A Consultant's View
Prairie Trail Software, Inc. ............................................................. August 2007
*Since messes happen* all the time, it is important to have strategies for dealing with them. Messes are "difficult, intransigent situations that people want to exit but feel stuck in." (Peter J. Denning "Mastering the Mess" Communications of the ACM April 207 Vol. 50 No. 4) Okay, so, what to do about it?
First off, people's personalities determine the kind of messes they will accept in their lives and the types of situations into which they consciously, or unconsciously, put themselves. For example, those who grow up in an alcoholic home are very likely to accept living with alcoholism later in their lives even if they do not drink.
There are several strategies for dealing with messes; however, the first step is the acceptance that the mess is there. Many a beginning consultant thinks that there are so many messes out there that it will be easy to find clients. But if the prospects don't think they have a problem, it is impossible to sell them a solution. Many people, or companies, think that the mess in which they live and/or work, is completely normal and they see no point in changing things.
The next step is to determine if this mess is one that can be solved with ordered methods or not. That means asking if there is time to learn anything about it. Some messes need action immediately. Others can be dealt with by learning as much as possible about the mess and asking if someone might know a solution.
In order to have a mess move us into an innovative solution, we need to identify and question the assumptions with which "everyone" is operating. A mess means that some assumption is wrong. The question is which assumption, and what can we learn by questioning that assumption. The problem is that some messes are solved by authoritative action and others are solved by unstructured actions. Unfortunately, some people strongly resist unstructured actions.
If a situation (a mess) is determined to be chaotic, then the unstructured strategy requires that everyone be looking for new processes and methods. When more brains are focused on solving a problem, it's more likely that a solution will be found. This is the beauty of capitalism.
But, organizations don't work well with unstructured strategy. They need someone to champion a new solution. Thus, a solution generally is developed in a small organization and adopted by a larger one.
The final strategy is to mask the solution a "variant" of an existing one. People need to be able fit the new solution into their existing ideas -- they need to feel comfortable with the solution.
Messes are painful for a lot of people. Once we decide that a mess needs to be dealt with, then we need strategies for solving those messes. The strategy decided for each mess might be different from the previous mess. But once cleaned up, profits can replace your mess.
Every few years, another term for describing workers comes into vogue. The latest term is "Gold Collar Workers". It has two very different meanings. First, it refers to high school graduates -- or dropouts -- who have a job, live with their parents, and are able to spend a lot of money on luxury items. The term also refers to top performers in an information rich job. This second group perform non-repetitive work in complex environments. They often have rare skills, and are hard to manage.
One of the problems that a manager has is that what they do is hard to identify. One supervisor described the system architect on a computer project as someone who was drawing pictures instead of contributing code. The supervisor had no way of measuring this person's work. These workers often do work that's not in their job title and does not report cleanly up the management chain, and yet, can be crucial to profitability.
Jim Andrew was such a person. He worked for the agricultural research department of a major university. He started out as an electronic technician, but wound up as a "general build it" person. Many a student and faculty member would end up in Jim's office letting Jim redesign, or restructure, their project. Jim took ideas and made them happen -- that's something more than a "technician". Likewise, Morris Dovey was a software developer and consultant for many years. Nowadays, he is developing solar energy devices and has filed for several patents.
These people are "gold" when a company needs to have innovation. They can take ideas and make them happen. But like gold, they often get taken away to others when companies go stale.
Sometimes, it is best to hire a consultant with these skills. The consultant can be the needed catalyst for innovation, and the rest of the company can build on it, letting the consultant go on to the next interesting project.
--That's why we're here, give us a call.
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Dave Randolph,
President, Prairie Trail Software