Fifth Week of Class

It is hard to believe that this week is our fifth week of MIT classes. To say I have come far is an understatement. One of our weekly assignments is to write something about what we have learned relating to our MIT courses during the previous week. I sometimes find this to be extremely difficult to do. And I wonder why. Just about everything we discuss is new to me, especially the technical stuff. I just don't think like a programmer yet. I say yet because I continue to hold out hope that something will "click" in my brain and I will switch from business to technical. When we have discussions in class about a particular programming language, for example, and there are problems or issues I always go through the project management check list in my brain to try to determine where the process "got into the ditch". Was it a rush to market, was it poor requirements gathering, was it cutting costs to the detriment of the product, and it goes on and on. The old adage goes, given enough time, effort and money the product will be perfect; now which one are you willing to forego.

In Tuesday's class we are learning about data management. This past Tuesday, we talked about using databases to track employee productivity. In tracking productivity you have to determine the work effort (how many people will it take to do x job, and how long will it take them to do it), and then allocate the work to the employees based on number of total hours, number of hours per day, etc. This is what I have done in my professional career for the past 15 years. Never once in all this time did I think about the behind the scenes data management needed to track this. Wow, now I have an example in my reality of how a database should perform. It makes a big difference when you can relate something to a personal experience. Before this revelation, database management was this huge thing I was trying to learn all at once, now I understand the process better and am more willing to take tiny bites to conquer it. I am amazed.

This entry in my blog is more journal for me than educational for a reader, and I apologize for this. But sometimes you just have to go where the thoughts take you. I promise to find something more interesting to write about next time.