If you’re like me you are constantly trying balance the different aspects of life in order to be healthy and efficient. We try to balance diet, exercise, wife, kids, family, friends, inner self, etc. All of these things take time, and if not balanced impact one another. Like a clown bicycle, having some spokes longer than another, resulting in an oval shaped wheel instead of a round one, unbalanced priorities result in a very bouncy ride.
I find the same can be true when we balance the priorities for managing IT systems. Although the components are different if you are implementing canned systems compared to custom development, there is still a balance of those components resulting in success, characterized by consistent release of systems that are on time, and on budget, with the necessary functionality.
One of the contributors to the oval clown wheel in computer systems is a short term perspective. Sometimes we have to get things done fast; in fact, the quickest way to market. We have an opportunity to meet, and we have to get there by any means possible. This is a real, and valid, fact of life in the life of an IT professional.
This is the equivalent of being on the road, and having nothing but fast food to eat for a month. When you get home, you gained 10 points. In IT terms, this has been labeled “Technical Debt”. We all incur it sometime. To get back in balance we have to acknowledge that we are going to take on the technical debt at the time that decision is made.
We also need to get back into balance. Just like when you get home, step on the scale and look in the mirror and say, “ouch! I gained 10 pounds (or 22 Kilos), you need to make a plan to do something. The longer you carry that weight around, the more you pay a price.
I’m really enjoying this balance topic. Can you think of other areas that we need to balance in our IT life? Share your thoughts in a comment here or by email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben