I’m on a call where it’s obvious that no one knows how to fix this system, because no one is confident in their understanding of it. How many times have you been on that call? When everyone is standing back, allowing someone to come forward naturally.
So rather than someone steps forward, everyone else (audibly) stands back.
How does this situation come about?
People leave projects, people leave organisations, people get fired, people get sacked, people die. Knowledge goes when people leave and even though sometimes it only takes one or two people to know how a system works, no one is minding the gaps. The combined body of knowledge is out there somewhere. And we hope that the people who are left behind have enough knowledge and expertise and experience to work it out.
Managers, team members, leaders. We are all complicit in the loss of knowledge.
So Who is Watching?
Who should be making sure that knowledge about systems isn’t lost? Should their be overview from management? From the executive? Is anyone ever watching internally?
You can be sure that one person who is watching is your customer. Because your customer is dealing with the fallout from your flaky systems.
And then what happens? They get on the phone, or social media, or instant messenger or email, and they make your life a misery. Perhaps not directly, but they know the paths to make it happen.
Who Me?
Yes you, developer. Yes you, support person. Yes you, DevOps engineer. Yes you, system administrator. Yes you, manager. Yes you, leader.
And sometime they even make the pain felt at higher levels, but that pain isn’t felt for very long. A manager, stung into action will do something. It lands on your shoulders.
What’s Your Point?
At the end of the day, it all comes back to you. The person who cares. The person who cares the most both wins and loses. So how do you work out which person you need to be?
My advice is to be the person who cares the most, but also knows how to draw the best boundaries around your work. Find out who owns what in your organisation and make sure that there is a way to negotiate these areas of responsibilities without you having to do everything.
Caring through Respecting Invisible Work Boundaries
So how do you navigate this?
You map your environment. You learn who has the responsibility and what they are responsible for and then you make sure that you are responsible for the parts you need to be. You focus on what you need to do, you make others responsible for what they are responsible for.
Protecting your system is as much about as protecting yourself for the long term as it is about anything else.