Just Enough Governance for Notes Blog :: Creativity v. Compliance?

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I was enjoying a radio program on the way into work this morning called Art of the Song. The general format of the show includes an interview with a musical guest discussing the creative process, tips for songwriters, and a brief discussion about some aspect of creativity such as “creativity for life”, creative archetypes and so on.

Naturally, this got me thinking about IT governance and compliance issues as they relate to application development for Lotus Notes. Okay, maybe that’s not a logical leap for everyone, but it’s where I ended up anyway.

I was wondering how much compliance or IT governance inhibits your ability to be creative in your approach to application development. Perhaps it has no impact at all. I don’t know? And if it does hinder your creativity, is really a bad thing?

If poor programming practices are defended as creative practices, then compliance/IT governance is probably a good thing. If compliance/IT governance means there is one and only one solution to the business problems you are trying to address, then it’s probably a bad thing. Maybe having NO impact on application development is the best thing.

Just idle thoughts during my morning commute.

Comments

1 - It's not compliance to good programming practices that hinders creativity; I find the biggest problem is users and, sad to say, co-developers.

People are used to Notes db's having a certain look: navigator on the left, view on the right and co-developers are used to building them that way so I meet a lot of resistance if I try to do something different.

Posted by Jane At 04:09:13 PM On 05/01/2008 | - Website - |

2 - @1 Jane - I certainly understand the resistence to change problem. But this be a compliance issue. If the compliance policy is to have a consistent UI for all applications, then you would not want applications created where navigator was on the right and the view on the left for some applications, and just the opposite in others.

One of the problems I have with some of our internal applications here is that the default sort order is inconsistent. In some cases, the most recent document is on top, in others it's at the bottom. I don't particulaly care where it is as much as I want it to be in the same place. That's a simple example, maybe too simple. But the "create" "save" and "delete" buttons being in different places for each application can be very inefficient for the users.

I know that's not what you are suggesting in your post. I do think this points out that resistence to change because it's different makes about as much sense as creativity for the sake of creativity. At least when it comes to application development.

Posted by Scott Johnsen At 05:07:12 PM On 05/01/2008 | - Website - |

3 - I think the corporate machine's need to squeeze as much as they can from their staff hinders creativity more than compliance.

If compliance actually hinders creativity then people have lost the point. In my experience regulations are rarely so rigorous that you don't have options - you just have to be prepared to justify how your solution meets the regulation. This might lead your company to specifying guidelines for application development such that the guidelines are then known to meet the required regulations. This doesn't preclude you from doing something different - but it admittedly does make it more difficult if you have to justify your different approach.

So I've almost talked myself into saying that compliance can hinder creativity Emoticon

. That said, I don't think it should and if a company can remain flexible enough there is no reason why not.