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Showing posts with label fundamentals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fundamentals. Show all posts

Sunday, 8 May 2022

Thought Picnic: Through the glass darkly

Limited perspectives to work with

Sometimes, I have to be aware of the fact that regardless of how I am involved or invited into a situation that I do not have the full oversight of, I am quite limited in the quality of information I have to make decisions, draw conclusions, act wisely, or have judgements.

Yet, I realise that should not because of the foregoing and the limitations totally exclude me from having and stating a perspective based on the information one already has. Pertinently, you work with what you have got whilst seeking to improve on and gain more perspective and insight.

Invariably, certain judgements will be made whereupon additional evidence would lead to a review and reassessment of a previous position.

The fundamentals remain so

Then again, this should not abrogate the fundamentals and there are always fundamentals as the basis of the intricate situations we find ourselves in, that of cultivating and building of relationships. These self-same things matter, the de-escalation of conflict, an understanding of how far engagements can bear upon a situation to achieve either the expected or unfortunately the unattainable outcomes.

This is another serious component, the need to get counsel before radical personal decisions ensuring one has tested a premise against logic, reason, and reasonableness whilst reducing the danger of being left adrift and ostracised.

Reviewing standpoints on new insight

I reflect on a situation where what I thought I had observed was wrong after further enquiry, beyond which what I also learnt afterwards left me dissatisfied as to the findings, in discussions with the protagonist, their case was quite poorly made, at least to me.

Is it any wonder that on being intimated with a second-hand narrative, there was a better appreciation of the circumstances, not so much to excuse, even if there was enough to tolerate?

Whilst this does not make the conflict any easier to resolve, the de facto patriarch is essentially of limited means and scope to address certain issues that it is of a necessity to defer to me. Sadly, that point may not be entirely understood and entreaties to the patriarch would well exacerbate rather than ameliorate. My role is to find ways and means to address both immediacy and remoteness, hopefully with alacrity where provision exists, or it is deferred whilst noted.

In family matters, the complexities demand wisdom and a better sense of who can do what when met with difficulties. It behoves all to attain awareness for the reduction of conflict and the cohesion of familial ties.

Friday, 10 July 2020

Constantly learning to improve oneself

Experience under review

When I tell people in my professional circle that I have been working with Microsoft System Management Server (SMS) since 1996 with version 1.1, it is neither to intimidate nor to show off, but I hope it comes with a sense of authority that I have an idea of what I am talking about. This knowledge has defined the majority of my professional career.
Experience is a good thing and the SMS we knew then has gone through many name changes and version iterations, features added on, deprecated, evolving and maybe even transmogrifying into a monster of client, user, device, application, and data management proportions.
It became System Center Configuration Manager which we termed SCCM that the professionals called ConfigMgr, then last year, the name changed to Endpoint Configuration Manager, but we have the acronym MEMCM to play with. No questions to that apart from the fact that our Microsoft development and support backchannels prefer it that way and on Twitter, that is the hashtag they will respond too. [Wikipedia: Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager]
Exchanging ideas for improvement
We have a large and active community of administrators and architects who not only share ideas, solutions, and tips, we are also the best innovation resource for getting features implemented in the product, some of which I have contributed to going back over 15 years.
That I know how the product works does not mean I am the apostle of product functionality or technology, I am constantly looking for new ideas and perspectives, scenarios others have encountered that they have applied novel solutions to and shared with our community.
I have a test lab at home running on an extensive setup of virtual machines on which I try out ideas and gain conversance with the new features. Nothing works as good as having an issue at work and me logging on to my home network to check things out either to affirm or dispute issues.
Going back to the roots
Yet, more pertinently is the need for someone with my experience to find time to go back over the fundamentals, the first principles, or the essentials. It is important to never assume that the primers or introductions cannot contain new and useful information to help reinforce or finally, debunk a premise that was getting the prominence of gospel truth until the times and changes obviated that assertion.
For my weekend reading, I found a 346-page manual of how to setup MEMCM from scratch, I know a lot of it, and I and still learn much more, I am open to new knowledge that would give my expertise more heft. The job of learning never ends and like I sometimes say, that is a good thing.