An Artful Outside

It is rather unusual to be directly involved in a design where the interests of your customers are opposed to those of the larger public, primarily because they are a subset of that public. Some system designs however get targeted to a small and distinct enough set of customers that conflicts can arise; the subset may have interests that are notably at odds with regulations.

Who do you design for? How do you balance staying employed with doing the right thing? In this case the owners of your company prefer that you bend toward customer ends, yet provide enough plausible deniability to keep them out of hot water. I like to distance myself further; take a step back from your knowledge and provide a method that feigns ignorance. Essentially you allow the customers to bend the regulations without encouraging it. You allow the customers the freedom to determine their own karma.

The takeback, the saving grace to your own soul from adopting this approach however, is that you must use your private non-work time promoting awareness and supporting the very regulations you fear your customers may violate.

Artistic Balance

When you walk into a place and grab its culture by its cajones you affect a wide range of lives, yet you ultimately live alone with the mental and emotional consequences of your actions. No matter what you change, some folks face the risk of falling out from the short side of the equation. They may have to learn to accept new job responsibilities, or they may even be made redundant by your changes.

Clearly however /somebody/ has a chance to reap benefits from your efforts (besides yourself). The changes that you can actually successfully materialize therefore depend upon how you manage the delicate balance between interest groups. I'll examine how to achieve this in later posts, but first let's look deeper at the power dynamics of employment across all of the interested parties.

Every business exists to serve four groups of people: the owners of the place, the employees, the customers, and society-at-large. Without the support of even one of these components a business gradually disintegrates. Depending on the nature of the business these broad categories may sometimes be further refined to include subsets or agents, such as unions, neighborhoods, tax authorities, shareholders, et cetera.

For the purposes of general interest groups though these independent categories suffice. As an analyst and change promoter you need to consider how the group balance and its dynamics may be affected by your activities.

In the next couple posts I'll examine the interplay between these categories by pair groupings. Before we pair off though let's spin briefly about the seriousness, feigned flexibility, polarization, and positioning of these sides. Although I will discuss them in general as if they are two competing teams on a football gridiron of the corporate battle, in reality they are composed of groups of individuals who are, after all, just people.

They eat breakfast, they have families, they have health and financial issues. They have tastes in food and music, and their lives have had their own joys, curiosities, and sorrows.

When you are negotiating a position between two groups, always remember first and foremost that you are dealing with a collection of individuals. Strive for a general utility for the entire group, but also recognize that even within a single category, say the managers, you will find differences of opinions toward your actions.

Artistic Diplomacy

In a larger project your success will depend upon your concordance to the appropriate strategic plan for your company. This is a fairly sensitive and deep subject: nothing seems to be as politicized in a company as much as the knowledge and implementation of its strategic plan. Many of the decisions and tradeoffs that you make very early in the architectural design will depend however upon a firm understanding of how your company will spend money, invest, and hire people across a range of various timeframes.

To further complicate matters once you have this wisdom, even though you may use it to guide system design decisions, it may still be in your best interest to safeguard your insight as private. High diplomacy may be in order.

To reach this firm foundation you need to understand your company, its finances, the industry in which it competes, and your direct competitors. You can research some of this through public sources, but you will still need to rely on the experience of the smarter and more senior employees for their knowledge.

Most people will be happy to give their counsel and experience if you establish a non-confrontational and supportive friendship with them. You also need to understand and appreciate the nature of their advice, and be thankful and willing to give them public credit for their ideas and contributions.

Most companies (and industries) follow a natural cycle of growth and decline. Even companies approaching the end of their utility however can still keep folks gainfully employed for a short while; under such circumstances you will certainly focus your approach more on quick results than long term maintainability, yet you still need to proceed in a courteous and professional manner.

Finally, remember to always balance your decisions with your innate sense for what is the right thing to do.