The Value of Timelines

Which has more value, a painting that took years to create or one that was done in a few hours? I would presume the one that took longer to create is more valuable. Even if the paintings were nearly identical- knowing that more time was put into something lends to a perception of value.

Some mastermind back in the early days of Corporate IT saw this concept and used it as a model for our SDLC. By adding time to our control points for code freeze and time windows for testing, staging and the like, the overall process is lengthy and thus, looks more valuable to the business stakeholders.

A project that may be a week or two of coding will take several months to allow for planning scope, creating and reviewing requirements, technical designs, Info Security reviews, Architecture reviews - all before the first line of code is written. Then with testing windows of a month for each environment and a code freeze that could be a month or more, depending on deployment schedules, it is easy to make even something smaller than a bread box take 6 or more months from conception to deployment.

This adds value. With this we are able to explain high project costs to our business stakeholders, the ones approving the budgets, while at the same time making sure we don't have to break a sweat to get things done. It is an almost perfect world for us.

Add to this that this model will stifle a small third party vendor and it is hard to pin the actual value of timelines. Small vendors try to remain nimble and react quickly- their model not only thrives on it but almost depends on it. They can hardly afford to sit on a tested solution for a month long freeze. They want to do something new or react to enhancement requests or respond to a bug. The Corporate IT Timeline hinders them from all of this. It brings them in line and reduces them to little more than ancillary outsourced coders.

If third party solution providers are forced to fall in line with the Corporate IT Timeline then they can be controlled. And it is easy to convince the business partners that this needs to happen. Business may appreciate and enjoy the agility of smaller firms but as we have said before, they can ill afford to fight the risk and career minded professionals won't stick their necks out for the small vendor most of the time.

So embrace your timelines. See the value in them. Use them to your advantage. As risk aversion grows, so will out timelines and our kingdoms. With higher perceived value, higher costs and longer guaranteed work, we expand what is ours and increase the barriers to entry, protecting our industry- Corporate IT.

Risk Aversion as a Tool

Non-technical business people are like sheep. They tend to move in a herd, make similar decisions based on that pack and are easily scared. This is especially true with management. They have one eye on their career health and the other on their bonus. Most don't have time or the stomach to challenge the herd mentality.

This fact makes Risk a weapon. Management fears Risk, for themselves and for the firm. All one has to do is make a case for Risk in doing or not doing something and the herd moves along. It makes IT the shepherd of the flock. Risk, conveyed discretely but powerfully, is a wonderful tool.

The honesty really is just that, Risk is a tool. Man times the Risk Aversion is much more expansive than the Risk itself. Spending weeks testing for any Risk in a minor change to code is more often more costly than the error that might ensue from the change and/or a rollback. But items like this keep IT pockets fat, as long as business pockets are deep.

And what does Risk Aversion gain? Obviously the Recession cannot be avoided no matter how many hours we sit and dream up the most obscure Risk scenarios to make sure "there isn't anything we haven't thought of". Risk seems especially important to firms in the Financial Industry and there aren't many firms in that realm who have not seen their stock prices drop like a rock and even bankruptcy as a possible future. So what Risks have they paid so dearly to avoid? Firm reputation? With many being bought and sold, who's reputation is being saved?

Perhaps one day the business herd will change direction, realizing that there is little value in much of the Risk Aversion. That through some careful analysis of the story IT is selling, they can decrease costs and still maintain an acceptable level of quality and Risk control. For now they are too focused on surviving the current economic crisis, kind of a forest for the trees effect. Until they decide to change, IT will continue to build its kingdom on their backs and use tools like Risk to do it.