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Regular readers here will know that I have a tendency to be optimistic; look for the silver lining; shovel into a pile of manure, saying: “There’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere!”

This week we decided to move the go-live date of our SIS implementation. Here is a good summary explanation from another source: Load testing was conducted this month to test the system’s capability to handle the student information demands the colleges will generate, and the results were not sufficient to meet our needs. Certain other aspects of the new system were testing insufficiently as well. Therefore, the system will continue to be enhanced in the ensuing months to ensure a successful delivery next spring. We simply cannot compromise our ability to meet the needs of our student population, particularly during a high-registration month.

And so we decided to move the date.

And so you may ask, “where’s the pony?” The pony is that Maricopa made a wise decision not to gamble with the student experience. There is no doubt we could have brought the system up as scheduled, but with some real risk of significant disruption to students and faculty. Our egos might have said “yes, we can do this. Let’s go for it!” but the compassionate voices were at the forefront and said “let’s not make it harder for our students to succeed. Let move the date and make sure it is right.”

Some times the best things you ever do are things you decide not to do. Here’s to good choices.

They say if you go to a conference and come back with one good idea that you’ve had a success. Well, I had the chance to hear Dell’s CIO, Steve Schuckenbrock, speak, and I got at least one good idea from him. He had come to Dell from PepsiCo, and before that from EDS. So I asked how he went about beginning in a new organization, figuring out how to make an impact and to create change while also learning how to work within a new culture. His answer was great. He said that he starts with the assumption that everyone he meets is smart and innocent. He says if you don’t give people the benefit of the doubt at the beginning you create a self-fulfilling prophesy that people won’t be able to adapt to the need for change and to excel.

It is the first Saturday in September and my channel surfing is filled with college football games. Fall is in the air? Well, autumn is creeping in on cox digital cable, but it is 107 degrees at 3pm and my ASU football tickets look as if they will go unused tonight. (I should have offered them to the citizens of the district office building, but wouldn’t you each have said “no thanks, not that crazy.”

It’s September and we have the first two weeks of the formal semester under our belts. Our main teaching and learning environment did not fare well. First it was slow, then it was down, then certain parts of it were still slow, and during this writing it seems repaired. The root problems are mostly poorly designed software that only reveals itself when being pounded by a very large institution like Maricopa. On one hand, it’s disappointing the bad code exists. On the other hand, the vendor has done an admirable job of helping us locate the problems and writing fixes.

I could fill up this blog with comments, frustrations, suggestions and metaphorical analogies that we’ve received the past two weeks. Being a songwriter, the metaphors show some real insights and creativity. Our situation has been drawn as a parallel to B52 bombers too heavy for take off, 18 wheeler semi-trucks that could be replaced with 12 pickup trucks, and the inevitable suggestion “put a fresh hamster in the wheel.”

My own predominant analogy has been with a firefighting situation. Once the software began to malfunction under load, we had an urgent situation to deal with. When there is a fire in the canyon, the calls to figure out how the fire started, and whether we should have allowed campers in the forest, and whether we needed a controlled burn last winter — well, they are important conversations to have, but first we need to put out the fire.

Our vendor is still working on some particularly complicated fixes, but it is looking like we have the fire controlled. The next big test comes Tuesday when “high winds” are expected. The high winds will come in the form of tens of thousands of students returning to their studies after a 3 day weekend. It’s a little strange to be home on a Saturday of a three day weekend and thinking “I can’t wait for Tuesday to get here.” Stay tuned…