Thinking about Agile Data Projects

I work in IT. I have been for about 30 years. I have created programs to handle household accounting, programs that run on chip cards, that tried matching job opportunities to candidates, that calculated and reported figures to the finance and other departments...

I was lucky to become an architect to help gather data across an organization, setup the governance of data. I have had the good fortune to manage and/or coach one or more teams in enabling a set of all of what I just mentioned.

I am of the age apparently when we start to think of what we have done, and what is left to do. So, from my perspective, what is now left to do?

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Maybe I should rephrase this. How do I ensure that I am still driven to do my very best? These past few years I have come to the perspective that it is more about how to keep improving, rather than reaching an end state.

What drives me to continuously think about how to better the world I work in? Mind you, I also think about how to improve the world I live in. I can always act more environment friendly, sustain or improve my health, support those around me better, ... In the long run I believe it is all connected. For now, I will limit myself to the world where I carry out my professional activities.

There is no single list of drivers I can find that would make me say “this is it”. However, I do believe there is a limited set of viewpoints. Why viewpoints? Viewpoints are places that help us think about something in a specific way. So, I now have a set of viewpoints. Are they “it”? Well, I like to think they help me look at my work in a way that can cover “everything”. Really? Everything? Well, I will do my very best. I also know my mind is limited. And 28 or more viewpoints will not help me understand or improve my work better. I start this exercise with seven viewpoints. That number may rise, or it may fall. I do not know that today.

What are they?

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Actions

What we do is debated on, usually from the perspective of effectiveness (are we doing what we want to do) and efficiency (how are we doing it). I am a believer that we cannot plan every contingency. So, we should think about how resilient we are in the face of possible problems.

Decisions

We humans make decisions on what to do, how to do them,... The way in which we approach our decision making process is another perspective I want on this list.

Static and Dynamic

Another way to view things is to look at it from a static perspective. We then look at what there is when nothing is moving. The flip side of this is when there is movement. We can then take the viewpoint of those same items, but now they are moving.

Individuals and Teams

We can do a lot of things individually, or we can do them in a team. Multiple teams can work together to carry out bigger actions. Knowing how people can or cannot work together is essential in discovering how to be achieve what we want to do.

Architecture

This is a blog on an IT subject. Inevitably architecture comes to mind. This perspective will help us look at what we do from different layers.

The last 2 viewpoints take us into a more overview role. They help us to look at the whole.

Systems Thinking

The systems I encounter more and more, are becoming increasingly complex. I suspect a lot of us get that impression. These complex systems force us to think from yet another perspective. And so “systems thinking” is coming to the foreground as well.

5 Wives and 1 Husband

This is just a famous mnemonic to help us list questions from as many perspectives as possible. I add it in here because it helps me remember how to start addressing something within the other perspectives. Who / What / Where / When / Why / How. You can differentiate the How into How / How Many / How Much. The last 2 is to add in a quantitative approach if the answers didn’t include numbers yet.

All these perspectives I have put together from various trainings and projects I have been on, literature I have read... As stated above, I wanted to see how I can continue to be driven by what I do. I want to continuously improve. These perspectives will help me find the necessary drivers.

I will continue to write about this. I will start adding blogs on what I encountered in the different viewpoints. Maybe I might change this “grounding” article. I do not know that yet.