“We’ve many
names for the things we love” is a proverbial phrase (its Swedish equivalent
basically swaps “things” for “child”). Which in turn makes me wonder if human
nature loves overdoing the upfront
spadework and sometimes even prefers it to making things take shape. Contrary
to what IT-people tend to believe, IT is not alone in the overdoing trap.
1. Analysis
Paralysis
Is often
IT-related in some way, but can actually occur even in financial analyses or
big-data analytics with unclear objectives. Long story short: YAGNI (You Ain’t Gonna
Need It), plus the problem domain changing as you go (and increasingly, being automated).
2.
Researchitis
(Excessively
researching the background of things,) is common in journalism and other writing
professions. In the age of search engines however, it tends to precede most
things we do.
3.
Blankscreenophobia
(Fear
of a new blank page on the screen,) is both a sequel and an aggravator of
number 1. or 2.
4. Writer’s Block
(In Sweden called write-cramp). To
extend from writing to drawing, coding, and other tasks: “Brainslump” fits most
kinds of work, but has a shorter duration than writer’s block.
Then, how much upfront work is
“lagom” (the Swedish for just right, just large enough, sufficient, adequate,
not too little not too much)?
The time spent upfront shall be
worth less than the benefit it brings about (as our Architecture and Agile
Modeling courses point out, see diagram). Estimating that benefit implies some
insight into the needs of the recipients/users: do they want it comprehensive - or rather comprehensible, up to date, in sync, and
informative? How can it facilitate their work and decisions?
Summing up
Both in Agile and elsewhere,
there’s a fine line between unnecessary overhead upfront and building upon the
sand. Neither modeling, nor architecture (IT, SW, Product, Enterprise), nor
other high-skill work is exempt from the tradeoff.
Trainer at Informator, senior modeling and architecture consultant at Kiseldalen.com,
main author : UML Extra Light (Cambridge University Press) and Growing Modular (Springer),
main author : UML Extra Light (Cambridge University Press) and Growing Modular (Springer),
Milan and Informator collaborate since 1996 on architecture, modelling, UML, requirements, analysis and design. In the next few months, you can meet him at Architecture ( T1101 , T1430, in English or Swedish) or Modeling courses ( T2715, T2716 , mainly in Swedish).
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