The Portable Consultant

What has finally moved the Portable Consultant to post after all this time? Frustration!

So-called “matrix teams” come from different work units, by definition. In my current business environment we come together for a project, apply our subject matter experience, and go on to the next project when done. Each member reports to a different organizational unit, with a ‘dotted line’ to the Project Manager.

Unfortunately, the collaboration systems we use are all too often designed by, and for, those separate work units rather than for the projects.

This results in the following (in no particular order):

• Separate repositories for the business analyst, the infrastructure architect, the project manager, etc.

• Where cross-discipline access has been considered it is likely to be hit-and-miss, depending on who asked for access to the repositories of the other groups and when. This results in name-based rather than role-based access.

• Different naming conventions between repositories.

• Different taxonomies (folder structures) for each work group.

• A general lack of consistency in meta-data (where it exists) and searches (which should be based on that meta-data).

The diagnosis of the To Each His Own approach to collaboration is confirmed by the high number of email attachments that are necessary for the matrix team to keep members informed and documentation current.

In my current situation it wouldn’t even be enough if the project manager were to set up a shared repository – there are two PMs: one for ‘the business’ and one for ‘IT’. Even these PMs don’t share the same repository.

The solution for this To Each His Own approach varies from situation to situation. The first step in all instances, however, must be a realization of how fruitless it is to invest in collaboration without some form of inter-group oversight or cooperation to support the matrix team environment.

Have you encountered this where you work? Did anyone try to address the situation? What approach succeeded? …failed?

Yours sincerely on a typical Monday (but posted on a Tuesday),

Cheers,
-pmh

The Portable Consultant was both dismayed and amused to read that Amazon does not actually “sell” the books you “buy” for your Kindle.

Let’s be clear: if your property can be altered, recalled, or reclaimed by the seller without your permission and knowledge you never really owned that property. Home foreclosure and car repossession are other examples that come to mind. The CBC article is right to refer to it as the Amazon Kindle Service – a service may be discontinued at any time.

George Orwell would indeed smile to see Amazon fulfilling his vision of the future – along with such better known examples as MS Windows (Genuine Advantage program and the .NET framework assistant) and locked cell phones.

Yes, there are probably legitimate copyright issues here – but this is no way to run an eBusiness. Bad Amazon… bad, bad!

-pmh

Update:

1. This MSNBC article on the Amazon 1984 scandal has a more humorous (sarcastic?) tone.
2. This Fictionmatters article provides balanced and deeper coverage of the underlying issues. (…but I still say “Bad, Amazon… bad, bad!”)
3. Microsoft has apparently updated its .NET Framework Assistant to allow you to uninstall it from Firefox without the need to edit the Windows registry, locate remove system files, etc.

Update 2, The Apology:

Here’s word on Amazon’s apology but note that “…the apology failed to state that Amazon would not do the same thing again in similar circumstances…”

Ok, so you didn’t need the Portable Consultant to tell you that Facebook has privacy issues, but this CBC news story covers the particulars of how the site breaches PIPEDA, the Canadian privacy legislation.

My own use of the online games is minimal because I was always concerned about the permission statements that you get when you sign up for them.

That’s not how I personally use Facebook anyway, but the recent ‘conversion’ of a cute aquarium game (send pretty fishes to your friends’ aquariums) to a dating service with constant emails (“Honestly, Dear… all those speed date emails are spam. All I ever did was send her a fish!”)… well, that was downright naughty. Bad Facebook, bad, bad!

I was struck by one item in the news report that would be funny if it weren’t true:

“- Facebook keeps the profiles of deceased users for “memorial purposes” but does not make this clear. Recommendation: Information about use for memorial purposes should be in Facebook’s privacy policy.”

…Thank you, Facebook, but when the time comes The Portable Consultant would rather have family and friends handle any and all memorials. All social networking sites should delete accounts after an agreed period without any logins, at the very least. (This is a much larger issue, of course.)

Facebook needs to get its act together, but users/consumers also need to understand how important personal info is …and take care not to sign it away without due diligence.

Cheers,
-pmh