It’s hip2b2

I have been teaching undergraduate information technology classes for five (5) years. A number of these classes were filled with BS Management of Information Systems (MIS) and BS Management of Communications Technology (MCT) majors. I try to make it a point to make the topic more relevant by adding bits and pieces on project management, IT in business or just plain war stories. Through the years, I have been using a number of idioms about IT project management. Here is one of my first:

Given Enough Resources Everything is Possible.

In IT project management, the default assumption is always that the problem is solvable. In a field that primarily deals with information, there are always ways to find a solution to the problem. Whether, it be an elegant cost-optimal solution or brute-force-just-because-it-works solution, ways and means can also be found. In general, problems are what cause things to become impossible. There are roughly two (2) general ways to solve a problem.

• Create a solution. This is the first step. Try to find the solutions looking within your pool of resources. So one can either find it, fix it or create it.
• Buy a solution. Admit it or not. This is the next step. If you can not find a solution within your pool of resources. Find it in somebody else’s pool of resources. Then you can either procure it, license it or contract somebody to make it.

In both cases, you are just trying to obtain a solution with a given set of resources. Nothing that the solution is always available. I used this phrase to emphasize the fact that (a) there is always a solution and (b) we do not have to invent, discover and think about every possible solution to every possible problem. There are people outside with more resources and better ideas. It is just a matter of capitalizing ones own strengths and making up the missing pieces with other’s strengths.

However, it is pretty obvious that resources are a scarce. Therefore, this statement is incomplete. Let us add a short phrase to make it clearer.

Given Enough Resources Everything is Possible … There is Never Enough Resources.

This adds a whole new level of meaning to the original idiom. Now, it becomes a persons burden to maximize existing resources. There is no other reason why things can not be possible. It is always the burden of the project management to manage whatever resources is available and utilize it in the best possible way.

In general, this statement can be applied to a number of fields outside Information Technology Project Management. It just seems more appropriate for a field whole only required base infrastructure is information.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 at 12:27 am and is filed under Musings and Speculations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.