Initialize Thoughts

I've taken it upon myself to attempt to keep up with the fast-moving space of computer science and team dynamics. Its kind of impossible to be entirely on the cutting edge without losing perspective on what exactly people need to know to get meaning full work accomplished. Most of the time, simple solutions, some of which involve already proven techniques, can get the job done.

We all have to start somewhere

My take on this space comes primarily from the regulatory landscape, having spent the majority of my career in this arena. In this space, we are hamstrung, rightly so, by the regulatory creation process, competing market dynamics (small vs. big firms vs. consumer advocates), and a myriad of other factors (budgets, political landscape, foreign regulations, etc.). In this space, the way we did things in the past weighs heavily on any practical solution you may want to consider. Part of this has to do with the way laws are written, fought in court, and regulations implemented. It's one thing to convince your management that x,y,z process can be modified, and its a whole other task when you then have to pass that solution through the regulatory gauntlet of legal review and public scrutiny.

We can come up with exciting solutions, but the challenge almost always snakes it way back to dealing with collection systems design to perform a regulatory task (collect firm information, catalog authorized products, communicate publically allowable information) and need to convert that task into data that can be combined with other pieces of knowledge that we know about the regulatory landscape. In other words, strange biases are continually being introduced into your datasets, and that's before you even consider differences in foreign country legal systems and how they interact with your regulatory environment.

Oh, and did I mention most of the work will be performed by a complex interaction of contractors, different subject matter experts, and political appointees? Add in the spice of personality differences, and it can jam up that machine quite nicely. So, where can you come into the picture and begin to unravel the complexity?

The most apparent spot has to be that of a negotiator. You have to play the moving parts of one another - almost like a series of blows and counter moves that can help you prod people towards a solution. I've called this herding cats in the past, but what comes to mind now is making magnets with opposing polls work in a way that lets you produce something useful while naturally opposing each other.

I think I'll leave things here for now. Its clearly a journey I want to share with others, and perhaps you can take away a nugget of truth that speaks to you. Maybe that is the key message here - its a journey, and we can aim for a target that is well beyond our current capabilities. In doing so, we can improve upon what has already been accomplished and hopefully accomplish our regulatory mission.