The leafblower solution

It is autumn and in my part of the world the leaves start falling from the trees, and land on streets, bike lanes, sidewalks, train rails and so forth.

This can be a problem as wet leaves on the sidewalk or bike lane become slippery, and thus become dangerous to pedestrians and bike riders.

The transportation authorities do a great job in trying to keep the sidewalks and bike lanes safe, but I do use the word trying very deliberately here.

Because although their intentions are the best, I am not so sure about at least one of their solution alternatives - the leaf blower.

Now why do I have a problem with leaf blowers? Well they seem very prone to only solve the problem temporarily, at least if they are not put together with appropriate additional equipment.

I watched the following scene the other day:

A worker was using a leaf blower to blow leaves from the bike lane onto the sidewalk, and then from the sidewalk on to a strip of grass running along the sidewalk. It worked as a short term solution, but it does not take a genius to realize that a small change of wind direction or pickup in wind power would push the leaves right back onto the sidewalk.

Now, aside from the point that it of course is a sort of job security for the individual assigned with the task of cleaning the sidewalks and bike lanes, it does seem like a very short sighted solution, which could very likely result in twice as many leaves on the sidewalk the next day.

Now if we transpose the leaf situation to a more generic problem solving situation, there is actually a point here.

When dealing with a problem, there is often a nice quick fix which can push the problem aside, clearing the situation for now. Unfortunately these quick fixed have a habit of coming back to haunt you very quickly and with greater strength. Very much like the leaves in my little case.

The point being, that it is not always the quick fix that works best. Maybe a leaf vacuum cleaner to collect the leaves would be a better and more permanent solution.

And if you do decide to use the quick fix, make sure that you combine it with measures that keeps it as a fix.
In the leaf blower analogy it could be to use the leaf blower to gather the leaves, and then put them in a bin and take them somewhere they do not pose a hazard.

Decision doors - how does your business representative make decisions.

No, I'm not talking about a 60's rock band, who lost their front man way too early, although that might be one of the reasons for their legendary status.

Walking through the hallway of the building complex in which I work, I somehow got annoyed with the automatic doors which has been installed over the last couple of years.

Previously the doors were either manual or semi automatic, meaning you had to press a button to open them.

Many doors in the building complex are now equipped with sensors, so they open automatically. Very convenient in many situations, but in the upgrade process, the opening mechanism has also been made slower.

Previously the door would open at you command, either because you decided how hard to push a manual door, or when you pushed the button, it would open in a "yes sir" fashion. The "yes sir" refers to a swift quick opening, letting you pass through.

Now the door opens in more "let me see.....yes i'll open" way, resulting in, even though it is equipped with a sensor, you have to stop and wait for the door to open.

I don't know if this has been done because someone actually was hit by a fast opening door, but I have never heard of such an accident.

Now, I'm not on a mission with doors to attribute human feelings or decision making to the doors in the building, but they got me thinking about ways to think about decision making and especially how to react on request for decisions. See, now we are getting nearer to the business analysis world. 

Because many might not know the doors in the building complex where i work, I will try to use a couple of more widely known examples from the world of movies. Especially science fiction movies have a thing about doors.

In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the doors in the spaceship were equipped with an especially pleasing sound, letting you know that they were happy to open for you. (Which annoyed Marvin the depressive robot immensely, but that's another story). Now that's the sort of business representative I would like to have as a BA. One who says, we are happy to help you with your decisions or issues.

Another great example is the Star Wars movies, where buildings and spaceships have many creative door solutions. Some of the them seems rather over-the-top and elaborate. This is not what I want from my business representative, I need them to help me make a decision, not to design an elaborate decisions process involving to many stakeholders. It might look fancy, but takes forever.

My favorite example from Star Wars is a door when Luke Skywalker and Han Solo enters cloud city (In the Empire Strikes Back) there is a control room, where the door opens and closes almost instantly. Now thats the kind of business representative I would like, especially in a case with a tight schedule. A "I'll get right on it" attitude.

I'll leave it up to the reader to interpret what the many blast doors in Star Wars would relate to in a business representative.

I'm sure that there are many other examples out there of good and not so good doors.

I guess the morale here is to make sure that you observe how your business representative or other decision making partner, is going about the way of getting the decisions made. And if it is not going as you would like, be sure to talk to them about your expectations.

Now, I'll go and see if a can tweak the opening mechanism a bit...

Oh, by the way. If you're interested in more about doors and their apparent human like characteristics, I can highly recommend reading Bruno Latour - Where are the Missing Masses? Sociology of a Door

Seeing through the right pair of goggles...

First of all, Happy New Year!

Ok, I have decided to stop making excuses for not updating the blog as often as I had set out to do, so without further comments, here's a new post:

One of my hobbies, some might call it an obsession, but I don't think I'm quite there...yet anyway, is alpine skiing. Since I have been skiing for many years I prefer more challenging ski runs, either because they are steep or because they are off-piste or not prepared.

When you start skiing at higher speeds and in more difficult terrain, the more dependent you become on your equipment. Many focus on skis, boots and clothing, but a more overlooked aspect of the equipment is the ski goggles.

As long as you ski good conditions in good weather you can get away with a lot in the world of goggles, but when the weather turns worse and the runs turn more difficult, you become very dependent on what you can see, in order to react in time.

Thus you have to be careful with which pair of goggles you wear or what lens you fit your goggles with that particular day. Wearing a lens suited for good weather on a foggy or snowy days, means that you loose contrast, and are not able to see changes in the slope and in worst case obstacles, as they are white when covered with snow.

The solution is however not wearing a bad weather lens all the time, as wearing one i bright sunlight will blind you, and you are not able to see any contrast because everything is just white.

You can wear an intermediate lens, but it only does both things half way, but on an cloudy day with spots of sunshine, it's the preferred choice.

Now why all this talk of ski goggles...

Well, in the world of business analysis we also have to choose the goggles with which we see the world, out goggles in this case being the models and analysis methods we choose to use to understand our problem area.

Like ski goggles each model has it's strengths and weaknesses compared to what you wish to achieve.

Some models look at the big picture, like the business context of a project, but fail to shed any light on the more detailed specifics of the problem area. You can compare this to the good weather lens, which provides you with good (in)sight when the world is clearly illuminated, but fails when things get more muddy and you start to look for the details.

Other models look very much in detail on one or more specific areas. You can compare this to the bad weather lens. You are able to see details in a confined area of the world, but if you try to use them to look out at the world, when the sun comes out, you will get blinded by the level of detail.

Some models are equivalent to the intermediate lens, e.g. SWOT or Porters five forces. They are a good starting point, but they do not provide all the answers, and depending on what you are looking for, you probably have to change lenses during the day.

My point here is that we as business analysts need to be aware of which pair of goggles we put on. Are we in the bad weather looking for details or are we out in the sunshine, looking for the big lines?

The ability to make the right choice is highly dependent on experience. Do you know the area you are skiing in? Have you been there before? what does the weather look like? If you don't know, it is always a good idea to ask the locals...

Choose your goggles wisely, and if possible have a backup pair in the backpack, in case the weather changes...