And we all know it will never happen. Or, actually, it will. Next time it breaks, or next time we need to make an update (which will happen precisely at the same time of another crisis, so we won’t have time to do it right that time either). There is a reason why duct tape is so popular, right?

What have you noticed about temporary solutions?

Here are a few points I can think of:

1. They are applied with agreement from management –either implicit or explicit
2. Everybody knows we won’t fix it until it breaks again –an we all agree to that
3. They last three years (This is what I call the Andres Vivas rule of Temporary solutions)
4. They get deployed at the last minute, just when the deadline is here, so we use that as justification of why we had to do it
5. We won’t document it, do next time it breaks we will have to sit down and think, trying to remember why and how we deployed it –and that is IF the same staff is still there three years after it was deployed, otherwise the newer staff will have to guess and then think that the people that were there before them were not competent at all

What else have you noticed about Temporary Solutions?

I am sure that better planning should minimize these situations, but how can we avoid these situations completely? Any ideas?

Meanwhile, as a temporary solution, I will leave the discussion open, I’ll come back to revisit this topic when I have more time.

Post from: Strategic IT Planning Blog, by Andres Vivas.

Beware of Temporary Solutions

Technorati Tags: IT Strategy, planning, Temporary solutions