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Wednesday, 06 December 2006 |
With a few hundred pages under my belt I've become a bit jaundiced with the book.
It's not that the book is bad. It's not even that the book has nothing new to say (I really believe it does). I'm just not getting a warm vibe. It's starting to look like every other book on configuration management and those books have already been written. I wanted a new perspective. What to do, what to do?
Well, today I started messing with an idea for my new web site and
while doing this I had an epiphany (or maybe it's a dumb idea). I'd
really appreciate your feedback.
Basically I wanted a vehicle that I could use to illustrate various part of the IT system lifecycle management subject for my web site. I decided that rather than use case studies (which always have to be carefully couched so as to not embarrass anyone) I would create a company out of my head (inspired in part by Configure This!). This company could then exhibit every bad trait I needed to illustrate my points. It could be appallingly bad, or really good, depending on my needs. I could create characters to work in the company to illustrate the issues one faced when doing ITSLM implementation.
I could arrange the material chronologically to show how things may go during an implementation. I could show how problems occur and how they can be addressed. Basically I could have complete control over one big case study of a fictitious company, within which I could focus on individuals and how they interact.
While this was all spinning around in my head I realised that this might be a fantastic way to reorganise my book. Why not interleave the story with the more academic material. Then I realised I have read and enjoyed just such a book before. Actually several such books.
I guess the first was "Godel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter. Douglas interweaves dialogues with the deeper material, and very enjoyable they are too.
The second (and perhaps more accessible) time I came across this style of book was reading a series of DiscWorld books jointly authored by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen. Now I have no illusions about being a great story teller like Terry Pratchett, but I do know that the basic idea was very entertaining indeed. Alternate chapters in the books tell first the story of wizards from the Unseen University (okay, anyone who is not a Pratchett fan is now scratching their heads thinking "Wizards? What has that got to d with anything?") followed by factual chapter discussing the phenomena that the Wizards have just completely misunderstood, dealt with as serious science. Take it from me, they're great fun and very informative (although I would recommend you read some Terry Pratchett stuff first - the jokes will be much funnier I suspect).
Anyway, rather than write yet another book dealing with the bare facts. I thought it might be fun to interleave the serious stuff with a narrative. And rather than provide material topic by topic it might be more helpful to people trying to implement ITSLM for the first time if the material were presented in a more chronological manner.
I did start structuring the material chronologically , but without a supporting narrative I think it gets a bit confusing and one is tempted to fall back on the usual topic based structure. I also have a sense that people coming new to the subject appreciate an insight into how people deal with situations and may benefit from seeing that things do not always go according to plan. (And seldom turn out on the first attempt as a perfect implementations expressed in most books - if ever.)
Anyone care to comment? Does this appeal to you (especially if you're coming new to the subject)? Or am I just going stir-crazy?
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Last Updated ( Monday, 11 December 2006 )
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