Stuff is breaking out there
Photo by Steve Johnson
We’re all too busy these days, it seems.
So it’s not always welcome news when we tell a platform manager that their most sacred responsibility is to be in constant communication with everyone, always. That they cannot afford to hide behind a ticketing queue.
Because being in constant communication typically means regularly scheduled meetings with every stakeholder group. Sometimes weekly, sometimes bi-weekly. Rarely less frequent than that.
And whose calendar has time for that?!?
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But you’ve gotta do it. Because stuff is breaking out there. That doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong, it’s just the way technology works.
If you’re not proactively turning over rocks and asking questions, stuff is still breaking out there. You’ve just chosen willful ignorance, so you don’t know what those things are and you can’t fix them.
You’d rather know.
Of course you’ve got a zillion other things to do. You’ve got active ongoing projects that need attention, and people bugging you for help, and a to-do list a mile long. It’s so tempting to remove those other regular meetings, especially where the work feels a little less active, less urgent.
You might even get an inquiry from someone who is on your upcoming schedule, saying “I don’t really have anything to discuss, do we still have to meet today?” Ooh, that’s so tempting.
But keep the meeting. Don't be satisfied with the illusion of having “nothing to discuss”. Ask how things are going. Ask them to pull up the system on their screen and walk you through how they’re using the it, or not using it.
You’re going to learn a lot, very quickly.
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You’re going to spot a couple helpful things you could show them. You might discover that they’re using something incorrectly, and you can help them while saving yourself a much larger cleanup project later. You might spot something that’s working differently than intended, or an outright bug.
You might get better insight on what they’re trying to accomplish, or the spark of an idea about an improvement to be made. You might build trust and understanding that you’re truly there to help.
Fundamentally you’re going to gather the important context and intelligence you need to operate at the strategic level where your organization needs you. There’s a place for people who execute tasks off of a queue, but that’s not you. A platform manager needs to be in constant search, monitor, and intake mode.
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As busy as you are, if you’re honest with yourself you know that you can’t afford to just wait for requests to come in. You can’t allow yourself to go months without a touch-point with any stakeholder. You’ll pay for that later with a more difficult cleanup, a more involved extraction, or a missed opportunity you may never even know that you missed. All those things are happening out there, every day.
You’ll be tempted by your busy schedule, that’s for certain. But don’t stop the proactive communication. More conversation means more intake, and more intake means a longer list of possible things to do. Which requires ever more sophisticated prioritization. To make it all work you somehow have to solve several impossible puzzles and pull off a series of heroic miracles, against all odds. And then you have to do it again. And then again.
But that’s your job, and your unique brilliance. And you actually kind of love it, right? So don’t shortchange it.
Stuff is breaking out there, and people need help. It may be tempting to plug your ears and pretend that’s not happening, but it is. If you know what’s out there, at least you're giving yourself a chance.