Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Enterprise Architecture vs Project Management
How come Enterprise Architects don't help software developers avoid the yet another meeting will solve it syndrome...
There is a problem with the schedule. there is always a problem with the schedule. To solve this problem, project managers make meetings. People that should be involved with delivering the project start to be involved in the meetings. The project starts to get even latter and yet another meeting will solve it.
Part of being a good Enterprise Architect is in knowing how to avoid meetings. I suspect you have seen many folks throughout your career agonize over what to do instead of actually trying to implement a solution. How do we eliminate non-technical process weenie Project Managers from the daily lifes of developers and their Hitler-like proposals of Status Infinitum and get them to understand that as the frequency of status meetings approaches daily, the chance of a successful deployment approaches zero?
Usually the process weenies that practice this behavior are also guilty of not taking personal responsibility for producing meeting minutes where two weeks later the discussion starts again from scratch. They don't know how to moderate themselves nor others and new topics are always raised. The notion of the meeting devolves into private hallway conversations and the notion of escalation.
What if folks started asking themselves, what are meetings for?
| | View blog reactionsThere is a problem with the schedule. there is always a problem with the schedule. To solve this problem, project managers make meetings. People that should be involved with delivering the project start to be involved in the meetings. The project starts to get even latter and yet another meeting will solve it.
Part of being a good Enterprise Architect is in knowing how to avoid meetings. I suspect you have seen many folks throughout your career agonize over what to do instead of actually trying to implement a solution. How do we eliminate non-technical process weenie Project Managers from the daily lifes of developers and their Hitler-like proposals of Status Infinitum and get them to understand that as the frequency of status meetings approaches daily, the chance of a successful deployment approaches zero?
Usually the process weenies that practice this behavior are also guilty of not taking personal responsibility for producing meeting minutes where two weeks later the discussion starts again from scratch. They don't know how to moderate themselves nor others and new topics are always raised. The notion of the meeting devolves into private hallway conversations and the notion of escalation.
What if folks started asking themselves, what are meetings for?
