By Dave, on June 21st, 2010
Lotus 123 revolutionized the calculator, and made MS DOS the operating system of choice for the personal computer. Windows came along, and so did Microsoft’s answer to 123 in the form of Excel. Lotus didn’t understand the WYSIWYG wow factor and lost the spreadsheet battle. Excel has been king ever since.
I love Excel! It is a program with so many different faces. So many different ways to use it. Truly the Swiss Army Knife of desktop software.
On the other hand, that very flexibility gets us into so much trouble. We start with a small worksheet to track jobs. We add a bit of fancy formula work to make the data entry easier and to help maintain data integrity. Before long the little worksheet that could is now the giamungous workbook from hell! You can’t kill it, because your business depends upon it. You can’t fix it because you don’t have the resources to make it better or maybe you just don’t know how.
Having been guilty of this spreadsheet feature creep in the past, and having just been shown a classic case, I thought it would be worthwhile tearing down this case, and building it back up again.
Value Analysis
Before we commit to spending time to improve the tool, let’s ask the questions:
- is the task the tool is used for necessary?
- do we really get a good value out of the tool?
- is there potential for more value in the tool with a minor modification?
- are we using the right tool?
Yes, you say,
- the tool fits a critical need.
- there isn’t anything out there that quite meets our requirements.
- the value is there.
We have to fix this thing.
Requirements Analysis
First, we need to remember that there is no such thing as a short term solution. I wrote one once (at least one) that was supposed to bridge a six month period. It was still in use six years later. The project that would bring in the final solution was cancelled!
There are two sets of requirements: the business functional requirements, and the support requirements.
Stay tuned – we will discuss the support requirements in our next post.
By Dave, on June 17th, 2010
I tend to be a bit eclectic, but there are a few themes that I keep coming back to time and time again. One is Configuration Management, another is Business Continuity Planning.
Today, while doing some research on a different topic, I stumbled across an item to do with Business Continuity. What blew me away, was that it was classified under the topic of a Business Resiliency Program.
Such a brilliant concept.
Everybody wants their business to survive an unforeseen event. Most businesses have a disaster recovery plan for their computer systems. They might even test it once in a while. When you take the disaster recovery plan a little bit further, you start creating business continuity plans. The business continuity plan gets outside of the computer room. It looks at all of your business processes and you create plans that are more encompassing. Continuity plans take into begin to take into account the effects of the weather, the impact of a flu epidemic. But Business Resiliency? Now that takes the concept to a whole new level!
Planning for a disaster like a flood, an earthquake, or a server failure – we all understand that. Making contingency plans to cover snow days or power outages. As I said, these are the next logical level.
Putting in place a resiliency program, now that is great! The word conjures up images of stuff bouncing off of a wall. The resilient business is built to deflect all adversity. The resilient business has the plan built into its operational processes. The resilient company doesn’t react to stuff when it happens because its processes have developed to include the stuff handing protocol. In the resilient business, invoking the contingency plan would be like declaring a disaster in another business.
Brilliant!
By Dave, on June 14th, 2010
I got up way too early Sunday morning and drove up to Chinook Pass to catch the sunrise on Mt. Rainier. Apparently being there 1/2 an hour before the official time is about 1/2 an hour late! Even so, the view was stunning.
On the way up to the pass, I had to swerve to avoid a rabbit that was in the middle of the road. What was it thinking!
It is June, and there is still 6 feet of snow piled up beside the road. I stepped out of the back of my pickup onto the frozen snow bank to set up my tripod. Tipsoo Lake is just below my vantage point here and it is still hidden.
In addition to avoiding the killer rabbit, I encountered a cow elk down at the south east entrance to the park. It was still dark, and I had to use my flash to get any decent shots. Now she has evil eyes. I’ll get those fixed and post a couple to the Washington Gallery on my SmugMug site at http://www.nwquadphoto.com, where these images are also posted.
So why is it so dangerous driving around Mt Rainier? Because of the whiplash caused when you turn your head from one view to the next. As 
a driver, it’s hard to keep the eyes on the highway when there is another spectacular view springing into sight around every turn. This panorama that I am using as the header was captured from the roadside.
Well you can’t say you haven’t been warned. If you feel you don’t want to risk the need for a neck brace, or that you just can’t keep your eyes on the road, its ok. I’m sure we will be making more trips up into the park, and we will be posting more photos for you to enjoy.
Lotus 123 revolutionized the calculator, and made MS DOS the operating system of choice for the personal computer. Windows came along, and so did Microsoft’s answer to 123 in the form of Excel. Lotus didn’t understand the WYSIWYG wow factor and lost the spreadsheet battle. Excel has been king ever since.
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