Friday, October 06, 2006

IT Conversations

The maxim 'nothing avails but perfection' may be spelt shorter: PARALYSIS.
..................... Winston Churchill

The great mistake of a manager is eagerness to be always right. Worrying about making less then perfect decision is am immobilizer, and a a source of stress. You may think making wrong decisions can be fatal to your project. I can relate to this. Here is my little story:

I was driving along to work, thinking and worrying about one troublesome project. We just made some decisions there. As usually, they didn't seem to be perfect choice, but rather compromise, and I felt very uneasy about my choice of imperfect options.
Toronto by Archy Azarkevich
As I was driving, I was listening an interview with Alistair Cockburn from IT Converstations. One point he made jumped on me from out of the car stereo, and I heard a sound "cling" as it clicked inside my head. Alistair said that in software development there is no absolute right or absolute wrong decisions. There are only "better decisions" or "worse decisions". This very moment my worries disappeared, and things became simple. We went ahead, made decisions, shooting for the better, but not looking for perfection. When we stumbled, it was not fatal. Over time, the project turned to success.

Addiction to ideas is personal. What makes tons of since to me may not live well with you. Rather then selling you a single idea, I'll refer you to the reservoir. As you drive, don’t waste your time to worry. It's counter productive, bad for you driving, when driving, and hey, it's not geeky! Instead, listen to interviews with thought leaders and find your dear ideas.

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