Pragmatic Dictator

Rorie Devine, Betfair’s CTO starts out with a posting on greener computing.

Technorati Tags: betfair, blog

Push versus pull is a constant debate in techie land. Interestingly, a lot of the web is adopting pull techniques. I wonder if some of that is leaking into these other areas or whether it’s just a general trend away from centralized solutions which we know don’t scale.

In any case, this is an interesting read and recommended by none other than Werner Vogels.

Scary reading for the control freaks and another example of decentralized control/intelligence. Of course, a few minutes thought makes it clear that pull is not good for everything.

Technorati Tags: architecture, business, distributed systems, technology, web

Quick wins are all about proving a point in short order. Small effort big results, big bang for little buck, low hanging fruit and so on.

But there’s surely a limit to what can be done? How fast do we need to deliver something for it to qualify as a quick win? At some point don’t we need to get strategic because we’ve grabbed up all the low hanging fruit and now have to work harder and longer?

Does it make sense to ask for a quick win to prove a long-term strategy? Any quick win will surely have limited if not zero immediate benefit because only with a reasonable amount of your strategy implemented could you expect tangible results? How would you measure what limited effect there is anyway? More significantly there has to be a risk that the pressure to provide quick wins actually damages your ability to pursue long term strategy. For example, you might end up constantly undoing what you’ve already done to take the next quick step because you cut corners last time. Pretty soon you’re undoing so much because you cut so many corners that you come to a halt.

I have this feeling that quick wins are kind of like nibbling at fruit bars and Red Bull whilst you work flat out to complete a project. Eventually you’re going to need to stop, cook a proper meal and sleep. You’ll probably need to go to the doctor too – consequences of a none-too-nutritious diet. You got that project done but at what cost long term?

Focusing on quick wins is surely just storing up pain for later. How much does it have to hurt before we stop trying for quick wins and get strategic? Would we even be aware of the pain? How do we become aware of this nasty aching? Do we maybe not bother pushing strategy until it hurts so bad that we have no choice but to take a risk and try something new we can’t predict?

Maybe there’s something in the air as Doug McClure’s been independently pondering similar questions.

Technorati Tags: business, philosophy, strategy

A graphic demonstration of how short-term thinking over strategy can be outright life-threatening:

I was out driving this morning on a dual carriageway, approaching a slip-road in lane two (the outside lane) so as to avoid merging traffic. In front of me is another driver who in their impatience is on the boot-lid of another vehicle, we’re right on top of the merge point for the slip-road now which is a feeder from the M4. At this point, the boot-lid surfer dives into the inside lane clearly intent on an undertake, failing to account for the motor-cycllst merging from the slip road. What follows is best described as a lucky escape with both motor-cyclist and boot-lid surfer taking evasive action.

Many a technical decision is taken without measuring, pausing for strategic thought or evaluating alternatives. What we typically do is jump on whatever is the current hype without bothering to weigh up whether it’s worth it. This is a key contributory factor to the utter absurdity that is the hype curve where we all get far too optimistic about a technology, jump on it and then after a few years realise it is not the holy grail. Techies as a group are supposed to be some of the most rational, analytical of all and yet we make this newbie mistake – who are we kidding?

Short-term thinking can be seen elsewhere too such as in the feature’s versus refactoring/re-structuring discussions that go on in software product (shrink-wrap, web or otherwise) companies across the world. In general it seems that businesses encourage these minimal thought policies. Increase customers now. Increase revenue now. Don’t worry about consequences we’ll deal with those later………maybe!

But wait a minute – if a child wants to stick their fingers in the wall-socket should we just forget the consequences and let them do it? Clearly not – that’s strategic, big picture thinking which saved our child some pain. Why don’t we do similar things and save our businesses, systems and workers pain?

I do wonder if rampant short-termism is somewhat related to our own survival instincts. Perhaps when there’s too much pressure/threat we are more likely to stop thinking about the big picture? Understandable when it’s life or death but surely unnecessary in business, tech or the daily commute?

Technorati Tags: business, strategy, technology