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We Forget What We Don’t Use April 17, 2018

Posted by Peter Varhol in Software platforms, Strategy.
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Years ago, I was a pilot.  SEL, as we said, single-engine land.  Once during my instruction, for about an hour, we spent time going over what he called recovery from unusual attitudes.  I went “under the hood”, putting on a plastic device that blocked my vision while he placed the plane in various situations.  Then he would lift the hood, to where I could only see the instruments.

I became quite good at this, focusing on two instruments – turn and bank, and airspeed.  Based on these instruments, I was able to recover to straight and level flight within seconds.

My instructor pilot realized what I was doing, and was a lot smarter than me.  The next time, it didn’t work; it made things worse, actually.  I panicked, and in a real life scenario, may well have crashed.

Today, I have a presentation I generically call “What Aircrews Can Teach IT” (the title changes based on the audience makeup).  It is focused on Crew Resource Management, a structured way of working and communicating so that responsibilities are understood and concerns are voiced.

But there is more that aircrews can teach us.  We panic when we have not seen a situation before.  Aircrews do too.  That’s why they practice, in a simulator, with a check pilot, hundreds of hours a year.  That’s why we have few commercial airline accidents today.  When we do, it is almost always because of crew error, because they are unfamiliar with their situation.

It’s the same in IT.  If we are faced with a situation we haven’t encountered before, chances are we will react emotionally and incorrectly to it.  The consequences may not be a fatal accident, but we can still do better.

I preach situational awareness in all aspects of life.  We need to understand our surroundings, pay attention to people and events that may affect us, and in general be prepared to react based on our reading of a situation.

In many professional jobs, we’ve forgotten about the value of training.  I don’t mean going to a class; I mean practicing scenarios, again and again, until they become second nature.  That’s what aircrews do.  And that’s what soldiers do.  And when we have something on the line, that is more valuable than anything else we could be doing.  And eventually it will pay off.

Is Going Rogue Good? June 10, 2014

Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture.
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The June 9th Wall Street Journal included an article on the value of company staffers “going rogue” on IT. It used the usual arguments that employees will find a way to get their jobs done, with or without the help of IT. Most employees make an effort to keep to the organizational rules, which can be frustrating when the rules are slowing down or stopping progress. A few go off the reservation in order to bypass the frustration, finding their own solutions and surreptitiously installing them or using their home computers to get their work done.

But is that good for the company at large? One of the principal reasons for the existence of IT departments is to vet software for utility, quality, usability, and security, in order to protect the interests of the company. Using un-vetted software is an open invitation to compromise one or more of these goals.

But often IT goals seem to be at odds with employee productivity. I use Dropbox almost daily. I just rebuilt my personal website, using the freely-available BlueGriffon web design tool. I book travel on the airline’s website. Of course, some of these activities are for personal reasons, but I have done similar things while employed at various companies, too, as well as for my own business.

All too often, corporate IT is more in the business of making their own jobs manageable, rather than enabling those in the company who are supporting the business. IT could provide homegrown solutions like Dropbox that are within the company firewall and as secure as any other corporate software product. Or it can vet these tools as they become aware of their utility within the organization, even before users even start asking for it.

I’m sure there are proactive IT departments out there; I’ve just never encountered one. As organizational management adopts BYOD as a way to cut costs while increasing employee satisfaction, IT needs better strategies to help workers become more effective. My last employer required that I agree to have my personal phone wiped if I couldn’t remember my unlock password. Instead, I declined to use it for work email.

Employees wouldn’t have to go rogue if IT thought out a better balance between company and employee goals. Regrettably, I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.