Frameworks, Standards, Processes and other age old TLAs and an MBA technology real life story

I had the opportunity to engage with some other colleagues on their skill sets and tools, and what I found, is that the new generation has new acronyms and TLAs (three letter acronyms) for what we had long ago. The irony is that I knew this some 5-7 years ago and does one have to keep up or stay sharp? Easy answer: Yes. Always. When it comes to Tech, Finance, People, and Systems. All of it is the same just with new packaging. Its just the same, with different groupings, and folks with more communication and journalism and speech skills.

 

I like the improved regrouping of some standards, for example:

 

ITIL - infrastructure IT framework - yep, age old predecessor of change improvement control processes aligned with business processes and mission, etc.

STL - standard template library things for my C# and C++ stuff and even SQL and Python - yep, we call those include standards change control and more...

 

If one is to look at all things, there is a cycle, a circle, a beginning, change, feedback loop, and back to the beginning, and repeat. More like wash, rinse, dry, repeat.  The change management paradigm applies to all things. From new to old, back to new again, and so on and so forth. Some of the best methodologies have existed for thousands of years, and we just give things a new name for the current generation. Its like publishers wanting to sell more books, so they change the vocabulary and dictionary, just to appear that improvements are being made. For me, one must understand the basics really well, especially about people and things, for example the 4Ms became the 6Ms (an refined version of the 6Ms), and that was an improvement to understand how we evolve and improve and demonstrate it and control it and make sure everyone is looking at the same sheet of music. Its very much like orchestration of a symphony or an azure or aws app db cluster. Synchronization my dear Watson.

 

With that all in mind, what is fascinating is that leaders for many whom I know and share things, we focus on many of the integrated facets of all things and not just a set of one standards. For me, if you have 5 or more functional areas in a business to lead and manage, each of those will have its own industry best practices, measures, specifications, controls and reporting. Then, you look at the interaction between them and then you find a cohesive framework where they have to communicate 360 degrees appropriately, and its both push and pull and balance information in order to have everything synchronized.

 

The top down, bottom up approach can be found in leadership 101 in MBA degrees and then applied leadership in technology management focus in the post graduate arena. These are often rounded out by the leaders ability to communicate and document, present, sell, influence and help shape the organization with their leadership team(s).

 

A friend of mine, she was promoted from Director to CIO and had to change organizations and cities, I was saying, and she was agreeing, that its more than just glitter and shine that makes a world class organization. Its nuts and bolts getting the actual job done, and then the presentation of it to showcase the before, during and after results, and align that to the short and long term mission and objectives.

 

While she loved the promotion, she left an organization hanging in the middle of a huge project, and I was saddened she did not stay, yet the project had some really bad bumps in it, and it was going to take a lot of guts to admit some big issues and face the board, face the public - she had never got her street cred for being hands on, and was only hands off and moved around a lot in the organization.

 

I advised her that she has to be able to handle where the meat hits the metal, the rubber hits the road. Her best friend nodded and said, well, lets just see what happens. For most of us some 10-15 years past our MBA and in our specialty, we know the drill. Be it Technology, Accounting, Psychology, Art, Communications, the rest of the A through Z's specialties, one can only hope and help.

 

We all agreed, its a matter of fact, while making not only the easy and good decisions, one has to make the really hard bad decisions to accept things one cannot overcome, at least for now and the time being. Maybe she could not handle failure and saying no? I said, get your hands dirty and you'll have the respect of your teams and leaders to get more things done, rather than fleeing to another organization who has no idea what you are capable of. I was happy she got promoted and yet I lost a good colleague and friend, yet we shall see. She might return. I know some leaders who left an organization for 3-5 years, and came back and through the school of hard knocks, figured out where and how their stones are made of.

 

Each of us has a different journey, and I would love to see how far she goes in the coming years. I cringed at some of her non-disclosures of her missteps, yet, she has a lot of years, like 20-30 years ahead of herself to polish and gain wisdom. My other colleagues, about my same age, we smiled and got back to our own work with our teams and clients, and said bon voyage, and don't forget to write. My best friend from my undergraduate, I noticed he is doing something similar right now with some of his mentees and teams on the road to improvements and growth. Some growth is great, and some is chaotic. He is a little stressed, yet I told him to relax and breathe. Don't bite off more than you can chew, and don't write a check your butt can't cash. He chuckled.

 

For me, stay and persevere, do great things and build your teams. If you start something, finish it, and then move on if that is the need. I think back, and she was a little nervous about that. I said, its okay. Just remember, we all have to remember our roots. If you start things and never finish things, well, maybe one is just good at starting things.

 

I love the entire process, from concept to post mortem reporting, research, development, testing, documentation, training, roll outs, go live presentations, project reporting, financial tracking, vendor agreements, vendor changes, integration of new teams and more... 

 

PS. I like the fact that we have lots of great minds around us, and that our lives are filled with those colleagues that come into our life for a little while, a little longer, or a lifetime, and we just admire their tenacity, growth, stamina and overall their ability to learn, listen, adapt, and apply things rather quickly.

 

REF:

ITIL - https://www.cio.com/article/2439501/infrastructure-it-infrastructure-library-itil-definition-and-solutions.html

STL -  https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/the-c-standard-template-library-stl/

 

6Ms - Man, Materials, Methods, Machine, Management, Metrics... the folks in the past 10 years change Management to Mother Nature / Environment instead of the influence by Management.

 

The new version of 6Ms is good and something I wrote about some 10 years ago. Here is S. Jhajharia and her take on it : "6Ms: Strategic Thinking and Execution - Importantly these 6 aspects are split into two sides – strategic thinking (Mindset, Mastery, Mission) and execution (Money, Management, Methodology). Some businesses are great with strategic thinking and need more help with execution, others have great execution skills and require more strategic thinking to best direct their actions. So not every business needs to focus on all 6 parts – and it’s essential that business owners choose the right place to focus their efforts." S. Jhajharia, People and Purpose. Leadership Journal and Log.

 

For me, even in the beginnings of my PhD for Organizational Management and Leadership, the philosophy approach was more succinct to my style of leadership and management style. Like the greats, Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca, and more.

 

more to come...