Vision and Mission

 Most of the concepts in this post have been said better elsewhere, but I find myself reflecting on them with every new client so it makes sense to write it down. So - working from top down...

A "Vision" or "Mission" statement is a formal acknowledgement of the purpose of an organisation. It describes why that group of people are working together and what they hope to achieve.

There is a difference between "Vision" and "Mission". The former is a target and relates to an outcome-based enterprise. The latter is a process and is used by a system-focused organisation. You may have both but it is an red flag that the point of the group is not clearly understood.

Each division of the whole, the different business units, are also groups of people working together and hence should have a defined purpose - one that aligns with the larger organisation. These need not be the same type: Project Management is naturally results-based and a project needs a vision, while Operations are an on-going activity and hence should have a mission.

If a Vision or Mission defines a direction, the next lower level is defining how to progress. These are defined by "Strategies" or "Goals" - again, system or outcome focused. While it makes sense to have strategies to reach a Vision, or goals while carrying out a Mission, making a clear connection to purpose is easier if the focus remains similar.

The next level I call "Tactics" and "Targets", although I've heard many different terms across different companies- or even with the single one. Targets should comply with the SMART principle: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. (Tactics do as well, but I am not sure what the appropriate acronym is for a process-based activity).

 As a statement of purpose, the Vision or Mission should have direct relevance at every level of the enterprise and provide a sense of connection to the whole. The tactical level is where day to day work happens and therefore where most employees live. To create a sense of belonging and employee engagement comes from the link back up to the higher purpose.

I've found that many organisations have a Vision which new starters hear during induction but which has no relationship to their actual work. When the enterprise's reason-for-being is a mish-mash of buzz words or generalities, ignored by internal staff and unknown by externals, it becomes quite difficult to make sure activities and capabilities are aligned.

Executive managers know they need a Strategy to back up their Vision and, indeed, I've found most business units also have a rough plan they call a strategy. Often they are generated by highly paid consultants, are about five years old and are stored somewhere on the corporate "G: Drive". Tactics appear as "business processes" and can be represented by the ad hoc behaviours that employees actually carry out, while Targets are only mentioned in Sales meetings and Performance Reviews.

In short - lip service is paid to these mechanisms for getting people working together in a single purpose; which is, after all, the primary reason for an organisation to be created, but the techniques are rarely followed in practice. This is why (or at least one of the main reasons) different parts of an organisation often seem to be pulling in different directions. 

In my position this is usually stated as "IT do not support the business needs". More correctly, either IT or the Business Unit (commonly both) strategies, if they exist, do not align with the corporate purpose. Or they align with different interpretations of the corporate strategy. In either case, the Vision or Mission is not being clearly communicated to those who are supposed to implement it.

Privilege and Game Difficulty

Several years ago there appeared an article somewhere about communicating of advantage and privilege by reference to computer games. The point being that being a white male in a developed country means playing the game of life on the Easy Level. Being coloured, female or poor means increasingly hard work to "win" at life. It is possible but not difficult.

Which raises the thought that the flip-side might be an interesting way to code a game. The difficulty level is chosen by selecting the player character. Again rich white male is the easy level. Many games already allow you to chose to start with less resources, so you have to work hard to catch up before continuing. In online games you can buy your way in with real money.

Following the same line of thinking, playing as female should mean you need twice as many XP to level up, thus replicating the real world more closely. Being non-white can impact the way NPCs react, prices in stores, the approach of the guards etc. Further separation by using different levels of "non-white" based on the culture of the level - although that gets a little more complicated.

I am not sure if this is a good idea or not. On the one hand, it highlights the problems that many members of our society deal with. Making the issues relate-able to those cause the problem may help. It also allows people to generate characters that are more similar to themselves, or to experience how the other 1% live.

On the other hand, is it likely to institutionalise the view that rich, white and male are the only way to be and anyone else is somehow less.

Platform Selection

Digital platforms are a trend in IT and larger enterprises are adopting them heavily. Any platform provides a set of related technical services which may be configured to create applications that support business operations. There are variety of types available, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and it not always clear which is most suitable.

The current crop of available products overlap a great deal; and market forces are leading the major vendors to include  everything for everybody. The point of the following diagram is not to be absolutely correct with the capabilities of different types of platform. It is to show the similarity in feature sets.

If your needs are straightforward and your usage is not complex, then almost any common digital platform will probably fit your needs. But vendor history and product origins are still manifest in core of the platforms they produce. Selecting the right one means choosing a vendor whose focus best aligns with the core business of your organisation.

Governance and due diligence in the finance industry means that repeatable, verifiable process is more important than individual customers. Health necessarily relies on individual attention and expert judgement. The core systems in each case have different basic characteristics even if the surface functionality is similar.

It shouldn't need saying but understanding your business, and explicitly recording its purpose, simplifies the selection process enormously.

Agile Management vs Agile Architecture

Project management is, by its very nature, linear. There is step-by-step process which may fork and merge but which has a critical path and an inherent order.
The Agile approach contradicts this somewhat; iterations look like reversing direction and constant revision appears to be scope creep. As indeed it can be. A good project manager adapts by dealing with a curved line rather than a straight one. But still a line.
Architecture looks at a problem in a more multi-dimensional way. A solution is created by first sketching the shape and adding detail by refining - or changing aspects as you go. A problem has multiple facets which are all valid ways of looking at a system.
This approach works well with Agile, as long as it is incorporated into the (wider*) cycles and a basic enterprise framework is in place beforehand.
Which is, I think, why some junior managers find my ways of working as somewhat frustrating. Senior managers tend to care more about outcomes and oversight than the exact mechanism for getting there.

* "Agile" as practiced in most organisations is more correctly described as 'iterative' where each phase of the SDLC cycles to refine the output and also cycles as a whole to build up a practical system from the "MVP".

Interoperability in Construction

In IT there is a strong drive to buy Off-The-Shelf software sold (or leased) by a known vendor. This is generally a good idea, why build it yourself if someone else offers something better at a reasonable price.
However, one of the issues is that the packages contain everything they need to work in isolation, but they are very rarely in isolation. Any IT system in any sizable organisation requires working in conjuction with multiple other systems, being connected and sharing responsibilities - interoperating with the rest of the technology landscape.

By analogy, consider building a house.
You buy the plans, or a pre-fab designed by a reputable firm with a history of quality workmanship. The house follows a standard layout that works for 99% of the firm's customers and will probably work for you as well. The design just needs to be built and minor adjustments made to suit the land, local regulations, your personal preferences and so forth.

Of course, the vendor wants to appeal to a wide audience and so the plans are written to allow the house to be built almost anywhere. As such they include a water tank and septic system, solar panels and space for a walk-in freezer. After all, you may want to build in the back of beyond away from modern conveniences. On the other hand, you may also wish to build on an inner city block with everything just on the door-step including a parking garage next door.

If a good architect wrote the plans, the design the water tank to be replaced with a mains supply without any other impact on the build. The garage could be left out and the electrical connections would all run through a switchboard that could be wired into the grid. This is interoperability.
Too many of the off-the-shelf packages I have seen have the equivalent of filling the water tank from mains and assume that is a suitable fix.

Gender and Terminology

First - I am a straight white male and I have no right to make value comments on anyone who isn't. This post is more about taxonomy and terminology. It is random musing (as is the whole blog) to bring some structure to the topic and provide a way of thinking about it.

The current terms for non-standard sexuality is LBGTQIA+, which is an attempt to cover all variations and traits. The term is very unwieldy we is indicative of trying to mix multiple concepts under one banner. I can think of at least four aspects, each of which has a spectrum of meaning. Combining them into a single term makes the Alphabet soup above. The comprehensive alternative is to define the concept by using a negative - hence "non-standard sexuality"; making the message about what it IS NOT, rather than what it IS.

The four concepts mixed together here I tend to think of a: gender, identity, orientation and intensity. Anyone more closely involved in the relevant community is welcome to come up with alternatives.

• Gender is the biological/genetic factor.

Most people are have either XX or XY chromosomes and therefore can be classified as female or male. This is totally objective, measurable and (in theory) should not be the subject of dispute. It is possible to separate people according this measure, but often not particularly useful or meaningful.
The qualifier 'most' is important because not everyone fits into theses groups. There are a small but significant number who are XXY, YY, XYY or multiple variations in between. These are also valid but often ignored in society as being too small a group to worry about - unless, of course, you are in that group.

• Identity is what a person considers themselves to be.

There are cultural norms, attitudes and expected behaviours which apply to 'men' and 'women' in our society and not everyone feels aligned to the expectations enforced on their biological gender. As far as I know, Identity is a psychological and subjective factor; every person has their feeling about who they are and how they would like to interact with others.
I feel that in a society where male and female were exactly equal and had the same expectations, Sexual Identity would be less important. But I have no direct experience with the matter and am fully prepared to be corrected by someone who knows better.

• Orientation is which sex (gender or identity) one is attracted to.

Pair bonding is about the relationship between two people rather than about an individual. Without getting into the four (five?) definitions of love, Orientiation in this context is about sexuality, not other forms of bonding. The traditional case is attraction to the opposite *gender*, although, with biological clues to Gender subsumed by societal expressions of Identity, uncertainty is not only possible but common (see The Crying Game).
There is evidence that Orientation is partially genetic and partially learned, and not wholly (if at all) voluntary.

• Intensity is how strongly an individual feels about Sex.

Many people are not particularly interested in the sexual act, many feel very strongly about it. There is a stereotype that males are more interested that females. This dimension is much more diffuse and than the others; more a normal curve rather than a double peak; more people in the middle rather than at either end.
In line with all the other categories, anyone who doesn't fit the profile (e.g. asexuality) is considered with suspicion by people who are threatening by the unfamiliar.

Breaking it down this way shows that the different aspects of LGBTI etc. really cover a wide range of types and groups who have little in common, other than being outside the mainstream.

Political allegiances?

Just to get it straight in my own mind:

The left/right political spectrum is orthogonal to the authoritarian/libertarian axis. Feudalism, by its very nature is Right-wing Authoritarian (the leader is always right and tells you what to do). Utopia, as generally depicted, is Left-wing Libertarian (you are supported no matter what you wish to do).
Mussolini, Hilter and Stalin were all authoritarian, but of Right, Centre and Left leaning versions respectively.
Capitalism is essential Right-wing Libertarian, Communism (as practiced) is Left-wing Authoritarian.

Which begs the question of a more descriptive term for Left/Right. Technically, the divide comes from the French revolution. Hence Right = conservative and hierarchical, keep things they are. Left = revolutionary and, by extension equality. Although, king vs peasants is authority vs liberty and therefore on the other axis.

Talk about the current global situation tending to feudalism is based on the concentration of power in the hands of a few massively weathly individuals and the companies they own. That is Right-wing Authoritarian, although that doesn't feel right. Mostly these leaders are collecting power (in the form of its proxy - money) but only exercising it in a limited number of ways. And some are quite progressive in finding ways to enhance themselves.

Perhaps there is another dimension at play that has not yet been defined.