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Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny. — Charles Reade
It is easy to say that something is broke, a business relationship is fractured beyond repair, or we will never be able to do something because we’ve tried it before and failed. It is equally easy to say (but rarely said) that a process works exceptionally smoothly, the value delivered by IT exceeds expectations, or that IT operations have performed so well that there have been no un-scheduled production outages in over a year.
One interesting aspect to explore here is not the comments or absence of them, but how the situations being commented on came to be. While many times these comments can refer to specific events, more often than not, when you dig beneath the surface, you will find that the reaction is to a systemic condition, the seeds (either crop or weeds) of which were planted long ago.
A farmer knows specifically what crop he is farming and why (soil conditions, prior crop rotation, market demand, available workers, required equipment, projected weather patterns, etc.). They also are fully aware that between the time they decide what crop to sow and the time they sell it at the end of the season, many events can conspire to derail these plans. Pests, frost, drought, flood can all prevent the harvest from coming to fruition. Even if all comes off to perfection on the farm bumper crops in foreign lands can severely limit the market price of the crop and turn a great season into one of much less value. Along these lines, while it is wonderfully quaint to set up your farm on a few acres as a hobby, if you want to farm several sections of land you will need different equipment and ways of working. The hand tools need replacement with industrial strength seeders and combines.
It all starts with a plan. Knowing which seeds to plant in what soil at what time. Carefully nurturing the crop through the events along the way which serve to eat away at its value. If all comes off as per plan the crop will offer its reward. It clearly doesn’t happen by accident.
In IT, seeds are continually being planted. Some will be the crop we intend to harvest, others are weeds which serve to steal valuable water and nutrients from our crop. As IT leaders you are in control of planting and shepherding of these seeds into a viable and valuable crop.
- The people performing and managing the work is one type of seed that leaders will sow. As these are the people who execute, they collectively will carry you to distant heights or sink a departments credibility. These are important seeds to sow.
- Every decision which will be a seed which takes on a life of its own – good decisions and bad decisions alike. Short term decisions have a shorter life than their long-term siblings, but collectively the methods and mechanisms of making decisions will be far-reaching. For good or bad, these seeds will take root.
- Culture and environment are also seeds which are sown. The tone at the top will be followed while corporate culture is adhered to. The actions and reactions of the leaders are watched and followed by others. Communication and management styles are cultural aspects which are commonly followed once the culture is set. These can be seeds or weeds and have a great deal of influence.
- The processes for identifying, initiating, managing, implementing and operating initiatives are seeds which will determine how much work can be taken on. Like the farming example which referenced a hobby farm on a few acres using hand tools, if the intent is to scale beyond the hobby stage, processes need to be set up to scale to the size of the operation. The ad hoc, “ask Mary to just add a few fields to this screen while she is working on that defect” will act as weeds stealing the energy from crop.
As an IT leader you will have a crop at the end of the growing season. Will it be the crop you intended, or something very different? It all starts with the seeds. What seeds are you sowing?
One of my favorite IT professors and researchers, Dr. Peter Weill, talks about “weed pulling.” That fits in very nicely to your IT Farming analogy. Farmers (at least if they care about being successful) are diligent about pulling weeds to make space for the crops. CIO’s and CTO’s are often less dilligent. Unlike Farmers, CIO’s are engineers at heart – it’s always more interesting to create something new!