✡ Here are 5 technical ideals that we should make sure all of our work conforms to and how they each support your local Value Proposition.
Support the Value Proposition – Yes! You thought the first one would be anything but? Make sure your work supports the Value Proposition! If this isn’t clear take a moment to ask yourself or the team you are working with to clarify. Odds are that you are not the only one wondering or even better sometimes when people think they understand something, saying it out loud and having to explain it to a colleague helps them clarify their own understanding.
Simplification – Ask yourself: “is this work simplifying a process, code, tables, structures, naming, etc… a part of our enterprise?” If the answer is no, stop it. If the answer isn’t clear, stop it and talk to the team about perhaps a better way to go about the work, alternate ideas, or newer technology that can be brought to bear that will help. A good example of this would be the work to make all the column names in the DW match a standard.
Manageability – Ask yourself: “is this work making this data or process easier to manage?” Think about our reference data and how it needs tough work to consolidate. If we do our jobs right it should become more manageable. Again, if you think you are making it less manageable or not sure, raise your hand and let’s get this clarified quickly.
Reduction in Time or Cost – I am going to start to sound repetitive here! But here goes…Ask yourself: “Am I making this data get to where it needs to go faster or with less cost? How is this effecting accuracy and precision?” Make sure you know the answer to this before you begin.
Radiation of Information – Anything we do should start with a brief articulation of the proposed technical plan and how it meets the stated business need. This tech plan should be reviewed by your immediate team for fitness, adjusted as needed, and then implemented. The plan serves as the basis for historical information that can quickly be put up on the wiki and radiated to the entire company. You should then maintain these notes to be handed in at the end of an implementation as the formal documentation to augment the code and project. The idea here is to make thinking, planning, doing and documenting one seamless expression of high quality work. To keep with my pattern – Ask yourself: “Am I documenting this enough? Have I radiated enough information on this topic? Would a bystander be able to pick up my work if I won the lottery?”