Dante's Inferno in IT...

We’ve all been through Dante’s Inferno. I know I have.

I was at one place where they developed an in house SNMP agent to be deployed on all managed systems. Because of the variety of operating systems supported and the amount of bugs in the software, many customers hated the agent and would request that the agent be taken off of their systems. But because the agent was “free”, it kept living in a miserable existence. Turns out there were many different versions supported and deployed. Additionally, the design of the agents’ sub-agents capabilities deviated significantly from industry standards such that it hamstrung the open source openness of the base agent.

Dante’s Inferno came in when you had to deal with the agent capabilities as an Architect. Saying anything negative related to the agent was Heresy. The Manager that owned the Agent would resort to Anger, Fraud, and Treachery in order to divert any negative attention to their baby. Part of the reason for hanging on to this Agent was that the ownership of more developed products promoted the Manager’s gluttony and greed. It was his silo of management technology.

While I was busy circumnavigating the Machiavellian Urinary Olympics, that Manager was working hard to put me in Limbo. Any requirements that I put forth were immediately in negotiation such that I could not finish requirements. Finally, in total frustration, I sent out a Final version of the requirements. Doing this sent the Manager into a frenzy of new Machiavellian Urinary Olympics such that my actions were elevated all the way up to a Sr. VP. Alas, I could not overcome the Marijuana Principle of Management (Harder you suck ,the higher you get!)

I left shortly afterward. So did several of my coworkers. Some are still there. All with the common experience that we’ve all been through Dante’s Inferno.

Lessons for the Architect :

• Be careful in calling someone’s baby ugly. Given the “embeddedness” of a given politician, there may be some things you cannot change. 

• Some Silos can only break down through years of pain and years of continued failure.

• In moving toward Cloud computing models, some folks may have an inclination to bring with them all of the bad habits they have currently.

• If a person has only ever seen one place, they may not understand that success looks totally different in other places.

• There is a direct cost and an indirect cost to supporting internally developed products. If your internally developed product is holding back progress and new business, it is a danger sign…

As an Architect, be wary of consensus. “Where there is no vision, the people perish. (Proverbs 29:18)”

Politically based Engineering Organizations

When an organization is resistant to change and evolution, it can in many cases be attributed to weak technical leadership. Now this weakness can be because of the politicalization of Engineering and Development organizations.

Some of the warning signs include:

- Political assasinations to protect the current system
- Senior personnel and very experienced people intimidate the management structure and are discounted
- Inability to deliver
- An unwillingness to question existing process or function.


People that function at a very technical level find places where politics prevalent, a difficult place to work.

- Management doesn't want to know whats wrong with their product.
- They don't want to change.
- They shun and avoid senior technical folks and experience is shunned.

Political tips and tricks

- Put up processes and negotiations to stop progress.
- Random changing processes.
- Sandbagging of information.
- When something is brought to the attention of the Manager, the technical
person's motivations are called into question. What VALUE does the person bring to the Company?
- The person's looks or mannerisms are called into question.
- The persons heritage or background is called into question.
- The person's ability to be part of a team is called into question.
- Diversions are put in place to stop progress at any cost.

General Rules of Thumb

+ Politically oriented Supervisors kill technical organizations.
+ Image becomes more important than capability.
+ Politicians cannot fail or admit failure. Therefore, risks are avoided.
+ Plausible deniability is prevalent in politics.
+ Blame-metrics is prevalent. "You said..."

Given strong ENGINEERING leadership, technical folks will grow very quickly. Consequently, their product will become better and better as you learn new techniques and share them, everyone gets smarter. True Engineers have a willingness to help others, solve problems, and do great things. A little autonomy and simple recognitions and you're off to the races.

Politicians are more suited to Sales jobs. Sales is about making the numbers at whatever cost. In fact, Sales people will do just about anything to close a deal. They are more apt to help themselves than to help others unless it also helps themselves. Engineers need to know that their managers have their backs. Sales folks have allegiance to the sale and themselves... A bad combination for Engineers.

One of the best and most visionary Vice Presidents I've ever worked under, John Schanz once told us in a Group meeting that he wanted us to fail. Failure is the ability to discover what doesn't work. So, Fail only once. And be willing to share your lessons, good and bad. And dialog is good. Keep asking new questions.


In Operations, Sales people can be very dangerous. They have the "instant gratification" mentality in many cases. Sign the PO, stand up the product, and the problem is solved in their minds. They lack the understanding that true integration comes at a personal level with each and every user. This level of integration is hard to achieve. And when things don't work or are not accepted, folks are quick to blame someone or some vendor.

The best Engineers, Developers, and Architects are the ones that have come up through the ranks. They have worked in a NOC or Operations Center. They have fielded customer calls and problems. They understand how to span from the known to and unknown even when the customer is right there. And they learn to think on their feet.

Architecture and Vision

One of the key aspects of OSS/ENMS Architecture is that you need to build a model that is realizable in 2 major product release cycles, of where you'd like to be, systems, applications, and process wise. This equates usually to an 18-24 month "what it needs to look like" sort of vision.

Why?

- It provides a reference model to set goals and objectives.
- It aligns development and integration teams toward a common roadmap
- It empowers risk assessment and mitigation in context.
- It empowers planning as well as execution.

What happens if you don't?

- You have a lot of "cowboy" and rogue development efforts.
- Capabilities are built in one organization that kill capabilities and performance in other products.
- Movement forward is next to impossible in that when something doesn't directly agree with the stakeholder's localized vision, process pops up to block progress.
- You create an environment where you HAVE to manage to the Green.
- Any flaws or shortcomings in localized capabilities results in fierce political maneuvering.

What are the warning signs?

- Self directed design and development
- Products that are deployed in multiple versions.
- You have COTS products in production that are EOLed or are no longer supported.
- Seemingly simple changes turn out to require significant development efforts.
- You are developing commodity product using in house staff.
- You have teams with an Us vs. Them mentality.

Benefits?

- Products start to become "Blockified". Things become easier to change, adapt, and modify.
- Development to Product to Support to Sales becomes aligned. Same goals.
- Elimination of a lot of the weird permutations. No more weird products that are marsupials and have duck bills.
- The collective organizational intelligence goes up. Better teamwork.
- Migration away from "Manage to the Green" towards a Teamwork driven model.
- Better communication throughout. No more "Secret Squirrel" groups.

OSS ought to own a Product Catalog, data warehouse, and CMS. Not a hundred different applications. OSS Support should own the apps the the users should own the configurations and the data as these users need to be empowered to use the tools and systems as they see fit.

Every release of capability should present changes to the product catalog. New capabilities, new functions, and even the loss of functionality, needs to be kept in synch with the product teams. If I ran product development, I'd want to be a lurker on the Change Advisory Board and I'd want my list published and kept up to date at all times. Add a new capability. OSS had BETTER inform product teams.