Excellence in It:. Warren C. Zabloudil

this is by performing the preemptive fix. If you’re working on something and notice something else isn’t quite right, do the second job too since you’re already there. After all, that other problem isn’t going to fix itself after you leave. If you ignore it in the hope you can sneak back later and handle it then, you’ll only be wasting perfectly good time later on. Usually, with that approach the problem will just smolder until it eventually flares up before you return…and also when you least need it to. You’ll allow the phenomenon called “putting out brush fires” to start taking over your work life. Leaving a tiny hot cinder of a problem unattended because it doesn’t seem all that important at the moment will always cost you later on.

      If you believe you’ll get back to the problem at a more convenient date, you’re likely fooling yourself. No one can predict the future, especially in the busy world of IT, so there’s no way to really know exactly how much new work you’ll be assigned tomorrow or the day after that. It’s a gamble to think that a convenient chance to return to that proverbial “later” repair will even happen. In fact, things may be even worse later on if that shouldering cinder of a problem flares up when you’re busy with another job that needs to be finished in a hurry, too. You’ll always lose more time running back to put out brush fires than you would have spent had you corrected the problem in the first place. Best practice is to remember there’s never a better time to make something right than the present.

      Get used to inspecting the stuff you’re working on and fixing all the issues you see even if they’re not on the ticket. If it’s a big problem that can’t be fixed on the spot, you’re at least ahead of the curve and can schedule a future repair in a reasonable non-brush fire fashion. The preemptive approach is an important and useful way to improve time management. Conscientiously working to stay ahead of the curve by nipping new problems in the bud makes the systems more reliable over time and your life a lot easier. Not only will you have less surprises, the systems themselves will be more bug free. Less bugs equals easier time management and happier end-users. It also helps you to establish a reputation for excellence in your field.

      If you’re running your own shop or are part of a development team, you have the power to be preemptive at the very beginning while in the design phase. Anything you can add in the beginning that will make solutions easier to fix later will make you a happier tech down the road. This isn’t to say that things still can’t get crazy with your work load, it just means the more you do up front in the design phase, the less you have to do later on. Every good design includes ease of follow-on maintenance.

      No matter how busy you are, don’t skimp on the front-end work for any system you’re working on. Time management begins before you begin the work. Design your systems to be silent and trouble free. It pays dividends by giving you a system that’s easier to maintain, causes less stress, and leaves you with more spare time on your hands. The old adage that you don’t look busy because “you did it right in the first place” holds true here. Building things from the beginning with ease of maintenance in mind and then staying ahead of that maintenance makes task scheduling much easier over time.

      It’s a common misunderstanding by non-techies that the guys who are running around putting out the brush fires caused by poorly designed systems are hardworking heroes. Excellent techs know this is not true. Many brush fire guys are simply imitating a heroic effort while chasing after marginal systems that should have been designed better from the start.

       Take brief notes outlining your work as you go

      While this does mean doing paperwork, admittedly a painful subject to many techs, it rewards you with a good way to minimize your time on a job. This isn’t about System Design Life Cycle, documented user requirements, IQ, OQ, PQ, or any other part of systems validation. This’s about your own approach to keeping up with the things around you. It really can help to keeps notes as you work. Be sure to use plain words in simple sentences. Notes won’t help much if they cause your eyes to glaze over when you try to read them back later. Techs do enough reading anyway. You should take just enough notes to help you from unnecessarily going over the same ground twice. Writing a few quick things down as you work means you won’t have to reverse engineer what you just did when you go back to do it again at a later date. The notes are to help you keep track of what you’re doing during a busy day.