Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
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Second Chances
Tom's latest eBook has been released on Amazon: "The 7 Myths of IT Integrations". Tom is also a Program Director for a large Midwest corporation and has been an adjunct faculty member at Walsh College. He has managed global web initiatives, data center moves and large multi-million dollar programs.
“I can’t tell you how to do your job,” Mike told me, angrily and in no uncertain terms, “but if I was in your shoes I would have fired him on the spot. No questions asked.”
Mike had paid me a visit because of a major screw up with a customer’s payroll application that had put both us on a collision course. Mike and I were peer IT managers. The way we handled the crisis we were in, however, was quite different.
An Overlooked Detail
I managed the enterprise database administrators at the time, and Mike managed the application team for a large account. Over the previous weekend, our teams had implemented a routine change for a payroll system for our client. It wasn’t big. As a matter of fact it was a pretty mundane type of maintenance fix.
The problem happened when the changes the team made were promoted into production--the data pointers within the programs weren’t changed from the test table definitions to the production ones. As a result, the VSAM files were getting over-written at the wrong point (e.g. the wrong end of file location), thus destroying existing payroll data in the process.
The whole reason the problem occurred was basically due to complacency. The team didn’t do the proper level of testing beforehand, implementing the change because they did this type …
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"I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man." - Chuang Tzu |