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I think that most of us like to do our best work.  One of the more frustrating things about working in IT/web/operations is that we often live our lives in “response” mode.  When last minute decisions are made, they often come to technology people as the last stop on the bus.  We are often not included in the strategic decisions, nor do we ever fully understand the logic behind the request.  Just last week, a decision was made to do something… I’m going to paint two possible scenarios.

Scenario one – We need to make a change.  What should we do?  Let’s bring all the affected parties into the room and clearly layout what we want to accomplish.  Then after it has been spelled out, let’s take a moment to determine the level of effort involved.  Is it still a good idea?  Yes? ok. Once we know how much effort this would take to do this really well, let’s decide how we want to implement the change, determine what steps we will take the make the change, and schedule when the change will be “live”.

Scenerio two – We need to make a change – What should we do?  Let’s decide to make the change because it is important to us.  Then since we know that everyone is really busy and probably doesn’t have time to make the change by tomorrow morning, let’s ask how much we can get if we only spend an hour working on it.  Sure, the solution probably won’t be ideal, but its better than nothing I guess.

Ever been there before?  I think that churches should do things excellently.  Often though, we are asked to do a percentage of what it would take to do it right.  That puts us in positions where we have a choice to make.  That choice is…

• I can do the “one hour” version, which won’t be excellent, and frankly I won’t feel good about putting in front of people.
• I can choose to spend the appropriate amount of time to do things with excellence, but since this wasn’t scheduled it will need to be worked into all that is going on.  So, I’ll probably work late, miss time with my family, etc because I truly believe that the product that we produce says something about who we are.  Not saying my personal identity is wrapped up in the product, but the image of the church is.

Anyone else been there before?  How did you handle it?  What are your best tips on managing up?