Planning - Questions and Answers

These are based on actual messages. The questions are in italics.

Regarding your statement: "I have seen too many flawed systems that were somehow kept up and running via heavy duty babysitting. It seems these flawed systems are job security for the builder." You're defending crappy business practices and mediocrity. You deserve to starve to death.

I am not defending it, only reporting it. Please don't shoot the messenger.

Builders don't want to baby-sit. At least I don't. When I put something out - I never want to see it again.

We are not talking about you or me. We are talking about aggregate averages of human behavior. I have seen a wide variety of motivations and behaviors out there. Please try not the personalize this. What happens to you or your company may not be representative. (Like OOP, there are not many studies on the frequency of long-term planning. For that matter, planning success metrics appear to also be lacking.)

But companies that don't plan properly will get eaten by those that do. The best techniques survive and flourish due to market place survival of the fittest.

It is not that simple. The hire/fire/quit cycle is a bit shorter than the OOD payoff cycle. Getting feedback on prior (other company) successes and failures is almost all art and no science. References are a very imprecise hiring tool. Even if designers stay with one company, managers don't. Newcomers blame problems on the current crew, not the original designers. Thus, the mechanisms for long-term evaluations and feedback are very weak. Natural, artificial, and market-place selection depend on good record keeping. Natural selection uses the genetic code, for example. Also, in a fast-changing environment (most businesses), other factors are more important than long-term planning with regard to growth and survival.

Can't a manager check references to make sure someone is a good planner?

  1. Many companies have official policies against giving anything other than the bare facts such as dates and titles.

  2. How does one verify that the reference given is actually the former boss? Planted references and exaggeration are fairly common. Some of my friends even admitted to sneaky "projects". (I have no connection to Bill Clinton or White Water, by the way.)

  3. How does one verify that the former boss is not a good buddy that does not want to bash a friend?

  4. You would have to find a former boss of at least about 3 to 5 years back to know if the planning worked.

  5. Whose memory even stretches back to technical details of 5 years ago?

  6. There is a big potential for lawsuits if too much snooping is done.

  7. I see no evidence that "long-term planning" questions are a common or major part of background checks. (Not saying they are not important, just not done on the average.)
You might want to pick up a few issues Information Week. There you'll see just how IT managers plan for the future and just how important planning is. All of it is based on real companies and their real solutions.

There is a big difference between concrete, budgeted, long-term projects and long-term behavior. One is easy to measure, track, and reward, the other is not (and rarely done). Also, most CEO's are from a sales background. They always talk about the rosy aggressive future.

For example, a manager may decide that the company can save money by storing electronic copies of contracts and documents rather than using primarily paper. It is easy to measure that equipment and personnel are being brought in to do the project, but hard to measure (and reward) for seeing that the best long-term equipment is being selected and that best long-term design issues are being given proper attention. There are "hard" manifestations and "soft" manifestations. The criteria that is easiest to measure and see gets the most attention. That is human nature plain and simple. Please refer back to the auto mechanic example.

Doc version: 1a