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Adapt or Delay
By Eric Gross | August 6, 2007
Every technology project to be undertaken should be viewed in the context of existing functionality. For instance, if the goal is to create an enterprise-wide definition of a “Gold Build” for Oracle 10.2.0.3, you would obviously be wise to change the 5% that needs to be changed from the 10.2.0.1 “Gold Build”. Indeed this presupposes that such a thing exists - if there is no such thing in your enterprise then the task is indeed of a phenomenally larger scope. Perhaps you could look outside your world for input, or in this case research what other organizations have done to solve the same (or similar) problems.
Only in rare cases should you start from scratch to solve a problem. Nature doesn’t build anything from scratch - most of the time new entities are created by slightly modifying existing stuff. In rare cases, there are spurts where significant change seems to change more rapidly. Changes in information technology should take the model of natural selection into consideration - based solely on the real-world success evident by the existence human kind.
It takes work to think about a project as a conglomeration of existing things compared to just digging in and starting progress at once which takes less planning. This difficulty is the same “outside the box” mantra repeated ad-nauseum, but it is true. Frequently a harness exists to enable one program to perform; it can be difficult to think about swapping out the “harnessed” application for the new goals. Sometimes one aspect of an existing entity can be cherry-picked and combined with a different aspect of some other existing thing to get you to a happy starting place to complete your goal in a timely fashion.
Topics: Agile, Efficiency, Simplicity