A Man of Value
Post by Karl Southern |
We recently held Visualfiles Share 2017 and I feel compelled to comment on our guest speaker's session. Many of us who sat waiting for the start of Martyn Wells' (from Wright Hassall) session on his experience of working with the Visualfiles Accelerator Framework, were keen to hear what he had to say. Few would have expected the plenary session that followed to cover philosophy and piracy!
Martyn told us of the exploits of the English pirate, Henry Avery, and the plundering of the Gunsway, a trading ship belonging to the Mughal Emperor, in 1695. For Avery, it was all about value and Martyn drew a parallel with implementing software. He said, "Concern yourself with the value your efforts bring and worry less about success being measured in projects completed."
Using an Agile software development philosophy, Wright Hassall has delivered incremental and continuous benefits to Visualfiles users with frequent internal updates. These updates have been the result of significant fee-earner involvement. "Talk to your fee-earners," was Martyn's mantra.
With so many software planning tools available, it was refreshing to a more mature gentleman, such as I, that there is still a place left in this world for large sheets of brown paper and post-it notes. Of course, being "down with the kids" myself, I'm much fonder of Legamaster's stick and anywhere whiteboard sheets and their truly wonderful Magic-Chart Notes. However, any method and technology that supports interactive discovery with the people who know what is needed is to be commended and we heard that such discovery has been fully embraced at Wright Hassall.
The feedback given to Martyn by fee-earners at Wright Hassall highlighted their involvement, willingness to be involved and the obvious satisfaction in the results that have been delivered by the Visualfiles Accelerator Framework, in a short period. A most telling exchange was the response of one fee-earner to being asked, "what would happen if the system was taken away?" in a video. There was a discernible pause, followed by a pleading, "please don't do that". It was great line!
To summarise then, busy yourself speaking to your fee-earners, then look at the value you have brought and spend some time measuring it. As Martyn reminded us in his Q&A session, stop speaking of projects and subscribe to the broader philosophy of creating value and keep notes of the value you have delivered.
If this is new to you, how would you take advantage of it? What would you want to deliver? How would you involve your stakeholders? For help with any of these areas, get in touch with Client Advising at LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions. Einstein put it well:
"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."
We can help with that.
About the Author: Karl Southern
In an IT career that has spanned well over twenty-five years, Karl has spent time in consultancy, operations, product management and solutions design. Particular areas of his expertise include integration, mobility, and exploiting information. Our clients do amazing things with our technology, and what Karl enjoys most about his role, is helping clients to unlock the potential of our software, so that they can achieve amazing things too.
Some of his colleagues have pointed out that he is a geek by nature due to his keen interest in all things technical. He takes this as a huge compliment. Outside of work, Karl likes to walk, albeit slowly; a pace he blames on frequent pauses to take photographs.
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