.

Of course there is a managerial "flip side" to this process as well: how to create an environment that allows your most savvy employees to instantiate their visions, but that is a topic for a later post.