IT Transformation with SOA

Ten years ago the world was abuzz with worry, holding its collective breath while waiting to see if the turn of the millennium with the much touted Y2K bug would bring an end to civilization.  (Fools, I say, we all know the end of civilization will occur in 2012!)

The so-called “Millennium Bug” wasn’t actually a bug but rather a side effect of legacy applications written during a time when the cost of storing one byte was about ten million times higher than it is today. Storing only the last two digits of the year did save tons of money for those using super-expensive disk storage. The problem was that legacy applications over-extended their welcome as they are prone to do. Avoiding a negative impact to the information systems with the coming of the year 2000 became a critical imperative[1]. 

With a total worldwide estimated cost of $200B (about one fifth the estimated cost of the Iraq war), the industry faced the challenge driven by the hype associated with the problem. In the end, the only firework displays came from the beautiful millennial ceremonies in Sydney harbor and the Eiffel Tower. January 1, 2000 came and went with barely a hiccup.

Soon a narrative of how we had all been duped by the IT people with all their “Y2K fear mongering” began to take shape. During a CNN interview, a US Senator who was opposing a new budget request stated, “Let’s not have another Y2K project where we spent so much money and then . . . nothing happened!” I was thunderstruck. Leave it to a politician. His line of reasoning was akin to this, “I paid all that life insurance money to cover me this year and nothing happened! What a bad investment that was!”

All this got me thinking about the fuzzy nature of success. For the most part, failure is easy to recognize (although good spin doctors can be masters at hiding them!), but success is not.  Even endeavors that were clearly successful in terms of having accomplished their stated goals (“send a man to the moon and bring him back safely”) have had their detractors. “The project was over-budget”.  “Astronauts died in the process”. “The whole mission was a fool-errand”. “That money could have been used to solve world-hunger”, et cetera, et cetera. 

Typically, a project that succeeds in each and every one of its dimensions is either a chimera or something that was not ambitious enough to begin with.  Every successful project will always have areas were things do not come up perfectly. This is especially true with complex transformation projects!

If the objective of a project is to deliver something tangible, you can at least make a compelling argument for its success. However, projects intended to avoid risks will always be more difficult to defend.

As far as that US senator was concerned, the Y2K intervention had been a failure because he was looking only at the cost involved in the effort. He was unable to understand that “nothing should happen” was actually the criteria for success. The hundreds of billions of dollars spent to avert the Y2K bug was money that had been well spent precisely because “nothing happened”; plus there’s anecdotal evidence that the Y2K remediation efforts also drove beneficial application makeovers. The Y2K catastrophe was avoided, but sadly, I still hear many who should know better (CFOs. CEOs, TV pundits) making comments similar to the senator’s.

I have witnessed many projects deprived of recognition simply because they provided a quiet success. No drama. It is a mark of our times that projects that first fail and then eventually get fixed (usually at extra expense and time) are the ones that tend to get credited and celebrated the most (Hubble Space telescope anyone?). However, projects that deliver their promise right off the bat; especially when the promise is one of risk aversion, receive little or no recognition.  I have witnessed projects that delivered and even exceeded their key goals, but because they failed to meet one hundred percent on original expectations (and I believe no serious project ever does!), they ended up being perceived as failures. This is particularly true for large projects were the magnifying lens of politically-driven critiques from those keen on shooting down a successful effort or casting a bad light on other’s accomplishments happily point out missed milestones or highlight wrinkles in the delivery.

Still, it’s good to remember that lack of recognition is one of the main reasons seasoned professionals search for greener pastures. Success should always be assessed fairly and realistically and then be celebrated. Every successful milestone and accomplishment should be recognized and used as a foundation for the next step up the ladder.  And for every successful step we should also give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving!