A good system makes a good process better and a bad process worse....much worse...

Many years ago, when I was a young naive IT Professional, just starting out, a good friend of my Father's, invited me over for lunch "to have a look at his computer". I was served a delicious home cooked meal and given a quick tour of their rose garden set on a few acres with ocean views!

This guy was a successful businessman (in a very technical field - not IT), clearly quite wealthy and also a very down-to-earth, pragmatic man - someone I had huge respect for.

After lunch we fired up his PC and he explained he was "running out of memory" all the time.

We quickly discussed what he used the PC for, the difference between "memory" and "storage" or "disk space" and determined that there were a lot of old files, not being used and definitely no longer required. We identified the unwanted files and I deleted them. This was the early '90s so I guess that the odd c:> dir followed by a scrolling list of files looked a little impressive, but was certainly not very taxing.

After freeing up significant amounts of disk space, he insisted on paying me. I resisted. The few minutes work I'd done, for a friend, wasn't worth it. Then came the lesson: "I'm not paying you for hammering in the nail, I'm paying you for knowing where to hammer it!"

In this case the techniques I used didn't take long. In fact they were pretty basic. The tool was a simple one, but I knew how to use it and what to do with it, to get good results. The same tool in my Dad's friends hands, was useless.

This lesson has stuck with me. Unfortunately it's not unusual to see this logic play out in reverse.

So often, managers and clients insist that they're using the latest and greatest software, they've installed the best system, they're using HTML5, or Azure, or a great Source Control system, backup regime, insert any other technological buzzword here,  so hey, "we're doing well".

This is backwards! Having access to a good software tool is the last part of the equation. Building the right process, setting the right goals, that's the key. Then find a tool to help you. You'll know how to use it to get the best job done.

A qualified builder will build a far better house with an old hammer and nails, than I'll build with the best pneumatic nail gun, power drills and whatever else I could get my hands on. I'll just put hundreds of nails in the wrong places far quicker with better tools.

Once you have a sound process, good tools will make that process far better and more efficient. However those same tools, will make a bad process (or no process) an absolute disaster.