Badly Designed Systems Are Just That

Learning to Laugh

Life can be a rather humorous existence, or at least, I tend to laugh at myself more than I berate myself. It is a healthy disposition to have. What fools we have been in too many things, though hopefully we have refused to allow those things to define us.

Consider the pressure to deliver a product that was less than ready for primetime, yet pushed towards deployment by the powers that be. This came after misgivings and concerns that eventually became valid and were proved so too.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

A Premise That Failed

I found myself testing a premise that did not work. Every time I made an adjustment, I did not see the expected result. When I was asked to put it out immediately, I had one inescapable point: what is not working cannot be deployed. I had a slight window of protest, insisting that until it worked on my system, it could go nowhere.

When I eventually got the working parts to work, I realised my error had been using a similarly named old component when the new one was intended. The urge from one end had beclouded my ability to concentrate. Once I discovered what the issue was, I sternly suggested that people should ease off and wait for my update.

Back to the Drawing Board

The next morning, we saw some results, along with the proof of why the other parts would not work. We had the knowledge, but the architects, in their wisdom and hubris, thought they knew better.

Did I not write about this last month, when I set out why technical authority without social consent produces brittle solutions? The whole process returned to the drawing board, yet once again it missed the essential part of engagement that would take a great concept to a successful deployment.

Then came another issue. I had written a letter to express my frustration at being unable to secure a slot for a review. The website presented a user experience you barely wanted to relive once, let alone many times over a couple of weeks.

An Unwinnable Lottery

As I recorded all the issues that fed what had looked like an unwinnable lottery for access, I clicked on another link within the interface, only to find that a slot had already been booked on my behalf, though I could find no record of being informed of that appointment.

I did, however, find one message that allowed the rescheduling of an earlier slot; but I attributed that to another booking I had received a few days before. What was missing from the information exchanges was any indication of what each message particularly pertained to.

When Systems Forget the User

How much better it could have been if they had not assumed they were the only ones communicating with you, and that the possibility of multiple appointments scheduled within a short timeframe might exacerbate the confusion about what was what.

This discovery meant my letter of frustration did not have to be sent. It was also a relief that the said slot had not passed, as the alternative arrangements made would not have been realised for almost three weeks.

The Wry Smile

Essentially, badly designed systems are just that: badly designed, no matter how they seem to work. The end user is simply left with concerns, frustrations and misgivings, entirely out of the frame of what affects them the most, because they are not properly considered as part of why, and for whom, the system was designed.

Then, for each of these episodes, when things are not as bad as they once seemed, there is a wry smile, some mirth and laughter, and even that urge to step out for a walk for having been so worked up earlier.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

When The Metrics Don't Measure Our Pain

When IT Problems Defy Logic

There are days when a knotty IT issue becomes every bit a Gordian knot. Every which way you try to untie it, your efforts face a dilemma that seems insoluble, bordering on totally impossible.

The limits of your expertise are tested by situations that usually defy logic or comprehension. You could almost hear yourself wondering whether your analysis stands the test of cogency and a proper understanding of the issue.

Finding Compromises

I offered to help two colleagues with some intractable problems. In one case, we found a useful compromise, having identified the bottlenecks and eliminated the drag created by unreachable links embedded in an active document.

The other was a tougher proposition, not made easier by a user who was a serial tinkerer, effecting unauthorised changes to his device. Then, with shadow identities resulting from a poorly implemented user lifecycle process, everything that could go wrong did. This contrasted sharply with the better setup and possibly more docile cohort of our wider user community.

Grasping at Straws

Each time we thought we had something that explained the problem, the apparent lifeline turned into clutching at straws for dear life. A walk out in the cold did not progress matters. I have now shared the conundrum with a wider technical group, and they are probably just scratching their heads without offering the succour of knowing our pain.

The Metrics Game

It is in the midst of this that the management team expects us to close incidents to fulfil a numbers metric, without any notion of the background effort that goes into issues we simply cannot resolve promptly, conclusively, and confidently. Tomorrow is another day.

A Lighter Note

Meanwhile, I have been thinking along with Brian about suitable collective nouns that anyone can remember and make good sense of. We started with a Bambi of deer and quite likely a Nemo of clownfish. I also fancy a Shaun of sheep.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Dreamscape: Flying out to places

Fishing for dreams

Dreams can be an outlet valve of unresolved conflicts and bothersome conundrums. It is one of those things that filters through the gills of my mind as I sleep from which I get some oxygen of inspiration or the carbon monoxide of distress.

Strangely, I choose a piscine analogy in a watery existence considering I cannot swim. This is something others approach with ease that I am yet to develop any skill for. On the matter of ease, it is dreams where the easy becomes insurmountable or impossible, frustrated by thinking, people, events, or situations, sometimes working in concert.

Beyond your self

Such one strives to forget lest the concept takes any root and begins to impact the order of things. Yet, dreams can change you, in some settings your agility is legendary and superhuman, you can fly as long as you are far from those who think you might be a witch rather than challenge their lack of imagination.

Elsewhere, you are galumphing and hesitant, tardy and infirm, lacking in strength and resolve, contrary to what you know you can do. I want to believe the hard is resolved therein and in waking up, you are beyond it, that phase ending for something new to happen. You just lost 2 hours of sleep after that.

Thought Picnic: Problem Solving or Providing Solutions

Tyres and travel

Problem-solving can be interesting, you find yourself in the middle of some difficultly and caught in the maelstrom of something not going right that you need to right.

Problems however have a small sphere of choices to tackling the issue. A problem can be a punctured tyre, you fix it by changing the tyre.

You probably cannot stop a problem from happening, but if you had the greater scope of tackling a problem with providing a solution, you might get better tyres, ply a different route than one riddled with nails or sharp objects that could puncture tyres, have the road swept or even travel by other means of transport, by rail, by water or by air.

Time of travel, route and destination being factors and variables of that solution beyond the risk of a flat tyre.

Nailing the problem

Solutions have the latitude of choice because you are free from being tied to a particular problem to looking at all the issues and circumstances that present that type of problem.

Then again, a problem can be a nail that for whatever reason cannot be hammered in properly to complete some furniture. Obviously, you could hit the nail harder, maybe try to prise the nail out and try to hammer in another nail and still end up with the same problem.

If you decided to use joinery you have a solution without the need of nails, you could adopt a flat pack method that uses screws, joinery also does not require nails, maybe mould the furniture piece or forge it.

Beyond the nail, when one is abstracted from the problem, you have the opportunity to think up solutions, you move from immediacy of the particular to the appreciation of the general. You elevate the craft from the bubble of problem solving that a technician is saddled with to providing a solution that an expert is engaged for.

Stirring the solution

Providing a solution allows new thinking, resourceful thinking, allows for new approaches to a thorny issue and gives options to jettison whatever had been done before where things have been stuck in a rut.

It is the difference between fighting the politics of the way things were done before and a new way of doing things and doing those things differently and better. That is the spirit of progress and the joy of engineering solutions.

There are situations where the circumstances require that the presumptions of the resident geek be challenged, they having framed issues in their concept of what they think the problem is.

One can understand the difficulty if that becomes what solutions are being crafted for but it restricts the focus of the solution provider to that perspective resulting in a frustrating conflict of ideas, as a preponderance is being given to a situation over another quite unfairly.

Not on my rope

At which point the debate has to shift radically, let them down easily but not on my rope, one is here to provide solutions not solve problems, it can personal and one is presented with feeding the egos of geniuses who should be seriously preoccupied with something else.

Now, how do you present this in a meeting? Wisdom and tact with English reserve does not seem to be hitting the nail on the head of this conundrum, yet if we must pass the test of reasonableness, it must not be centred on solving the problem but on providing a solution. I have to get this across, assertively, aggressively and conclusively.

Thought Picnic: Step Away

Break the cycle

Stepping away is sometimes the best way to get a new perspective to solving a problem, at least that is what I have learnt time and again when met with thorny issues.

There comes a time when you are caught in the cycle of thinking the same way of tackling a problem that the ideas proffered almost seem like clutching at straws for survivor defying common-sense and logic as proposal after proposal is given to take the issue from simply implausible to a looming impossibility.

It’s a challenge, not a nail

The times we have gathered to hammer at the problem to the point that everything looks like a nail, exhausted out of pressures to perform and resolve with the obstinacy that takes to the fore as if sending a print job to the office LaserJet printer more than once will eventually create the pressure to force the clearing of a paper jam – Alas, a printer does not work like a sink drain, the wisdom of the plunger will not apply.

Whereas, I have been more pragmatic, indeed, a serious problem needs a prompt solution, a thorny problem however needs a clear understanding as to the reasons for the problem before one can begin to craft a solution, either temporary or progressively deployed towards a permanent one.

You don’t have to tackle the obvious

I remember one situation where our network was invaded by a malicious worm that basically stopped our ability to continue a deployment. My boss was particular that the deployment kept to schedule, but I knew that without curtailing the worm which effectively compromised systems before protection kicked it, there was no way we could continue deployments, in fact, no deployment was possible.

In the end, though unbeknownst to my boss, what we had to do was novel, put in a step at the very beginning of the deployment process that removed the worm from vulnerable systems and in so doing so we protected the systems enough to complete the deployments and install a more managed process of handling malware.

Basically, whilst the immediate issue to my boss was fulfilling quotas for deployment, the solution was primarily in focusing on curtailing the spread of the worm and eventually eradicating the menace.

Cool heads, brisk action

Once, I was away on holiday and my colleagues were worked almost to exhaustion to manage a virus outbreak, a situation I tried to monitor whilst I was away.

Strangely, when I returned, a colleague suggested, if I was around, the situation might have been handled with calmer heads and probably better – I guess in times of chaos, having a cool head when everyone appears to be running around like headless chickens is one of the ways to make things happen when things don’t seem to be happening at all.

I might look laidback, if only you knew the computations going on in my head and the way I would prefer people on the case for more than 8 hours left and got some rest to return the next day with fresh eyes, fresh ideas and new thinking – the world will not end and since it is not a heart-and-lung machine critical to life, then no one will die because we are being methodically measured in unravelling a conundrum.

Thought Picnic: Having an eye on the centre of the storm

Constructing the invisible

Most of my productive day is spent peering into logs, logs of events in faraway countries on systems I will never touch from people who I have made an acquaintance with on email or instant messaging chat programs.

From these logs, one has to deduce quite a few things; the easy part is when everything works, you know what to check and that is done.

Understanding the issue

When things fail, you brain goes into overdrive, you first have to locate the error, understand the circumstances around the error, determine if it catastrophic or benign and beyond that appreciate if that error is systemic or just an isolated issue.

If it is systemic, you have to work through a workflow that has become ingrained to a rote by reason of experience, whereas an isolated one might require identifying the variable that is sometimes unquantifiable in order to avoid a repetition of the same.

Interacting beyond sight

Meanwhile, as the logs are reviewed, you are communicating with people in a distant time zone, speaking a different language and under pressure to fulfil some project quota allotted to them without the consideration of unexpected eventualities.

As you divine the circumstances and communicate back your findings, this needs to be done in plain language especially if you require more detailed information beyond the usual logs to buttress the initial conclusions you have come to.

Between unsure and sure

At the same time, one is fallible, you see things that are not there, you might jump to the wrong conclusions and publish the same only to be debunked shortly before you’ve had time to offer excuses for your folly – it is a teachable moment, I take it and learn from it.

Autonomy is a welcome luxury of having initiative and the authority of an expert; it is so humbling to have your ego bruised when after painstakingly putting together the detail of your findings someone dismisses them outright as if you do not know what you are talking about.

Brook no nonsense

You pore over the data again, review your conclusions, gather more evidence and strive to enforce the weight of your well-founded opinions as indisputable facts finding the tone, nuance, context and gravity to come down like a ton of bricks of whoever had the effrontery to question your judgement.

The purpose is to come to an understanding whilst clearly defining the bailiwicks of the participants – I am engaged as an expert to perform a role, it is not asking too much to be treated with a modicum of respect which will elicit a more enthusiastic demeanour to help and bring the issue to a favourable resolution.

Softening the tone

Emails are more for jousting to prove a point, a telephone conversation or the use of an instant messaging facility seems to mellow the atmosphere allowing for a moderated level of discourse and parting on a friendly note.

Communication is a skill and those who know to use it will always find a way to settle an issue in the most amicable way regardless of the what wrong footing they originally irked each other on.

I like facts, the logs are good enough evidence if you can support the interpretations with incontrovertible proof – I am driven to know how, why and what because that is how lasting solutions are birthed.

I love my job, I am confident in what I know, I strive to be thorough so that I am right in my conclusions and we will get a solution if you allow me to do what I do know to do and work to do very well. 

Thought Picnic: No Vexatious Customer

It is important

Looking at issues to do with Problem Management some things are becoming quite evident. Seth Godin in his short blog a few days ago asked the simplest customer service frustration question of all saying, “why is it not as important to you as it is to me?”

This exemplifies the sense a customer has of a problem not being given the kind of attention, importance, significance and urgency the customer believes their complaint should have.

Feel my pain

For good measure it is when the customer senses when interacting with a human face that represents the possible solution to the problem that there is no empathy as if the service provider is indifferent, nonchalant or just irresponsible.

This is evident in words of conversation, responses or action predicating a refusal to take ownership of the problem such that the customer is left to feel there is no solution in sight.

The rage against indifference

The customer can adopt one of many approaches but the hardest one to adopt is appealing to the good nature of an apathetic service provider.

Some customers will however seek ways to bring about a desired response and resolution with tools within their means.

Beyond lethargic ombudsman engagement systems to expensive legal redress which all involve third-parties, the customer can now engage social media in the quest to have their problem managed and solved.

Getting even and listened to

It gives the customer the leverage and clout they once did not have where service providers have poor problem resolution processes and worse still, personnel who have no reputational stake in putting forward a professional face for themselves and the organisation they work for; we are left at the mercy of the presumably heartless.

Social media can at once be both aggressive and effective. Many have put it to good use and organisations are slowly relearning the hard lesson of the customer being king.

On blogs, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on YouTube, the customer is demanding a responsive, friendly and empathetic service in words that read like - "I am not a vexatious customer, just one with a requirement I expect to be met." 

Nigeria: A place called Gege

Working the government we have

It started off as a seemingly innocuous but general posting on Twitter. “If you cannot have the government you want, use the one you have. They are there to work for you.”

It was a variation on Luther Vandross’ song which had the line, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”

The nature of Nigerian politics is such that the winner takes it all and those in power have the ability to influence and change things for the better of the people.

Somehow, they are not naturally disposed to attending to their responsibilities and the duties we voted then into office for, it appears they need to be persuaded, goaded, coerced, forced, shamed, challenged by whatever means to be sensitive to the needs of the people and become engaged in the work of good governance.

The role of government

In my view, it is the government that creates the legal framework within which socio-economic development can thrive – civil society needs to know that they can explore, innovate, research, inform and develop enterprise and resource in the setting conducive to advancing their communities and ensuring progress.

However, if civil society hugs the side-lines and just engages in criticism and antagonism they will never engage the government enough to help them realise their aspirations and goals for progress in their communities and the country at large.

Constructive analysis matters

The involvement of the general voting populace the elections was a force to be reckoned with and it must not be allowed to fizzle out, that whole momentum needs to be channelled into demanding accountable and responsive government for everyday day until the next elections.

It was interesting to read the analysis of the first few days in office of the new governor of Imo State by Joachim MacEbong titled Is Rochas for Real? [1] It represents the kind of objective and genuine assessment and analysis we require of the so-called informed and one is hopeful that it will become the trend – it was this that inspired my original Twitter posting.

This lead to a Twitter discussion on the indifference of government to the plight of its citizens and this was exemplified in the comments of Adebiyi Adewale, a Mass Communications major who had seen problems in a suburban ghetto of the city of Ibadan in Nigeria.

A place called Gege

Gege – It was the first I had heard of Gege and there was not much information on Google about the place. As I had been informed, it has serious socio-economic problems of poverty, poor schools, high truancy rates, teenage pregnancy, drug-abuse and probably many other inner-city evils we get regaled with in the news or on television.

Gege calls for a radical intervention but it appears to be invisible to those who matter or the problems seem too intractable that the system will rather work against any agitation for progress than make to change and develop the place.

It might well initially fall on the shoulders of Adebiyi Adewale to give Gege a global profile, a location on Google Maps for starters, the publication of the pictures he has taken of the place, an objective and incisive analysis of the issues and the problems affecting the community and then growing the necessary critical mass to make government react.

It is hard work but possible

Fela Durotoye started something similar for Mushin in Lagos called the Mushin Makeover [2], there is the fear that the initiative has run out of steam, it is no doubt hard work to first drum up support, garner momentum and then keep the interest for lasting goals [3] to be achieved – it is not a task for the faint of heart, celebrity is not enough as engagement has to be enduring and persistent.

Gege is probably symptomatic of many other places in Nigeria and probably typical of the communities show-cased in the Welcome to Lagos series shown by the BBC last year.

What I have learnt so far is there is a place called Gege and there is a Mass Communications expert who will bring his skills and expertise to bear and hopefully bring lasting change to that community, as for the details about the place, I am interested enough to read more about Gege and if you know something about Gege or communities like Gege in Nigeria, it is time to put them on the map and within the sights of those who have the responsibility to facilitate the change those communities need.

Sources

[1] JMac’s Blog – Is Rochas for Real?

[2] Fela Durotoye – Mushin Makeover: History is Made

[3] GemStone Nigeria – Mushin Makeover

Hocus Pocus Zim Bab We Arghhh!

A national day of spells beckons

Forgive my petulance as I try to imitate a possible chant in a ceremony in celebration of witchcraft in Zimbabwe as news arrives that witchcraft has been legalised.

This is most interesting considering hardly over a week ago, Mr Mugabe called a National Day of Prayer which was boycotted by senior Christian leaders or any sizeable Christian followership.

So, with the legal recognition of witchcraft, one can cynically expect that a National Day of Spells might have more of a participation to boost Mr Mugabe’s ego and incessant vituperative diatribe.

It goes without saying that Zimbabwe and its over 12 million people have been under a most treacherous spell – the looming, brooding, foreboding and malicious spell of Mr Robert Mugabe since he got his hands on the levels of absolute government on December 31^st 1987.

Leading from best to least

A country though land-locked was the bread basket of Southern Africa and as independence was declared showed great promise, but under the leadership of derision and tyranny of Mr Mugabe, the country announced a record inflation of over 1000%.

Excerpted from Wikipedia

The “so-called” reforms of Mr Mugabe introduced has given Zimbabwe the epithet of having the lowest life expectancy in the world – how miserable life really has become in Zimbabwe.

Great age little wisdom

All Mr Mugabe can muster with bombastic bluster is that the West is responsible for the problems of Zimbabwe. Maybe, that is the case, but a man of his quite elder years of 82 should have the wise head to resolve differences that turned Zimbabwe from a conduit of prosperity to an island of misery.

That is really a moot point; Mr Mugabe has simply mortgaged the soul of his country and suffers from delusions of grandeur that his leadership is for the better of Zimbabweans.

For a man to have presided over such a decline of fortunes of his fatherland and still hold his face up high in complete denial and braggadocio is breathtaking at best.

Giving witchcraft a mission

The new legalisation of witchcraft which probably stems from the President’s inability to muster favourable church support is revealing – one can only surmise that if the use of witchcraft does not sustain Mr Mugabe in mind and body, it has not helped stave off the disaster of Zimbabwe.

In Africa, his age has prevented critical analysis of his tenure and condemnation of his actions, the pall of patriarchalism has not served us well, and Mr Mugabe is definitely no Mr Mandela.

Where a man in all his evil refuses to depart in the quest of eternal incumbency we have one great hope, the mortality of man – I wish Mr Mugabe no evil, but the witch doctors have their work cut out.

For all the evil they have allowed to befall Zimbabwe, the greatest evil to bring the most beneficial good would be bring Mr Mugabe to the point of complete breathlessness and repose.

The sacrifice of one man for the good of his country call only be Mr Mugabe’s highest calling – be long – shall we honour the man as the Great Martyr of Zimbabwe or humour the man as the Great Old Oaf of Zimbabwe?

When the customer needs you, you need help

The Visit

A regional director was pulled over the coals for the sluggish performance of his region. No manager wants to have to give excuses for not performing because of intransigent IT problems that recur and never seem to be solved.

In the technical Ivory Tower, ever customer problem is easily discounted with the simple credo... "The customer is always right, only when you are selling tomatoes".

This has served me well when on average many customers do not know if they have a problem, are probably confused, need education or are just a vexatious nuisance.

However, customers do have genuine problems, the context of which gets lost in the processing from the helpdesk - read "Helldesk", through second line support to any other level of tertiary support.

Poorly documented problems

If a problem is not properly logged capturing the necessary and essential detail and scenario, it gets stuck in a quagmire of clarifications of intention, detail, context and validity. By which time, there is an escalation and you have a priority without a purpose. Suddenly, it is at the highest priority and the clogged up communication channels open like floodgates. You get all the information you need because the intervention of some bigwig has put aside the absurd organisational practice that stops the techies speaking to the customer.

A resolution then materialises because the thinking man's thinking man has been able to think with the thinking but frustrated customer to find out what the problem is and sort it out. The resolution then has pride of place in the... wait for it... PowerPoint of the week.

Crisis Averted!

However, the solution really lies in employing properly educated and knowledgeable helpdesk personnel whose skills can overlap into second-line support. Logging intelligent calls that need little further clarification between teams would go a long way to providing resolutions without using the classic "Problem solving by escalation" - in a perfect world it should be "Problem solving by understanding, analysis and final resolution"

Furthermore, you wonder about the names that certain companies give their products that it becomes virtually impossible to search for decent support because of ambiguity.

Application/Service	Comments
Microsoft WINS	Windows Internet Naming Service A method for identifying computers on a local network. Ask the techies, there is nothing winning about WINS apart from winning the battle that creates some of the biggest headaches.
AmDocs Clarify	This is possibly the most common CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool for managing customer related events and procedures. You cannot search the internet for Clarify and get anything that relates to this tool. There are a number of modules within this tool as ClearSupport, ClearHelpdesk, and ClearQuality; however, one's view is we are missing the mostly important module in a customer support tool - ClearThought.
AIMS	This is another CRM tool with its accompanying application called ASAP. One aims to get rid of such silly application acronyms ASAP.
Wise Solutions' Wise	A utility used to repackage an application for automated installation on computers. The wisdom in choosing this name escapes one. Other products that are probably as wise at doing the same job better.
Microsoft Windows	From the 13th Century until the beginning of the 20th Century, windows had only 6 meanings. With the explosion of knowledge in the last century, we had a few more meanings until 1990 when a growing company called Microsoft launched Microsoft Windows 3.0 - the rest is history.

So today, we challenged one absurd organisational practice and visited the customer to find out that they had real problems that require immediate solutions. The Regional Director must be relieved he would get Christmas pay for the problems have nothing to do with his management skills.

The visit came about because the Regional Director lodged a formal complaint with the CEO and we are now working on a resolution.

One needs a holiday.