{"id":677,"date":"2023-10-02T02:38:44","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T02:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/?page_id=677"},"modified":"2023-12-07T20:57:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T20:57:59","slug":"chunking-application","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/?page_id=677","title":{"rendered":"Chunking Application"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Maddie had joined the Navy straight out of school. There weren\u2019t a lot of career options for a small-town girl who wanted to see the world, and the Navy at least paid for her transport and accommodation. The Navy had also been where she got started as an engineer. It turned out that being an engineer for a civilian company paid a lot better, and although you didn\u2019t get to visit remote Pacific islands as often, at least you didn\u2019t have to worry about sinking quite so often either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, though, Maddie thought that the most valuable thing the Navy had taught her was how to swear. Maddie had an impressive vocabulary of swear words in a variety of languages, and she could swear for several minutes at a time without repeating an obscenity. She was using that talent now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanaka waited until Maddie had finished, then politely clapped his hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cImpressive, really impressive, Maddie,\u201d he said. \u201cI should record that sometime, so the customers know what you think of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maddie glared at him. \u201cDon\u2019t you dare,\u201d she growled. \u201cIn fact, if you can find some way of shoving all our customers into the sun, that would be good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMore problems with the Mac-Air contract?\u201d Shanaka asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanaka and Maddie both worked for CAC, the Cool Air Corporation, which provided industrial refrigeration and air-conditioning systems nationwide. As senior engineers, they were collectively responsible for several installation teams which were assigned to a variety of jobs. Unfortunately, they were also responsible for the successful completion of the contracts CAC won, which hadn\u2019t been going as smoothly as either of them would have hoped. Maddie had just come back from a meeting with the head of the sales team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Maddie shook her head. \u201cNo, the Mac-Air contract is finished, thankfully. They grumbled the whole time, but they eventually agreed it was complete and signed off on it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To be fair, in the post-project review meeting Mac-Air tabled a number of improvements they wished we had included, complaining they never had the opportunity to share them until it was too late,\u201d Shanaka said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat Mac-Air were complaining about is that they were getting a whole lot of handovers that they couldn\u2019t do anything with. Each one needed a meeting or inspection, which chewed up time, and they still couldn\u2019t use what we gave them until the end. I\u2019m not surprised they got grumpy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah\u2026\u201d Maddie sighed. \u201cI can kind of see it too, but we didn\u2019t have much choice. We accommodated their feedback from last time, and gave them as much opportunity as we could to share their feedback. We just can\u2019t win! Anyway, since you\u2019re here, perhaps you can help me with something related to that issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanaka nodded. \u201cSure. What\u2019s up?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, with the Mac-Air contract finished, all our install teams are free for the next big project. And trust me, it\u2019s a big project. No names, of course, but a company named after a big river is building a data centre nearby, and somehow we got the contract for all the cooling and HVAC work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanaka pursed his lips in a silent whistle, and his eyes went wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat is a big job\u2026\u201d he said slowly. \u201cI hate to ask the question, but do we actually have the capacity to handle it?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Maddie grimaced. \u201cYes. Probably. If we take on some sub-contractors, and use our teams to direct them\u2026 I think we can do it. But we\u2019ll have to plan out the work allocations really well, and there\u2019s a challenge here. On the one hand, we need to make sure the handovers are all high value \u2013 we can\u2019t get away with the same thing we did with Mac-Air, where we had it all bundled into one big \u2018reveal\u2019 at the end. Nor can we completely unbundle the handovers either. Neither will work out well here. Though, we do need to know as soon as possible if something\u2019s gone off-target.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis project is far too big for us to re-engineer if it turns out something needs to be changed. We\u2019re going to have multiple teams working at once, on different things, and a whole bunch of sub-contractors doing stuff as well. How do we keep visibility of the state of the project?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUgh.\u201d Shanaka thought for a moment. \u201cTough one. The timing of handovers is probably key to it, isn\u2019t it? I mean, we just don\u2019t have enough pairs of eyes to check everything ourselves. When one of our install teams gets a handover from a sub-contractor, they have to be able to check whether what the sub-contractor gave them is fit for purpose. And when one of our install teams marks something off as completed, that\u2019s the point where we have to be sure that it\u2019s what the client actually wanted and will deliver what was promised. We don\u2019t want to be changing things once the data centre is mostly built.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo\u2026 three things we need to do, then,\u201d Maddie said thoughtfully. \u201cFirst is to make sure each project milestone delivers value for the client or is a useful handover. The second is to break down each milestone into a series of small bursts of effort. Let\u2019s try half the chunk size we currently use, I don\u2019t want any month-long tasks in there. We have to be able to show measurable progress and follow through on any change requests with minimal disruption. Let\u2019s not have those mountains of change requests happen again. And third is to deliver each of those project milestones as soon as possible, so the customer can benefit from them, even if the rest of the job isn\u2019t complete.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shanaka shrugged. \u201cSounds good to me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it also sounds like a huge amount of work to get that all organised. How much time do we have?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s almost three months before they break ground on the data centre,\u201d Maddie replied. \u201cThat\u2019s more than enough time for us to get all of these milestones and handovers broken down into chunks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanaka grimaced. \u201cI hope you\u2019re right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Close to the end of the year, it was Shanaka\u2019s turn to swear. He didn\u2019t have Maddie\u2019s vast experience, but he was making up for it with enthusiasm and commitment. When he had finished, Maddie nodded in satisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot bad,\u201d she said, \u201cYou\u2019re really getting the hang of this. Now, do you care to tell me what\u2019s caused this little outburst?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanaka groaned and buried his face in his hands. \u201cIt\u2019s that idea we talked about for the data centre, about breaking tasks down into chunks. It\u2019s all gone wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan you be more specific?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanaka looked up gloomily. \u201cIt started badly,\u201d he said, \u201cWith nobody knowing what was supposed to be in a chunk. How do we declare the end of one chunk and the start of another? Our people see it as one continuous activity: “You get started and you keep working on it until it is all done” After a couple of attempts, though, we got around that, by getting whoever was meant to receive the handover to specify what they needed to receive to be able to complete their bit of the project. And that was fine \u2013 it took a few more goes to get the handover specifications working well, but we did, and that actually sped things up, and with the size of the chunks there has been little resistance to changes when they were required, so that was all good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Maddie nodded. \u201cYep, that all sounds great, actually,\u201d she said. \u201cIt certainly helped with progress visibility too, which is what I was hoping for. So why so gloomy? Has it all started going wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know! Breaking things into smaller chunks sped things up, right? So we broke them up even smaller and smaller, so we could go even faster and faster, but somehow the opposite has happened. \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuh.\u201d Maddie grinned. \u201cRookie mistake, Shanaka. Each chunk still has to be checked, and those checks take time. I\u2019ll bet your people are complaining about the number of reviews and the wait time that adds while the next person gets around to it. It must feel like you\u2019re doing nothing but checking handovers, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cActually, yeah.\u201d Shanaka raised his head. \u201cDo you mean that we just\u2026 went too far?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSounds like it,\u201d Maddie agreed. \u201cDon\u2019t let perfect be the enemy of good, Shanaka. That\u2019s something we used to say in the Navy \u2013 good enough really is good enough, while perfect is a pain in the ass and often not worth the trouble anyway. Start by halving the chunk size, and if that works OK, halve it again, in my opinion. By that stage, you\u2019ve probably got the best out of the speed and visibility improvements anyway, and your focus needs to move to something else as the limiting factor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanaka sat back in his chair, feeling more optimistic than he had for some time. \u201cSo\u2026 you think we\u2019re ready for more big projects like this one?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah!\u201d Maddie grinned. \u201cLet\u2019s show them how a project should be delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maddie had joined the Navy straight out of school. There weren\u2019t a lot of career options for a small-town girl who wanted to see the world, and the Navy at least paid for her transport and accommodation. The Navy had also been where she got started as an engineer. It turned out that being an …<\/p>\n

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