Businesses need to look beyond the whiteboard draft and
develop systems that will work, not ones that might work, says
Colin Beveridge.
Before he discovered sick animals Britain’s favourite
Aussie, Rolf Harris, was a homely singer with a penchant for
painting large-scale, mildly amusing pictures using a very large
brush and big cans of emulsion paint; all the while keeping up a
constant stream of gutteral, but indistinct, noise to accompany his
artistic endeavours.
And I think that he must have been a tremendous subliminal
influence on computer departments everywhere, because I have
regularly seen business-critical systems boldly conceived on
whiteboards and flipcharts with exactly the same sort of broad
brush-strokes employed by Harris and accompanied by very similar
clucking and sucking noises.
Believe it or not, in my experience that’s really how many
companies still evolve their business systems. And what we usually
get from this process is not so much a work of art, but more of a
caricature.
Sadly though this will invariably be a caricature that we will
have to live with for the next 10 years, or more. Which isn’t quite
so amusing, once the initial novelty of the caricature has worn
off.
I would much rather that we have a system design that is an
accurate portrait of a business function, even if it takes longer
to produce, rather than a slapdash impression that gives particular
emphasis only to certain distinctive features of the subject.
Perhaps by now you will have begun to recognise my artistic
analogy in your own organisation. You may well have your own
portfolio of business system caricatures, masquerading as works of
art, that don’t quite represent the original purpose; although you
may still be reasonably happy with the situation, comfortable that
beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
After all, even Leonardo Da Vinci drew cartoons, didn’t he? Long
before Harris discovered his Dulux and didgeridoo routine.
Of course, but most of Da Vinci’s cartoons were simply preliminary
drawings, executed in pencil and chalks, which were then translated
into lasting treasures with oil paints on canvas.
Our problem, however, is that we are too reluctant to develop
and discard our early whiteboard drafts; preferring to persist with
our quick and dirty first impression – particularly if it is
quickly drawn and looks something like the desired object.
That is because the prevailing climate in too many development
departments is to design quickly and iteratively, with the emphasis
at every stage always being on speed to the keyboard and scarcely a
passing thought to an operational flowchart.
Time is money, after all. So rapid progress, albeit in small
increments, is more important to us sometimes than the quality of
the final design, which is highly likely to be compromised if it
takes “too long” to resolve.
The problem is, however, that this seat-of-the-pants approach
flies in the face of our declared policy of spending a fortune on
design methodologies that leads our investing patrons naturally to
expect detailed portraits of their requirements from us. And they
may be disappointed if all we deliver is a caricature, painted
while they watch bemusedly and we enquire plaintively at intervals:
“Can you see what it is yet?”
Maybe we need to start emulating Da Vinci more often and leave
Harris to look after the sick goldfish…
Colin Beveridge is an independent consultant and leading
commentator on technology management issues. He can be contacted
atcolin@colin.beveridge.name