I.T., Leadership and Creativity

This afternoon at DFW airport, American Airlines apparently lost our plane. I was booked on the 4.30 pm flight from DFW to Sacramento, terminal A gate 19. I arrived at the gate, to find what looked like a fine example of an aicraft parked at the gate. I thought this would be an on-time departure. No such luck. Before long the plane was pulled back from the gate, and the tannoy crackled to life with the news that our flight was delayed. The announcement might have said something about mechanical issues, but then again it could have said that the plane was being stolen for another flight...I was too far from the gate to hear the full story. Then the usual run-around commenced. At 4.15 pm we were shifted to gate 21, so we all trooped along the concourse and settled down for a wait. The gate agent at gate 21 claimed that the flight was delayed until 4.50 pm, but since we reached 4.50 pm with no sign of a plane at gate 21, it soon became apparent that we were now in Bullshit News territory.
The next announcement was that a plane was being rushed over from a hangar. Then came an announcement that the plane was trapped behind another plane in the hangar...this now had me convinced that somebody somewhere was making up BS excuses and passing them down. The gate agents apparently seemed to think so. After the last explanation, she paused and said "Sorry, I know it's not very good as an excuse but that's what we have got".
Eventually a plane showed up. Despite the gate agent request for people to get out of the way at the gate to let passengers on in group order, people kept hanging around getting in the way. What is it with some people that when they enter an airport they have to behave like total oorons? It is almost as if they leave their brains kerbside.
We eventually took off 1 hour and 15 minutes late. I was shoehorned into row 31, behind a lady who instantly deployed her seat recliner, but in front of a seat blocked by a baby carrier. So I could not use my laptop. Grrr. I contented myself with paper writing and listening to which tunes on the iPod are currently corrupted.

I found this article today about the feasibility and viability of offshoring Business Analysis. The discussion begins with this sobering paragraph:

Professor Albert Mehrabian’s communication model for verbal interaction states that for describing feelings and attitudes to something (taken, with apologies, from original LinkedIn discussion from Paul Anderson’s comment):

* 7% of meaning is in the words that are spoken.

* 38% of meaning is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).

* 55% of meaning is in facial expression.

The immediate (possible) cost saving can be outweighed by costs that will emerge arising from poor analysis which will significantly outweigh the original cost savings.

The key conclusions of the article is that cost savings alone are a poor reason for offshoring this type of activity, and a number of other conditions need to be met for offshoring business analysis to succeed in the medium-term. I think that the article is not really that comprehensive, and there is scope for a more detailed study of how offshoring could be made to work for business analysis. I remain skeptical of the effectiveness of offshoring these types of solution delivery functions, because you run into all sorts of complications, ranging through time zones to differences in verbal language, body language etc. Having just come off a spell on an account dominated by offshore (Indian) resources, I have a very real understanding of how (for example) the word Yes has a very different meaning in different parts of the world.

I got around to doing some reading one lunchtime this week about the differences between the active generations as defined by sociologists. The ones we all hear about are:

Silents              1930-1945
Baby Boomers         1945-1964
Generation X         1965-1980
Generation Y         1981-2000
Millenials           2000-present

I don't think we are about to see any Millenials in the workplace, except possibly on "Bring Your Child To Work" days...however, the other generations are out there. There are not many Silents, but they are still to be found, working away. Generation Y is making its way into the workplace.
Officially, according to this classification, I am a Baby Boomer, since I was born in 1955. However, when I read the defining characteristics of Baby Boomers and compare them to the other generational characteristics, it is not that simple...for example, although I still have trouble seeing the employer-employee relationship in purely transactional terms (a classic Baby Boomer characteristic), I have the love of music of a Generation X person, and the tech-savviness of a Generation Y person.
I guess this is a powerful personal illustration of the danger of "broad-brush" stereotypes. An alternative view is that, as a natural contrarian, I am like Groucho Marx, who famously said "I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member"...

This book and an associated collection of essays at 37 Signals has some very interesting thoughts about how to build software.