If You Don't Have Time To Do IT Right, Circle Back
Has anyone ever heard of anyone scheduling a Circle Back? I'm guessing not!
In my 25+ years working in the industry I've heard and still hear this multiple times a week in meetings large and small. It's used mostly when we don't have time to talk about a problem or topic at the moment. Unfortunately, when it's used during IT project meetings it frequently leads to unresolved issues that we never circle back to, until something forces us to and then it's usually a lot harder to sort out (ie; goat rodeo!) The most common cause of this is the people running the project or upper management don't really understand the issue or its ramifications. This happens a lot in IT because there are a lot of technology dominoes that aren't really apparent if you don't have a deep knowledge. So, the way it goes is that a SME or IT Team will bring up the issue and when the amount of time to resolve it doesn't fit into the always tight project timeline it becomes a "Circle Back" item. Now this would be OK if it was added somewhere as a cleanup item or a future phase, but most of the time it's not, and then we technical folks just wait for the other shoe to drop. And here's the fun part. It would be great if that shoe dropped on someone else's lap, but typically the failure to proactively address the issue falls right back on that same engineer or team! By that time everyone has moved on and management doesn't even remember the issue was ever brought up.
So, my advice to you? If you've brought up an issue that has been put in the circle back void and the stakes are high enough (think security issues), send a follow up email to management (just the facts, no emotions) that can later be produced when asked why you didn't bring this up before. Save a copy in a safe place. Maybe it won't make a difference but at least you'll have peace of mind that you told them so! Oh, and if you have ever actually heard of anyone scheduling a Circle Back, I'd love to hear about it!
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