Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Meet me at the big oak tree outside of town at dusk. They said something like that in the old Westerns. It makes sense to still do this.

There was always a showdown or something in the old Westerns. The big oak tree a mile outside of town at dusk. How did they know how far a mile was? I never could understand that. They always made it though.

That big oak tree was a landmark. Everyone knew where it was. Dusk was a specific time. You couldn’t miss it. A specific place and an specific time.

“Let’s discuss our understanding of the requirements Friday.” A specific place (requirements understanding) and a specific time (Friday).

In some respects, that isn’t flexible or agile or DevSecOps or some other recent thing that we’ve convinced ourselves is better. A landmark never moved. There was only one big oak tree a mile outside of town. Dusk was dusk—no flexibility.

The landmark, however, removed a lot variables. All that was left was to discuss the complex items that would lead to a successful endeavor. All those variables out of the way. The landmark is a big eraser, a big trash can, some other metaphor that helps us to great things. Find the landmark and use it.