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Re: de-inventing the wheel (discussion)by toma (Vicar) |
on Jun 22, 2001 at 01:10 UTC ( [id://90543]=note: print w/replies, xml ) | Need Help?? |
In order to convince someone to upgrade, you need to
convince them that there is a compelling reason to do so.
Creating this argument is not a small task, and you may
not be in a position in the company where it would be
acceptable for you to even try to win this argument. That is,
managers may feel that they should do the managing, and
you should do the coding. If this is the case, you have
several ways to be successful anyway:
One way to get managers to change the way they look at things is to come up with a theme. For example, to ship the existing site, managers probably had a theme like "Get to market". You need to show that you understand that this was the idea, and how it should be changed to something like "Secure the site". Maybe your next theme would be "Improve customization" or "Reduce cost of new features". Only propose one theme, though, and keep the theme short and simple, such as one or two words. These themes give the abilility to convince your audience of something that is not an implementation detail. At the level of the company above your department, the manager probably shouldn't care what version of perl you are using. This manager should care about functionality, usability, reliability, performace, and supportability. (If you memorize the previous sentence it will come in handy.) You will win when you convince a decision-maker that you can influence one or more of these important attributes. The decision-maker will understand the plan in terms of a simple theme, and will be convinced that you understand the implementation details needed to carry out the plan. Someone will have the specific assignment to make the plan happen, and will be held accountable if it fails. This probably sounds like a lot of work, and it may be that so far no one has had the drive to carry it out. It should work perfectly the first time! - toma
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