DMReview – Opening The Portal
DMReview has had some great resources on business intelligence and how the IT world works through issues – from compliance to industry trends, to information about industry moves, you can find a great series of resources on DMReview. Register for your free access here.
Working with Management and Best Practices
Last week I wrote asking about something we’re seeing a lot both in talking with people at the conference last week and in emails. That issue is how you can best work with management and others in trying to convey best practices, updates, modifications needed, etc. Here are a couple of thoughts passed along:
Walter: "Best Practices is a term that in itself is somewhat of a problem. Who truly defines what is the best? And just because X says it is the best, does that mean it is the best for you as well?
I believe that the proper term is Better Practice. That is because Better can always be improved upon. If, for example, I have an idea on how to do something, and I share it with you, you will take that idea and modify it making it better. Another person could take that make a simple tweak and make it better once again. In that manner a Better Practice is a living thing that helps an organization continue to improve, while a best practice would sit mired in the concrete."
It’s a great point – and probably one of the arguments that is the basis of why it can be difficult to sell changes "up the line." How DO you explain "better" practices and how the changes may help your systems? Surely it’ll come across as arbitrary at best when you talk about updates. This can be especially true with continually maturing technologies and things that require updating as your systems grow.
I’ve worked with a number of different people explaining, or trying to, the need for addressing Injection issues or additional indexes for performance or monitoring for proactive management of servers. For someone that sits back and sees servers that run apparently fine as-is, it’s a tough sell at times.
How do you approach these types of proactive, "better practices" type situations? How do you convey possibly abstract things that need to be addressed and considered in a very concrete ($) way?
Drop me a note – let me know how you work this out.
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