The water ball analogy
Posted on
When I was a very young boy, I received a red, rubber ball as a present. The ball was, presumably, partly full of liquid, and when it rolled, it would stutter along the ground, occasionally changing direction, seemingly at random. As a child, it never occurred to me that such a thing might have water in it. I was simply fascinated by the sheer randomness of the way it moved. Whereas other balls would roll more or less in the direction you intended, this one never did.
This week I've been asked to lend a hand in our company's biggest and most important project; the purpose of which is to create a brand new suite of integrated software products, replacing and updating our old ones. It's an exciting time, and a great project to be involved in, but as with any big project, there's a lot to do to get it off the ground, and not everything will always run smoothly.
First of all, there are a fair few people involved. Our company is the result of an effective merger of three different software firms and each party has a stake in this. While there is a single goal, there are a myriad of agendas and although everyone is committed to making this the best product they possibly can, there exists the potential for us to veer off course.
Secondly, the project is absolutely huge. While there may already be a notable number involved in it, there is still far more work to be done than just these people can cope with. We're still at the research and scoping stage, with a lot more to do before we can even think about designing and building.
To an extent, the project reminds me somewhat of the ball in the opening paragraph. If the project is the ball, then the people currently involved represent the water. They're all a part of the ball and all committed to doing what they need to do, but as the pace picks up, some of the water is going to splash about and take a new course, inadvertently upsetting the motion of the ball.
The project has a very definite start point, from which it has already started to roll, and a vague but broadly understood end point. The trick is trying to keep it going in the right direction, which is likely to be problematic. One solution is to add more water to the ball—putting more people in the project to fill the gaps and ensure the right work gets done—thus making it roll more smoothly. Another is to make a definitive path for the ball to travel along that avoids costly deviation so that it gets to its destination as intended. A better solution is to do both.
At the moment, our ball is rolling a little erratically, but I'm confident that with the right water and the right path, we'll get there. The ball I received as a child is long gone now, but it has taught me a valuable lesson: He-Man figures were so much cooler.