Knowing How Is Not Enough

As a SharePoint consultant I am faced with technical decisions every day. These decisions are usually centred on how we should implement a specific functionality in SharePoint or how to approach a problem from the technological perspective. Sometimes, however, I can’t resist thinking that in the overall scheme of things our technical expertise is not enough.

In a single company usually you can find processes that cross departments and add value to whatever the business of the company is. Some of them can even cross companies, as we can find in the supplier-manufacturer-customer chain. When faced with optimizing the process we tend to focus on the “how” part of the solution.  The most important thing, the “why” part, is left out. We tend to let the business people take care of it.

This is crippling to us, the experts. Why should we stay shy of the more intangible, “soft” side of the business? From the neurological perspective we are complete human beings and we can be both creative and rational. We can apply the non-sequential thinking when needed. We don’t have to limit ourselves to one of our two categories of intellectual activity.

I admit that sticking to the technology side is much more comfortable and predictable (even if putting SharePoint and predictable in the same sentence sometimes can be an oxymoron). When we engage in technical stuff we know well, we drift into our comfort zone where we are proficient and accomplished. Stepping out of that zone is not easy but I think that it’s the natural thing to do if we want to evolve and overcome our comfort zone.

Let me make it clear that I don’t downplay the value of technical expertise. It takes a lot of time to be proficient in one specific technology and it adds critical value when needed. My point is that many times we tend to forget that our technical side of the equation is not the whole formula.

From my point of view I see the activities that we (the so-called experts) engage in fall broadly into two categories: answering “how” is something done and answering “why” is something done. The “how” part is what makes our technical expertise and it’s our comfort zone. When faced with a problem to solve, our mind races to the solution. But without the “why”, we might end with a perfect solution to the wrong problem. The “why” part is formulating the right problem to be solved by the “how” activities.

Exercising the “why” is not limited to the strategic level and the big decisions. Even the most mundane task can be traced to see why it’s being done. For instance, we check our code in multiple times every day, but if we start to ask ourselves why it’s done the answers to the underlying problems come naturally: to prevent code loss, to be able to restore the old versions of the code, to be able to branch code etc. Further “why” questions might then make clear that the reason for the source code management is enabling the programmers to be more productive and the release management to be more regular. All of it points to the business objectives of less time-ahead and less time spent in testing and fixing.

There is an additional factor in SharePoint solutions that relate to the way things are done. SharePoint changes the way people work, when implemented, and it creates resistance to that change. Understanding “why” as well as “how” can help us arrive to better and more widely adopted solutions. That is, in essence, our role as experts and consultants. Knowing “how” is not enough.

In my daily work at Beezy (www.beezy.net), I can see the importance of “why” everywhere. The product design is centred on answering the “why” questions from the end user perspective. Only when these questions are answered, the “how” part of our expertise kicks in to build the best possible product.

Most of the SharePoint blogs focus on the “how”, mine included. But I also like to read about the “why”. The two people I follow on that are Paul Culmsee (http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/) and Ant Clay.

If you have any questions or feedback on Edin’s article please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you.

Knowing How

Edin Kapic

Edin Kapic has spoken on several international SharePoint conferences such as European SharePoint Conference 2011 in Berlin, SharePoint Evolutions Conference 2013 in London, SharePoint Saturday Belgium 2012 and Microsoft NetWork Conference 2012 in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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