June 25, 1993
Dear Everyone:
Busy week. Meetings, meetings and
more meetings. Although, I must
admit, since we've had Quality-Training, we accomplish more in two hours
now than we used to do in a month's worth of meetings.
Last week, we had a meeting about replacing CRMIS, the system we’re
currently using to track Records Center boxes and maintain Retention
Schedules. It's been a foregone
conclusion since 1988 that we need to replace it.
We've had years’ worth of
meetings about it and actually worked with a computer company, for a
while, to design a software for it. But
something, usually money, has always got in the way.
Now, we're
really going to do it.
So, “Ken” put together a Team to Replace CRMIS.
Which I promptly renamed the Team
for the "Records Management Software Evaluation Project", explaining
that, if we keep calling it "Replace CRMIS", we tend to think in terms
of how CRMIS operates now instead of in terms of what we need the new
system to do for us. “Ken”
readily agreed with this logic, saving me from having to also explain
that the expression "Replacing CRMIS” is obviously jinxed and any
project with that phrase associated with it is doomed from the very
start. And, besides I already
have a” CRMIS” file on the computer and ”CRMISREP” already means " CRMIS
REPORTS" (a filename is limited to 8 characters) so I couldn't use it
for " CRMIS REPLACE". So the new
project will be abbreviated RMSEP, which you can pronounce either
rim•sep or
irm•sep.
Last Thursday, we had our first meeting, intended to introduce the
members of the Working Team (myself, a Records Center person, two
"large" customers, one “Tiddly” accountant, a Quality coach, and a PC
expert) and the Guidance Review Team (“Ken”, as the manager and official
"process owner", a mainframe computer programmer, one
more “Tiddly” accountant, one
“Winks” representative, and another "large" customer), and to decide on
the scope and direction of the Working Team's mission.
Now, you might think that this would be a simple thing to do,
particularly since “Ken” already knew what he wanted the Working Team to
accomplish: Find a new software
in the shortest possible time. But
any time you put a dozen people together in a room, you're going to get
differences of opinion. That's
one of the reasons juries are comprised of 12 people, to give the
defendant the best shot at an acquittal.
As soon as “Ken” introduced the subject, it opened the door to
discussion. Why replace CRMIS?
Why not just enhance or modify
it? (Obviously the person who
asked this question knew very little about CRMIS.
We've
been enhancing and modifying
it for five bloody years!) But if
you ask “Ken” a question, he'll answer it.
And if he doesn't know the
answer, he'll tell you so--and then go looking for it.
In no time, we were "ballooning"
(a new technical expression that we just invented, meaning when
discussions get totally out of control) as the two Teams started
throwing everything they could think of into the CRMIS pot.
What about Active Files? Why not
find a "centralized" system that will not only manage Retention
Schedules and boxes, but will also keep track of
everyone's files, allowing
“Tiddly” to find any record any Compoid has in any office?
Should we even think about having a "centralized" system in view of CEO
“Freddy Johnson’s” "mandate" for decentralized, independent,
self-supporting Strategic Business Units (SBU) which may not care to pay
to use this new system? Never
mind that the second suggestion is in direct opposition to the first.
The Team members looked at each
other, and gleefully tossed “Freddy” into the pot.
By the end of the meeting, we had
everything in the pot but
NASA’s budget.
That was last week.
First thing the following Monday morning, “Ken”, the Quality Coach, and
I met to "debrief" the previous meeting and plan for this Tuesday's
all-day session. On Tuesday, we
brought both Teams together again and agreed to go over everything in
the CRMIS pot. One by one, we
pulled things out of the pot and decided if it really was part of the
project. Isn't this too big an
issue? Remember, we can't "boil
the ocean" or "save the world". Is
this piece inside, or outside our boundaries?
After only five hours, we settled
on the scope of the project; and darned if it didn't look almost
identical to what “Ken” had started out with the week before.
Quality training at work.
With that, the Guidance Review Team retired ("we thought they'd
never leave!")
And the Working Team got started.
We began by establishing that we
would meet every Thursday in Concord (personal commute time: 20 minutes,
portal-to-portal) and dress
casual. Best decision I've
heard all day. Set up the Agenda
for the next meeting, to take place after my vacation next week (I'd
already started making lists), and adjourned.
RMSEP is up and "running".
I got back to the office the next morning to discover that I had done
"something" to “Kevin’s” PC just before I left Monday night.
Actually, I had loaded some fonts
into WordPerfect for him, just as I had done for all the other PCs.
But, being a little tired, I had
made a slight error that rendered the PC non-functioning all day
Tuesday. Normally, if I'm not
around, they can call our official PC Coordinator; but, since she's a
member of my RMSEP Working Team, she wasn't available either.
Consequently, “Kevin” had been
sputtering all day Tuesday. Nothing
gets mad quite like a Southern Gentlemen.
Just look at the
War Between the States.
Seems I'd inadvertently erased his config.sys file.
Anyone who knows anything about
PCs can tell you that a PC without a config.sys file in its root
directory is not much more than a really big paperweight.
It took less than 2 minutes to
fix, not counting the 24 hours that he had to wait for me to come back
to the office.
After that, the inevitable
Wednesday morning Staff Meeting, two meetings in “Livermore” on
Thursday, a Records Coordinator meeting this morning and
boy, am I ready for a week in
Oregon!!!
I'll be back on-line week after next. Everybody have a great 4th of July!
Love, as always,
Pete
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