Technology Transfer (part II)

Monday, the Technology Transfer started. What happened? Well, take an educated guess. We are still trying to find out what when wrong and why…sigh. No news anymore from the migration team. Yeah, let maintenance solve it…..sigh.

The Plan
Yes, the migration team made a plan. Thou salt have a plan to lead thee out of the wilderness.

It was a specific plan, very detailed. The plan contained activities, durations and involved people. Not bad, a plan helps building structure. Unfortunately, something went wrong (OMG). How was that possible? Hmmm the plan lacked an activity called “solving problems”…

Simple math
The assumption of the plan was that all the activities would be successful (100%), none would fail. Let’s think. What is the assumption was different? What if we say that each activity had a low probability of failing, say 5%. That means that the chance that at least one of them will fail is nearly 65%. That is, one minus the 20th power of 0.95. That’s no rocket science, but simple basic Math.

I don’t know yet when we will finish this migration. Luckily, this was the migration of the Acceptance Environment.

No happy ending yet…..

The Ten Commandments of Technology Transfer

Technology Transfers, I just dislike them, especially when they are driven by the IT department. No matter what they tell you, it’s always more complex and end users usually suffer.

A major Technology Transfer is currently taking place in my organisation. The Big Cheese decided all applications will have to move from the current data centre to a brand new one. Sure, if the Big Cheese decides so, it will happen. What could possible go wrong? It’s “only” moving a server to another place…the software doesn’t change. This can be done quickly.

May I suggest a little reading dear Project Team? Try Quality Software Management volume 4 Anticipating Change, chapter 23.5 Jerry Weinberg discusses his Ten Commandments of Technology Transfer;

• Thou shalt have a plan to lead thee out of the wilderness.
• Thou shalt not worship thy plan.
• Thou shalt not ask for no person in vain.
• Thou shalt not work 7 days a week.
• Thou shalt honor thy users and listen to them.
• Thou shalt not kill support for change.
• Thou shalt not adulterate from the work.
• Thou shalt not steal resources from the work.
• Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy plan.
• Thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s optimal technology.

After reading this chapter, please don’t ask me to agree with a testing period of maximum 10 minutes. Don’t be upset anymore if I don’t want to work on my free day, after all it is my day off. I spend my days with my kids, and you didn’t consult them when you made your planning. I wish you all the best with the Technology Transfer, you will need luck.

Much appreciated.