Sometimes analogies work amazingly well ...
... and sometimes they don't - the ever-popular construction analogy for describing the software development process has many areas where it works .. and then, if you push it too far, sort of falls apart.
Still, when communicating with business / process owners that don't necessarily understand the unique qualities of technology projects, to whom the concepts of RAD sound like an extremely (sic) non-effective way of attacking a project, well, sometimes you need to find just the right analogy.
IAPL, with one particularly tough "customer", we had a number of conversations, trying to understand the best way to attack our ERP issues. Specifically, we were suggesting a "reimplementation" approach, where we would create a new instance of the existing application, model the business (and all modified business processes, policies, and structures) in a clean system, then "convert" the existing data into the new instance.
Manageable, simple, some time involved - completely understood. However, our "tough customer" wanted to understand why we would do it that way, as opposed to "fixing" the application in place.
I thought for a second, and said "You can start with a clean sheet of paper, or you can keep erasing over the old one". That's it, nothing else. But what a reaction - silent stare, then "wow, that's perfect - concise, complete - I get it!".
Of course, then the joking starts ... ie. have I copyrighted that, too brilliant to come out of my mind, yada yada ... another indicator, by the way, that they really, really got it, and appreciated the insight.
I bring up this story because it was really amazing to see that light bulb of recognition and complete understanding go off, and all further conversation about fix-in-place vs. reimplementation just disappear. A well placed analogy can be a powerful thing.
Technorati Tags: analogy, aha, construction, erp, implementation, communication
posted by James P. MacLennan at 3:26 PM
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