How to Make Things Faster

Chapter 107. Change Control

To improve a company’s system, you’ll have to navigate that company’s change control policies. Change control is like an immune system designed to protect a system from harmful changes. But change control is an impediment if it unreasonably delays you from making helpful changes, especially when a system is in trouble.

It’s fine for change control policies to delay changes on a happy system. But when a system is in crisis, you may have to sacrifice safety for agility. For example, my client in Orange County would have died by Friday if their change control policies had delayed our ability to eliminate that table lock or fix a bunch of bad SQL. But their CEO cleared the way for us, realizing that policies and procedures exist to support the business, not the other way around.

Change control can be particularly frustrating for short engagements. You may recall, I got only a week at most of the clients I’ve visited. If a change control policy slowed me down by even a day or two, then I might be gone before anyone could implement my suggestions. Sometimes clients would tell me half a year later at a conference, “No, we never got around to replacing that index. Yeah, the TPS reports are still really slow…”

That’s sickening news when you’re trying to make a difference. This is why techniques like the Jeweler’s Method are so important. Inspiring an advocate in the business who will keep up the pressure to fix things is better than just writing a recommendation. ...