I'm working with a large networking (telecommunication) company on a mission critical new initiative to replace existing B2B account services functions that are siloed and separate with a new sexy UI where all the services are aggregated in one portal. The development has been underway for over one year. It is touted as an "agile" program. Yet an interesting impediment has never been resolved. That is the internal WiFi/Lan systems appear to be overloaded with the strain of development, over utilized with the number of people that are squeezed into the floor plan (I call the sardine can). This system fails quite frequently, it is a well know impediment to sprints being completed, stories integrated into the build, builds tested, access to the QA server, etc. Yet this impediment remains after months and continued growth of the program.
I wonder if the problem is that management feels that they can't do anything about infrastructure at one of the largest telecommunication companies in the universe. Perhaps they believe that the cobbler's kids should have no shoes - that is is just the way of the world.
I frequently wonder if this program was a client of the company would they cancel their service for the networking products and seek an alternative supplier. I wonder if that would be an option for this program. I wonder if this is a case of having to eat your own dog food - imposed by some evil VP to make the teams understand just how bad the customers have it using our services and administering them using the system we have provided them - but then I realize - no that would take real organizational ability and if it could be used for evil - then surely it would be as easy to use that super power to organize for good. And since I can feel little organization, I assume there is no super power in existence.
So perhaps one step in the direction of making this problem understood would be to calculate the cost of the frequent network down times and make this cost visible. I've done this before with other such impediments - with varying levels of success.
I just saw this article:
I wonder if the problem is that management feels that they can't do anything about infrastructure at one of the largest telecommunication companies in the universe. Perhaps they believe that the cobbler's kids should have no shoes - that is is just the way of the world.
I frequently wonder if this program was a client of the company would they cancel their service for the networking products and seek an alternative supplier. I wonder if that would be an option for this program. I wonder if this is a case of having to eat your own dog food - imposed by some evil VP to make the teams understand just how bad the customers have it using our services and administering them using the system we have provided them - but then I realize - no that would take real organizational ability and if it could be used for evil - then surely it would be as easy to use that super power to organize for good. And since I can feel little organization, I assume there is no super power in existence.
So perhaps one step in the direction of making this problem understood would be to calculate the cost of the frequent network down times and make this cost visible. I've done this before with other such impediments - with varying levels of success.
I just saw this article:
How Much Does Network Downtime REALLY Cost Your Business? [Shocking]
It contains a link to a calculator - makes it easy... try it - you might like it.
What would you do? Please leave me a comment with suggestions.
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