Into the Navel
posted by Jeff Moriarty on December 06, 2006
Sorry for not posting for a while, but I’ve been a little demotivated. Most of the fun things at Intel that I’d like to talk about I’m not allowed to. While posting about them anyway would generate some excitement, the posts would be short lived, as would my employment. Fortunately, I am going to be subjected to one of the most hallowed of all Intel IT traditions, and figure I can blog about my travails. Intel IT is working on a new development methodology.
We’ve already tried most flavors of the usual suspects. We have our own product lifecycle (PLC), we’ve done CMMI, and we’ve looked at ITIL and SOA. The capstone came recently in an internal webcast to all IT employees when Six Sigma was mentioned. (Coincidence?) This mention caused much rejoicing as it means IT can complete the entire set of Methodology Trading Cards, and we will likely give ourselves an internal award for this feat sometime next year.
Intel, however, cannot be left behind in the hyper-competitive world of industry trends. Running out of the regular methodologies means we have to make up something new, something cutting edge, something so bizarre it could only be viewed as Visionary. Thus, we now have our own Zen Master in IT. I’m not allowed to use his real name for contractual reasons, but he prefers to go by Sensei. Behind his back we sometimes call him Pai Duo. Joking aside, he is the real deal. You can tell because not only does he speak in crazy circular sentences, but he has a long white moustache and beard, and those crazy eyebrows you normally only see in Kung Fu movies.
He kicked off his program this week with an “open forum”, which is one of the tools by which the VIPs talk to the masses in Intel. They’re usually hosted at a single site and web-streamed to the rest of the company. I was lucky enough to attend in person, but spent most of the time in the back of the room checking email on my PDA. I figured I’d just keep my head down through this whole pilot like I normally do, but Sensei stopped me on the way out of the room. It turns out he saw my blog about Web 4.0.
Sensei looked at me, furrowed his bushy eyebrows, and said “When choosing your battles, one must exercise great caution. The hype of Web 2.0 has thrown you off balance, and in your anger you may end up damaging that which you wish to achieve.”
I blinked, paused, and began edging towards the door. “Uh… I’m not off balance. The hype is all people talk about. I have people excited about Web 2.0 because they read about it somewhere, but have no idea what it’s all about.”
Sensei smiled. “When one dog sees a shadow, he starts to bark,” said Sensei. “Other dogs hear the first and join in the barking. Soon the entire village is full of barking dogs, who are not even sure at what they are barking. When this happens, you cannot go outside and yell at the dog. You must bring a light and show the dog what is casting the shadow. Then he will cease his barking and serenity will return.”
“Whoa there, I’m just an IT guy,” I said. “I just want to be left alone to do some engineering, and not spending time educating people or shining flashlights around.”
“Then you want IT to be simply a tool, and a tool cannot complain how it is used. If you wish to walk upon a different path, then you must educate your leaders on where you wish them to go. You must manage your managers.”
“Easier said than done when they listen to Gartner more than their own experts,” I explained, but then a thought struck me. “Hey, if I stick with your analogy that managers are dogs, does that mean that they-“
Sensei raised a hand and interrupted me. “One must also learn not to take analogies too far, lest they break apart and fall upon your head.”
At that point I just pleaded extreme tardiness for a staff meeting and made a hasty exit from the conference room. I’m not sure how this whole Zen IT effort will work out, but I guess it’s better than Six Sigma.
Does every company go through a salad of methodologies like this, or do you have a single, well established one? How well is it followed in reality?
Comments (3) (closed)
tagged: ITIL, managers, six sigma, SOA, zen
Comments
Dec 07 | Heath Buckmaster said:
I like to use CMMI in my own personal life, though I should remind you, it’s no longer CMMI, it’s BPI - you really have to keep up.
I’ve also gone above and beyond (shooting for an exceeds expectations at home) and am using the 7 Sigma Protocols for running the household. I can’t tell you how effective this has been for me and my partner.
Finally, I think I may have mentioned in a previous comment, I’m already up to Web 8.0+ - with the neural connection on the side of my neck (Andromeda anyone?) and am plugged into the entire meganet environment. I’m everywhere at the same time, implementing every process everywhere.
In all seriousness though, I’m not sure a company as large as Intel can have ONE methodology that works across the board. We are too diverse in our business groups and support groups. Besides, having customer orientation means that every customer gets to choose their own process, and we have to follow it :-).
Dec 07 | Eleanor Wynn said:
Josh, I think companies do go through salads of methods under stress. That is why employees tend to maintain a “wait and see” attitude, often referred to as “resistance to change”. I heard there was a job opening for a Six Sigma BLACK BELT! Next it will be Special Forces. There is a panacea, but it will take some brains to apply it, and it doesn’t come out of a mechanical model of the organization (like all those methods do), but from an organic model; i.e. complex sytems and its methodologies of agent-based models, system dynamics, machine learning, and multi-scale analysis. PS have not seen the bearded Sensei of which you speak. But, I did truly get a groove off of the multi-core, multi-threading presentations in Technology Development Forum. Yes, let’s DO rely on technology. I say this as a people person! Hm, I am working my way into a blog….
Jan 30 | Bill said:
Debug people the same way you debug programs: Ask “What problem needs to be solved?”
You’re tossing around different methodologies because you have no idea what the problem is. If you identify the problem, you can solve it. If you can’t find the problem, why are you changing processes?
And don’t forget the number one rule of methodologies: Smart employees make every methodology look good.