Anybody who spends more than 10 minutes with me knows I love to barbecue: whether it's grilling, low-and-slow smoking, over a fire pit, or using a buried Dutch oven, I love outdoor cooking.
Implementing enterprise apps is like barbecuing or grilling. It's a pretty easy to take undercooked food, cook it some more, and still come out with a great meal. But there's just no way to uncook food…if you overcook it, the meal is ruined beyond recovery. Implementing enterprise apps can be pretty successful if you take it a step at at time. But it's nearly impossible to unravel once you travel too far down a bad patch.
When I barbecue, I recognize that there are numerous variables involved: the heat of the fire, the particular dish or dishes I'm cooking (and, yeah, I do grill veggies and smoke my own cheese), the temperature outdoors, the strength of the wind, the time on the fire, and so on. Some of those variables are in my control and some are not. So you manage the best you can and have certain points in the process where you check on what you're cooking…not reading the cookbook, but actually checking on what you're cooking. I keep a timer in my pocket with an alarm…when the alarm goes off, I check on the food regardless of how far along I think it might be. It's a technique called "time boxing" that I actually learned from a professional cook.
Enterprise apps implementation projects are pretty similar. Lots of variables involved: project budget, optimum schedule, the skills of the project team, the willingness of users to accept change, changing dynamics around the organization implementing…the list goes on and on. Some of those variables are in our control and some are not. So we manage the best we can and have certain points in the process where we check on our implementation…yup, I'm talking increments and milestones. Whether the project is developing and implementing specific solutions, or implementing packaged applications, you need to have certain points at which you check on what you're cooking for any particular project. My experience says that "time boxes" (we'll show whatever we have on a particular day, whether or not it's completed to the level we'd like) and live demos (don't show them the cookbook, show them the food itself) work best here. Even better, show the results early and often…before you proceed too far down a bad path and wind up with an overcooked result.
I'm hungry now…time to grill up some chicken (boneless chopped chicken breasts, cheese, and garlic bread chunks on skewers, served over a bed of chilled cherry tomatoes and sprinkled with pesto…mmm). Feel free to hit the comments while I'm out cooking...
