How to spend your time: Analyze or Implement

June 13th 2007

The gang-bangers were at it again on the street corner just outside my window. Yesterday it was the police taking them away in handcuffs, today it was them welcoming the firemen. Apparently there was some kind of fire in their headquarters (apartment building) although we couldn’t see any smoke. Oddly enough people in the other apartments didn’t seem concerned, they were out on the balconies smoking cigarettes. It was cool to watch the firemen in action, a welcome break from my rather boring assignment.

For those who are not in the IT profession, please bear with me, I think you’ll find it worth it:

I was joined today by the consultant who previously worked on the project. I was there to migrate the project from one system to another, yet I don’t know much about it. He came to give me the expertise I lacked. We discussed the options for maintaining two versions of the application (for the old and new system).

He had a great idea: We could keep a single version and just have a configuration property to toggle between them. I had used this strategy before, so I agreed right away. The client was there with us and he was happy with it too. So I was surprised when he said to the client “We’re going to make a list of the options, write down the benefits and concerns of each, and then we can make a decision.”

I wanted to say “Since you’re only here for today, and we don’t have much time, why don’t we just go with this idea of keeping them together?” Yet I held back. He had a lot more experience on the project (6+ months compared to my 2 days). We discussed it further and then he called the former project manager (the one with the vest) and discussed it some more. After he hung up he came back with an objection to this approach and ruled it out. Basically it limited us for future modifications and also it was surely more complicated to put in place.

Now I hope I didn’t lose anyone with all that technical stuff, but the point I want to make is this: The American approach is, as many describe, “shoot from the hip”. Americans don’t waste precious time with too much analysis. We come up with a plan and we go for it. Americans spend 20% of the time analyzing and 80% doing the work.

The French on the other hand love to analyze and debate. They’re much more philosophical than Americans. They like to spend 80% of the time analyzing the problem and then get it done in the 20% remaining.

So we have two approaches which are complete opposites. The question is which one works?

Take a guess before I share my experience here. Yes, I’m talking to you. Click on the link to leave a comment, it’s really easy and you can remain anonymous like my mother (who thinks she’s anonymous but I know it’s her). Seriously, this blog isn’t going to be any fun if people don’t start participating so let’s go. Tell me which approach you think is best.

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Comments

4 Comments so far

  1. Mary on June 16, 2007 18:25

    Juste to situate who I am : I’m french, I’m working in Canada.

    In my opinion, french people don’t like to act, so they discuss as much as possible to avoid it as long as possible. And I think that if they do so, it’s that they don’t want to have the responsibility of having done something the wrong way. Rather do nothing.
    Isn’t this the actual difference of culture : rather do nothing than do something wrong ?

    I find amazing the way american spend energy on something, and if something doesn’t work, nothing there, they start again. We french-people think : but if they had sit there for 2 minutes, they’d seen it coming !
    The perfection must reside somewhere in between…

    On the other hand, I don’t know if we can generalize this way, because we had in my company the same trouble as you mention, and I was the one who proposed a configuration file right away. And who implemented it.

  2. Michael on June 18, 2007 20:19

    Hi Mary, thanks for your comment. It’s great to get feedback from French who have experience living in the US (ok Canada is probably close enough hehe). I hope you’ll continue commenting.

    I totally agree with what you said. Discussion is a way of avoiding the real work.

    Hopefully we’ll get some more comments (hint hint)..

  3. Alistair on June 19, 2007 17:00

    I am neither French, nor American, but I do work for a US company with offices in France and have the pleasure working side by side with both nationalities. I work in IT by the way, mainly in analytical risk systems…

    Your post was interesting and something I can relate to… here is my two cents worth…

    For an American, the 20/80 rule inverses, depending on level of seniority within the organisation. The more senior, the less likely the individual will shoot from the hip without obtaining consensus.

    For a French person, my experience is that they do step back initially and like to perform thorough analysis before making a commitment… not a bad thing.

    After working with both nationalities for many years, my personal opinion is that the French approach is favorable as less mistakes are made, providing the industry can wait for the initial analysis to be performed.

    In summary the French load, take aim, check the safety, and fire… the American’s load, check the safety, fire, then aim.

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