Gearrchuntas stairiúil ar SharePoint (Ó Pheirspictíocht Núíosaigh Gaoil)

Tabhair faoi deara: This article was originally posted to www.endusersharepoint.com. I forgot to post it to my own blog 🙂

SharePoint a tháinig éabhlóid go leor ó lá go luath mar saghas ar theicneolaíocht goir ag Microsoft –tá sé tagtha chun cinn beagnach cosúil le scannán uafáis, where the mad scientist’s creation takes on a life of its own, breaking free of its creator’s expectations and rules. The technical evolution is obvious – the WSS 3.0 object model is richer and more complex than WSS 2.0, which was itself an improvement over earlier versions. The next version will no doubt show tremendous improvement over 3.0. From an End User’s perspective, áfach,, SharePoint’s evolution is even more significant.

In the early days, SharePoint didn’t offer much to End Users. They would have their usual functionality requirements, work with IT to define them well and implement a solution. IT would use SharePoint to solve the problem. The product wasn’t very accessible to End Users. I’ve thought threw a few analogies, but I decided to stick Venn Diagrams to show what I mean. When Microsoft first released SharePoint to the world as a commercial offering, lean sé patrún réasúnta traidisiúnta Úsáideoir Deiridh <-> IT relationship. A lot of End Users, cumarsáid agus obair le líon an-bheag de sé daoine chun réitigh a réiteach fadhbanna gnó a sheachadadh:

Is é an bhfearann ​​fhadhb foriomlán a bhfuil SharePoint ardán seachadta oiriúnach beag (especially compared to today’s SharePoint. End Users and IT worked in a more classic arrangement with IT: define requirements to IT, wait for IT do their work behind the curtain and take delivery of the final product.

As SharePoint evolved to the 2.0 world (SSU 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server), several things happened. An Chéad, the “problem domain” increased in size. By problem domain, I mean the kinds of business problems for which SharePoint could be a viable solution. Mar shampla, you wouldn’t think too hard about implementing a serious search solution in a SharePoint environment until SPS (and even then, it wasn’t as good as it needed to be). Ag an am céanna, End Users have an unprecedented ability to not only define, but also implement their own solutions with little or no IT support.

The 3.0 platform (WSS and MOSS) maintained and increased that momentum. The problem domain is enormous as compared to the 2.0 platform. Virtually every department in a company, ranging from manufacturing health and safety departments to marketing, from sales to quality control – they can find a good use for SharePoint (and it’s not a case of mashing a round peg into a square hole). Ag an am céanna, the platform empowers even more End Users to implement their own business solutions. I try to capture that with this diagram:

This has proven to be both a potent and frustrating mixture. The 3.0 platform turns previously stable roles on their heads. Suddenly, End Users are effectively judge, giúiré agus executioner anailísí gnó, application architect and developer for their own business solutions. This gets to the heart of the problem I’m writing about. But before I dive into that, a ligean ar mheas ar an eilifint sa seomra.

Peering isteach an Ball Crystal

Conas a bheidh SharePoint 2010 difear an patrún seo? Will it be incremental or revolutionary? Will more, níos lú nó thart ar an líon céanna na n-úsáideoirí Deireadh aimsiú chumhacht féin chun réitigh a thógáil i SharePoint 2010? Will SharePoint 2010’s problem domain expand even further or will it just refine and streamline what it already offers in WSS 3.0 / CAONAIGH?

Níl go leor eolais "amach ann" a rá go sábháilte go bhfuil an freagra ginearálta:

• The problem domain is going to dramatically expand.
• Beidh úsáideoirí Deireadh aimsiú dóibh féin fiú níos mó ná riamh de chumhacht.

The Venn Diagram would be larger than this page and cause some IT Pros and CxO’s to reach for their Pepto.

I believe it’s going to be a tremendous opportunity for companies to do some truly transformational things.

Uimh Tairbh i mo tSín Shop!

Fuaimeanna seo iontach, ach ó mo thaobh mar chomhairleoir SharePoint agus a chur mé féin isteach na bróga de bainisteoir TF, I see this vision. I own a China shop with beautiful plates, criostail, etc (mo thimpeallacht SharePoint). I’ve rented a space, I’ve purchased my inventory and laid it all out the way I like it. I’m not quite ready to open, ach in oirchill, I look at the door to see if my customers are lining up and I notice an actual bull out there. I look more closely and I actually see dhá bulls and even a wolf. Then I notice that there are some sheep. Sheep are mar sin dona, but are they maybe disguised wolves? I don’t want bulls in my china shop!

It gets worse! When I rented the space, I couldn’t believe how nice it was. Wide and open, terrific amenities, very reasonable price. Mar sin féin, anois tá mé ag a bhaint amach go bhfuil na spásanna oscailte leathan agus an doras ollmhór ach meánmhéide breá le haghaidh tarbh atá le teacht wandering i agus dramhaíola a leagan ar mo tSín.

Tá mé ag brú ar an analaí i bhfad ró-, ar ndóigh. End Users are not bulls (chuid is mó acu, mar sin féin) agus ranna TF nach bhfuil (nó nár chóir surely) view their user community with that kind of suspicion. Mar sin féin, tá saghas seo de imbhualadh foirfe ag tarlú cheana féin i an 3.0 platform that I expect will only get worse in SP 2010. SharePoint already empowers and encourages End Users to define and implement their own solutions.

Sin mór agus go léir, ach tá an bhfíric go bhfuil sé fós a táirge an-teicniúil agus fós glaonna le haghaidh an cineál vigorous anailís riachtanais ghnó, design and general planning and management that technical projects require to be successful. These are not the kind of skills that a lot of End Users have in their bag of tricks, especially when the focus is on a technical product like SharePoint.

I’ve given this a lot of thought over the last year or so and I don’t see any easy answer. It really boils down to education and training. I think that SP 2010 ag dul a athrú ar an cluiche le beagán agus tá sé ag dul a imirt amach difriúil agus ag gluaiseacht go mall mar a dhéanann cuideachtaí rolladh amach a n-SP 2010 réitigh os cionn 2010 and beyond. In order to succeed, End Users will need to transform themselves and get a little IT religion. They’ll need to learn a little bit about proper requirements
analysis. They will need some design documentation that clearly identifies business process workflow, mar shampla. They need to understand fundamental concepts like CRUD (chruthú, thabhairt cothrom le dáta agus a scriosadh), dev/test/qa/prod environments and how to use that infrastructure to properly deploy solutions that live a nice long time and bend (not break) in response to changes in an organization.

In the coming weeks, I plan to try and provide some of my own new ideas, as well as link to the great work done by many other authors (on www.endusersharepoint.com agus in áiteanna eile) so that interested End Users can learn that old time IT religion. Keep tuned.

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[Tabhair faoi deara: An t-airteagal tras-phost chuig Úsáideoir SharePoint Deireadh anseo: http://www.endusersharepoint.com/2009/09/09/sharepoint-a-case-study-in-ask-the-expert/]

Uaireanta, nuair a bhíonn tú ag obair mar chomhairleoir (mar ghairm, nó i ról comhairleach laistigh de do chuideachta), you find yourself living in an Onion story. The Onion has a series of articles called “Ask an [saineolaí] faoi [roinnt fhadhb]". This follows the famous “Dear Abby” format where a concerned person is asking for personal advice. The onion’s “expert”, áfach,, is so focused on his/her area of expertise and current problems that the expert ignores the question entirely and rambles on about his area of expertise. As consultants, we need to keep that in mind all the time and avoid falling into that trap. It’s classically described like this – “when you use a hammer all day long to solve your problems, everything starts to look like a nail.” We professional consultants are always on guard against that kind of thing, ach thiocfaidh muid i dteagmháil le daoine a bhfuil gairmithe tromchúiseach ina ról féin, but are not consultants. They don’t have the same need or training to do otherwise.

An tseachtain seo caite, Scríobh mé faoi cheann de na cliaint mo cuideachta agus tionscadal ar siúl go leanúnach we have to enable high quality collaboration between various eye doctors in the US and Canada performing clinical research on rare disease. In addition to leveraging core SharePoint features to enable that collaboration, we’re also working an expense submission and approval process. It’s complicated because we have so many actors:

• A handful daoine ag cleachtais dochtúirí éagsúla 'ar féidir leo speansais ar líne isteach.
  • Tá os cionn 40 cleachtais dochtúirí '.
  • Ag roinnt cleachtais, Úsáideann an dochtúir an gcóras go díreach.
  • Ag cleachtais go leor, Úsáideann an fhoireann an dochtúir an córas go díreach.
• A riarthóir airgeadais (a oibríonn ar feadh mo chliant díreach) a dhéanann athbhreithniú na costais atá le cruinneas agus ábharthacht, a fhaomhadh nó a dhiúltú dóibh ag an leibhéal eagrúcháin.
• A 3rd party accounts payable group. These people pay all of the bills for out client, not just bills coming out of the rare disease study.

The Accounts Payable group has been a challenge. Working with them yesterday reminded me of the Onion series. In my role as business consultant, Mhínigh mé ar an ngá atá leis an gcuideachta cuntais iníoctha:

• Láithreáin staidéir chliniciúla (cleachtais dochtúirí ') costais a thabhú staidéir a bhaineann le.
• They log onto the “web site” and enter their expenses using an online form. Sa chás seo, the “web site” is hosted with SharePoint and the expenses are entered into an InfoPath form. Expense receipts are scanned, uaslódáil agus ceangailte go díreach leis an bhfoirm.
• An automated workflow process seeks approval from the appropriate financial administrator.
• You, dear 3rd party AP company – please review and approve or deny this expense. I’ll send it to you any way that you want (within reason).At this point in the discussion, I don’t really care how it needs to be bundled. I want to work with the AP group to understand what they need and want.

When I explained the need, the 3rd party took a deep dive into their internal mumbo jumbo lingo about expense approval processes, Oracle codes, vice presidential signatures, 90 day turn-arounds, etc. And panic. I shouldn’t forget about the panic. One of the bed rock requirements of the consulting profession is to learn how to communicate with people like that who are themselves not trained or necessarily feel a need to do the same. Among other things, it’s one of the best parts of being a consultant. You get to enter a world populated with business people with completely different perspectives. I imagine it’s a little bit like entering the mind of a serial killer, ach amháin nach bhfuil tú scriosta don saol tar éis an taithí (though entering the mind of an AP manager isn’t a walk in the park 🙂 [féach nóta tábhachtach thíos ***] ).

One of the great things about our technical world as SharePoint people is that we have ready-made answers to many of the very valid concerns that people such as my AP contact have. Is it secure? How do I know that the expense was properly vetted? Can I, mar an t-íocóir deiridh, féach ar na sonraí go léir ar chostas? How do I do that? What if I look at those details and don’t approve of them? Can I reject them? What happens if the organization changes and the original approver is no longer around? Can we easily change the process to reflect changes in the system? An féidir liom a chaitheamh ar an chostas in aghaidh na bliana ina dhiaidh sin má agus nuair a rachaidh mé iniúchadh agus is gá a chosaint ar an íocaíocht?

Mar dhaoine SharePoint, we can see how to answer those questions. In my client’s case, freagra dúinn iad níos mó nó níos lú mar seo:

• Foirm InfoPath chun ligean suímh chun a gcuid costais a thaifeadadh agus iad a thíolacadh, lena bhformheas.
• Is féidir le Láithreáin filleadh ar an suíomh d'fhonn stádas a n-tuarascáil chostas ag am ar bith.
• Mar a tharlaíonn imeachtaí suntasacha (e.g. Is é an costas ceadaithe agus curtha faoi bhráid le haghaidh íocaíochta), an córas in iúl go réamhghníomhach leo trí ríomhphost.
• In iúl an córas an riarthóir airgeadais nuair a bhfuil tuairisc curtha isteach lena cheadú.
• Ceadaíonn riarthóir Airgeadais nó denies an t-iarratas.
• Ar cheadú, Is é an costas cuachta suas i ríomhphost agus a sheoladh chuig an 3ú eagraíocht íocóir páirtí.
• Tá an t-íocóir 3ú páirtí an fhaisnéis go léir is gá iad chun athbhreithniú a dhéanamh ar an gcostas agus is féidir rochtain a fháil ar an timpeallacht SharePoint chun tochailt isteach na sonraí (príomha iniúchadh stair a fhíorú ar an "fhírinne" de na costais).
• 3rd party payer can approve or reject the payment using their own internal process. They record that outcome back in the SharePoint site (a chuireann tús le fógra ríomhphoist le daoine oiriúnacha).
• Sa todhchaí, Bheadh ​​sé deas a ghearradh amach an próiseas r-phost stilly agus ina ionad sin beatha an t-eolas chostas díreach isteach ina gcuid córas.

Mar fhocal scoir, níl a stíl saol anseo go cur síos mé ó thaobh an comhairleoir gairmiúil dhearcadh, but which applies almost equally to full time employees in a BA and/or power user role. Work patiently with the experts in your company and extract the core business requirements as best you can. With a deep understanding of SharePoint features and functions to draw upon, níos minice ná a mhalairt, beidh tú in ann a imní a fhreagairt agus a thairiscint ar bhealaí chun feabhas a chur ar gach duine lá oibre a ghiaráil croí gnéithe SharePoint.

***Nóta tábhachtach: I really don’t mean to compare AP people to serial killers. Mar sin féin, I could probably name some AP pro’s who have probably wished they could get a restraining order against me stalking them and asking over and over again. “Where’s my check?” “Where’s my check?” “Where’s my check?"

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[Tabhair faoi deara: Tá blog post thrasnú fáil ag láithreán Mark Miller anseo: http://www.endusersharepoint.com/?p = 1897]

Ceann de na mo cuideachta Tá cliaint níos mó neamhghnách Nua-Eabhrac dochtúir Cathrach atá ina cheannaire ar ina réimse áirithe na míochaine (cúram súl). Like many doctors, he has a strong interest in research. He wanted to do some research on a rare eye disorder that affects a relatively small number of people in the U.S. and Canada. I don’t know the number, but it’s really too small for a large pharmaceutical company to invest its own private funds with an eye toward eventual commercial success. I’m sure large pharma’s do some amount of research into rare diseases, ach creidim go bhfuil an U.S. government is probably the largest source of funding. Cosúil le aon rud, resources are scarce. Many doctors across the country want to perform research and trials. Mar thoradh air sin, there’s more than a little competition for that government funding. This is where my company and SharePoint enter the picture.

The fundamental idea is that a master organization will recruit other doctors across the country and enlist those doctors’ practices in a particular research study. These individual practices must sign up with the master organization and then, ina dhiaidh sin, sign up for a particular study. The relationships look like this:

• One máistir eagraíocht.
• Cleachtais go leor dochtúir éagsúla a shíniú suas leis an eagraíocht máistir.
• The master organization obtains funding for individual studies. At the outset, níl ach an staidéar amháin ar galair shonraigh súl annamh cé go bhfuil muid ag rampaí suas cheana féin le haghaidh staidéar eile.
• Individual doctors’ practices sign up for specific studies. A specific practice could sign up for one or multiple studies.

Tá an eagraíocht máistir é féin briste síos i ngrúpaí:

• Coiste feidhmiúcháin
• Coiste Stiúrtha
• Coistí staidéir Aonair
• Riarachán
• daoine eile

Mar fhocal scoir, nuair a shíneoidh an dochtúir ar leith ar chleachtas suas chun páirt a ghlacadh i staidéar, is gá iad a chur ar fáil gairmiúla a chomhlíonadh ar éagsúlacht na róil:

• Imscrúdaitheoirí (lena n-áirítear imscrúdaitheoir bunscoile, de ghnáth dochtúir, chomh maith le ceann amháin nó níos mó imscrúdaitheoirí breise)
• Comhordaitheoirí
• Teicneoirí
• Deontais riarthóirí
• daoine eile

The above roles have very specific and highly proscribed roles that vary by study. I won’t get into more detail here, ach má tá suim agat, fág nóta nó ríomhphost chugam.

Agus anois is féidir liom an cheist a fhreagairt, SharePoint - Cad tá sé go maith do? The answer – it’s really good for this scenario.

Is é seo an votepage cheana níos faide ná mar a ceapadh mé, mar sin beidh mé achoimre a dhéanamh ar an ról fíorthábhachtach atá ag na SharePoint i an réiteach agus Léim isteach mionsonraí i airteagal amach anseo (más rud é nach féidir leat fanacht, ríomhphost chugam nó a fhágáil a comment agus beidh mé sásta a phlé agus b'fhéidir fiú iarracht a dhéanamh ar taispeántas). We are leveraging a wide array of SharePoint features to support this concept:

• Láithreáin do choistí, rólanna aonair (láithreáin comhordaitheoir, láithreáin imscrúdaitheoir, etc).
• Slándáil a dhéanamh cinnte nach bhfuil cleachtais éagsúla a fheiceáil sonraí chleachtais eile '.
• InfoPath forms services for online form entry. This is a particularly big win. De ghnáth, na foirmeacha deacair a phriontáil, ríomhphost chuig an chleachtais, filled out and mailed back. The advantages to the online forms are obvious. They do introduce some complexities (ceadúnú agus daonna) ach sin scéal eile.
• As na codanna gréasáin bhosca, cosúil le fógraí (nuair a dhéanann coiste [x] freastal ar?) agus freastal ar spásanna oibre.
• Foirmeacha fíordheimhniú atá bunaithe i gcomhcheangal le uirlis CodePlex a chur ar fáil féin-chlárú agus do phasfhocal dearmad gnéithe.
• Liostaí saincheaptha agus tuairimí liosta d'infheictheacht isteach gníomhaíochtaí staidéir nach bhfuil ach is féidir le páipéar íon agus cur chuige peann luaidhe.

Cé is moite de na foirmeacha modúl fíordheimhnithe bhunaithe agus dornán d'fhoirmeacha InfoPath, Tá an tionscadal seo ag baint úsáide as beagnach gach as an fheidhmiúlacht SharePoint bhosca.

Sula mé wrap suas an min-cás-staidéar, Ba mhaith liom a chur in iúl rud éigin an-tábhachtach - gan aon ar an gceist leis an tionscadal seo (leataobh ó mo chuideachta ar ndóigh) has any idea that a thing called “SharePoint” is playing such a fundamental technical role. Nearly all of my end users view this as “the web site.” Our client values us because we’re solving their business problem. SharePoint is a great technical blob of goodness, ach rinneadh ceart, that’s irrelevant to end users. They need a problem solved, Ní Blob iontach na teicneolaíochta.

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Nó an bhfuil sé ach dom? I’ve received three or four calls at my house since late September looking for SharePoint work. I’m used to the email solicitations, but these phone calls are a little unnerving. I haven’t had an updated resume on a job site I(like Monster pr Dice) since almost two years ago exactly. And back then, my resume was all about BizTalk and MS CRM. That’s the only place my phone number appears on line anywhere, chomh fada is a fhios agam.

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An spriocdháta Shíl ar an seo ar shlí eile airteagal dull labhraíonn go go maith chun fadhbanna a táimid ag aghaidh a thabhairt ar go minic i an phobal teicniúla:

"Such dreary developments, ag súil le cinnteacht, Ní mór a iompróidh Philosophically."

This puts me in mind of one of the presentations I gave at the SharePoint Best Practices conference last month. I was describing how to get "great" riachtanais ghnó agus duine éigin sa lucht féachana d'iarr, i éifeacht a, what to do if circumstances are such that it’s impossible to get great requirements. Mar shampla, Cuireann cultúr cuideachta ar leith ar TF i os comhair an gatherer ceanglais a / anailísí gnó, preventing direct communication with end users. This is a serious impediment to obtaining great business requirements. My answer was "walk away." I’m not a big humorist, so I was surprised at how funny this was to the audience. Mar sin féin, I’m serious about this. If you can’t get good requirements, you can be certain that a dreary outcome will result. Who wants that? I’m a consultant, mar sin tá sé níos réadúla (cé go terribly painful agus drastic) for me to walk away. Mar sin féin, má tá tú fréamhaithe go domhain i gcuideachta agus nach mian a, nó nach féidir, siúl amach, George (for once 🙂 ) Léiríonn an mbealach.

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Cé chomh minic a tharlaíonn sé a thabhairt duit? I’m sitting at my laptop, blogs léamh, freagra a thabhairt postings fóram, 2 cóipeanna de amhairc stiúideo oscailte agus VPN'd amach leis an bhfreastalaí eile lena stiúideo amhairc féin + 15 bhrabhsálaí fuinneoga (in aghaidh an lae tipiciúil) agus duine éigin darb ainm Samantha (mo bhean chéile, cosúil) Insíonn dom, "We have be there in 30 nóiméad. Get dressed."

Rachaidh mé suas i daze, wander ar fud an tí confusedly, a fháil i rud gluaisteán agus eile a fhios agam, Tá mé ag páirtí le beoir i mo lámh agus iarrann duine éigin dom, "So, cad a dhéanann tú le haghaidh maireachtála?"

Tá na comhráite riamh dul go maith.

Mise: "Ahh … Tá mé réitigh ailtire le haghaidh EMC."

Duine nameless: evaporator bán

Mise: "I work with a product called SharePoint … tá sé ó Microsoft."

NP: "Aha! Chuala mé na cuideachta sin! What is SharePoint?"

Mise: "Umm … a dhéanann sé comhoibriú … daoine é a úsáid chun faisnéis a roinnt … Tá sé ardán do thógáil busines sol…"

NP: Súile gloiniú.

Mise: "I’m a programmer."

NP: "Aha! I know people in my company that do programming! When I was in high school, Bhí mé timpeall le BASIC."

Agus leis an gcuid sin den chomhrá thar, cas muid chun rud éigin níos éasca chun labhairt faoi, cosúil le polaitíocht.

Fonn ar éinne le cur síos ar conas déileáil leo seo?

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Tá mé i rang dá sheachtain anuas agus tá rud amháin go stailceanna dom go bhfuil a lán de mhachnamhach, daoine cliste ag obair ar SharePoint (mar shainchomhairleoirí nó mar fhoireann TE) nach bhfuil a blog, twitter, Is cosúil go feasach boird teachtaireacht poiblí cosúil le MSDN fhóraim nó Ollscoil SharePoint, Facebook nó LinkedIn próifílí a choimeád ar bun, etc. They are pure information consumers. Not bad, ach suimiúil.

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A bunch de bhlianta ó shin, my boss asked me to train some users on a product called Results. Results is an end user reporting tool. It’s roughly analogous to SQL Server Reporting Service or Crystal. Ag an am, bhí sé deartha a reáchtáil ar feadáin glas (e.g. Wyse 50 críochfort) connected to a Unix box via telnet.

My default answer to any question that starts with "Can you … " is "Yes" and that’s where all the trouble started.

The client was a chemical company out in southern California and had just about wrapped up a major ERP implementation based on QAD’s MFG/PRO. The implementation plan now called for training power end users on the Results product.

I wasn’t a big user of this tool and had certainly never trained anyone before. Mar sin féin, Ndearna mé roinnt ranganna oiliúna eile agus bhí tapa ar mo chosa, so I was not too worried. Dennis, an fíor lánaimseartha Torthaí teagascóir, had given me his training material. Looking back on it now, it’s really quite absurd. I didn’t know the product well, had never been formally trained on it and had certainly never taught it. What business did I have training anyone on it?

Chun rudaí deacra logistically, I was asked to go and meet someone in Chicago as part of a pre-sales engagement along the way. The plan was to fly out of New Jersey, téigh go dtí Chicago, meet for an hour with prospect and then continue on to California.

Bhuel, I got to Chicago and the sales guy on my team had made some mistake and never confirmed the meeting. Mar sin,, I showed up and the prospect wasn’t there. Awesome. I pack up and leave and continue on to CA. Somewhere during this process, I find out that the client is learning less than 24 hours before my arrival that "Paul Galvin" is teaching the class, not Dennis. The client loves Dennis. They want to know "who is this Paul Galvin person?" "Why should we trust him?" "Why should we pay for him?" Dennis obviously didn’t subscribe to my "a thabhairt nuacht olc go luath" philosophy. Awesome.

I arrive at the airport and for some incredibly stupid reason, I had checked my luggage. I made it to LAX but my luggage did not. Maidir liom féin, bhfuil a chailliúint bagáiste a lán cosúil le dul tríd an seacht céimeanna de grief. Eventually I make it to the hotel, gan aon bhagáiste, tuirseach, ocras agus ag caitheamh mo (ag anois, an-crumpled) business suit. It takes a long time to travel from Newark — to O’Hare — le cliant — ar ais go dtí O'Hare — agus ar deireadh a LAX.

Bhfaighidh mé mé féin ar deireadh suí sa seomra óstán, munching ar bharra snickers, exhausted and trying to drum up the energy to scan through the training material again so that I won’t look like a complete ass in front of the class. This was a bit of a low point for me at the time.

Dhúisigh mé suas an lá dár gcionn, did my best to smooth out my suit so that I didn’t look like Willy Loman on a bad day and headed on over to the client. As is so often the case, go pearsanta go raibh sí go deas, polite and very pleasant. This stood in stark contrast to her extremely angry emails/voicemails from the previous day. She leads me about 3 miles through building after building to a sectioned off area in a giant chemical warehouse where we will conduct the class for the next three days. The 15 nó 20 assemble mic léinn go mall, most them still expecting Dennis.

Mé ag tosú i gcónaí as mo ranganna oiliúna a thabhairt isteach mé féin, giving some background and writing my contact information on the white board. As I’m saying, "Good morning, my name is Paul Galvin", Scríobh mé mo ainm, email and phone number up on the white board in big letters so that everyone can see it clearly. I address the fact that I’m replacing Dennis and I assure them that I am a suitable replacement, etc. I have everyone briefly tell me their name and what they want to achieve out of the class so that I can tailor things to their specific requirements as I go along. The usual stuff.

We wrap that up and fire up the projector. I go to erase my contact info and … I had written it in permanent marker. I was so embarrassed. In my mind’s eye, it looked like this: There is this "Paul Galvin" person, last minute replacement for our beloved Dennis. He’s wearing a crumpled up business suit and unshaven. He has just written his name huge letters on our white board in marcóir buan. What a sight!

Chríochnaigh sé go léir sona sásta, áfach,. This was a chemical company, tar éis an tsaoil. A grizzled veteran employee pulled something off the shelf and, is dócha de shárú ar rialacháin an EPA, cleared the board. I managed to stay 1/2 day ahead of the class throughout the course and they gave me a good review in the end. This cemented my "pinch hitter" reputation at my company. My luggage arrived the first day, mar sin bhí mé lá i bhfad níos mó presentable dhá agus trí.

Mar a bhí mé ag cur an tsúil dearg ar ais sa bhaile, I was contemplating "lessons learned". There was plenty to contemplate. Communication is key. Tell clients about changes in plan. Don’t ever check your luggage at the airport if you can possibly avoid it. Bring spare "stuff" in case you do check your luggage and it doens’t make it. I think the most important lesson I learned, áfach,, was this: always test a marker in the lower left-hand corner of a white board before writing, in huge letters, "Paul Galvin".

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Due to some oddball United Airlines flights I took in the mid 90’s, I somehow ended up with an offer to transform "unused miles" into about a dozen free magazine subscriptions. That is how I ended up subscribing to Scientific American magazine.

Mar bogearraí / dul i gcomhairle le daoine, we encounter many difficult business requirements in our career. Most the time, we love meeting those requirements and in fact, it’s probably why we think this career is the best in the world. I occasionally wonder just what in the world would I have done with myself if I had been born at any other time in history. How terrible would it be to miss out on the kinds of work I get to do now, at this time and place in world history? I mo thuairimse,: pretty terrible.

Over the years, some of the requirements I’ve faced have been extremely challenging to meet. Complex SharePoint stuff, building web processing frameworks based on non-web-friendly technology, complex BizTalk orchestrations and the like. We can all (hopefully) look proudly back on our career and say, "yeah, that was a hard one to solve, but in the end I pwned that sumbitch!" Níos fearr fós, even more interesting and fun challenges await.

I personally think that my resume, in this respect, is pretty deep and I’m pretty proud of it (though I know my wife will never understand 1/20th of it). But this week, I was reading an article about the Large Hadron Collider in my Scientific American magazine and had one of those rare humbling moments where I realized that despite my "giant" status in certain circles or how deep I think my well of experience, there are real giants in completely different worlds.

The people on the LHC team have some really thorny issues to manage. Consider the Moon. I don’t really think much about the Moon (though I’ve been very suspicious about it since I learned it’s slowing the Earth’s rotation, which can’t be a good thing for us Humans in the long term). Ach, the LHC team does have to worry. LHC’s measuring devices are so sensitive that they are affected by the Moon’s (Earth-rotation-slowing-and-eventually-killing-all-life) gravity. That’s a heck of a requirement to meet — produce correct measurements despite the Moon’s interference.

I was pondering that issue when I read this sentence: "The first level will receive and analyze data from only a subset of all the detector’s components, from which it can pick out promising events based on isolated factors such as whether an energetic muon was spotted flying out at a large angle from the beam axis." Really … ? I don’t play in that kind of sandbox and never will.

Next time I’m out with some friends, I’m going to raise a toast to the good people working on the LHC, hope they don’t successfully weigh the Higgs boson particle and curse the Moon. I suggest you do the same. It will be quite the toast 🙂

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