This last weekend I was fortunate enough to get the full explanation of how to service and use my chainsaw properly.
Like any piece of machinery, it just works better when it’s clean – particularly – as my chainsaw mentor told me – particularly clean on the outside. Ah yes, the visual aspect. Important even for a 7-year old chainsaw. The idea behind it all I suppose is that if you see the visual of clean (and presuming you took the effort to clean on the inside as well) things feel better. And if they feel better, they work better.
(The parallel with IT applications might not yet be clear, but hang in there.)
Now this had been the first time it had been cleaned in quite a while, so it took us a good hour to go through all the steps of cleaning the air filter, the body, the guide and the chain, stopping to grease the guide and file the chain. We took it for a test-drive, then decided on a little more honing of the chain to get a more rough-cut (get through wood faster).
The second time – my expert assures me – will take only 15 minutes. Do it often enough and the machine will always work, will last years longer, and will always but well.
So cut back to a workplace where we’re using the same tools (business applications) for years and years. But we neglect the visuals, and only perform the worst kind of maintenance – patching. We patch and patch. Imaging patching your chainsaw everytime someone saw a vulnerability in theirs. Not only would you have something physically to heavy to lift, but slowly your ability to maintain it erodes.
So why don’t we move to a different approach to applications, in which we give them regular overhauls – and not only of the internal engines (without making those too heavy to carry), but in particular the visuals as well.
