Sometimes things are best left alone. I know that, but I can’t always help myself. If I could, I’d probably still be at Level 3.
The most ironic part of the reaction to the original “Hold On. Don’t Go So Fast” post was how self-fulfilling it was. An undertone of the story is that operations people can be, well, overly sensitive. This is a gross generalization–and certainly doesn’t apply to many operations folks. However, there is some truth when associating certain personality traits with various career types.
Think of accountants. There is a reason they are thought to be serious, analytical, and somewhat introverted people. It is because many accountants (but certainly not all) tend to this nature. Engineers have their ways. Salespeople as well. Operations is no different. They tend to be tough on the outside but sometimes quite sensitive on the inside. Had Vincent not chosen gangster as a career, operations might have been his profession.
To be clear, the post was not a criticism. The purpose of the post was only to point out that we push service activation people to make a solid estimate of realistic activation dates for those orders in their pipeline. This pushed operations outside their comfort zone. They live in a world of black and white–once they have all the info they need, they can tell you what will happen. It is why many choose operations as a career path. Ambiguity is bad. Incomplete information is troublesome. They want the facts–all of them. Until they get them, they hesitate to put a stake in the ground.
However, we ask of operations the same as what we ask of the sales teams (and others). Even though uncertainty lurks, we still want our activation team to put a stake in the ground. “When are outstanding service orders most likely to get installed?” It is critical to the end-to-end dynamic of accurately forecasting financials. That was the main point of the blog entry.
The blog, as I’ve pointed out, is meant to be somewhat entertaining. So instead of just dryly writing the previous paragraph, I added some color. My goal was simply to make the post a bit more fun to read. So I poked ops folks a little. Not Zayo’s or Envysion’s ops folks, just ops folks in general. I know operations professionals are very proud, and they are often sensitive about these matters. With this in mind, I added a well-intentioned clarification.
Despite all of this, a murmur of angst found its way my direction. Wasn’t this tendancy the point of how I intertwined humor into the blog entry? I find this a bit ironic and humorous.
To be clear, I am proud of how our operations groups are doing. Envysion is scaling dramatically, and operations is meeting the expectations of our customers every step along the way. Moreover, they work hard to maintain dependable service activation forecasts. The Zayo operations teams are responding incredibly well to their new environment. I think most would agree they are busier now than they were under their previous entities. We are working with them to structure the forecasting processes–though this is work in progress, they are showing leadership and initiative in implementing our methodology. The posts on the blog are meant to help them understand why we emphasize this so dogmatically.
So, all joking aside, thank you. I truly am appreciative. I look forward to an exciting 2008.
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