Your Super Bowl

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Author Message Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT Senior Member Username: rliebing Post Number: 1368 Registered: 02-2003 Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 08:35 am:    013013 YOUR SUPER BOWL by Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT Cincinnati, OH Suit up!! It’s getting to be that time again! Everything from big hulky guys playing a rather involved, image of American football [or as Andy Griffith called the-- “a little punkin”]. To 10,000 people dancing in the dark, to music that is----well, I’m not going there!!! Concussions are ready to strike any of the players at any time, and quite frequently on the heads of the base, snare and drum sets! This and much more mayhem in a concrete “bowl” filled with some really grotesquely outfitted fans [and the other1,000s], head-splitting, generally unrecognizable music and “singing”, young ladies dancing in almost-not-there costumes, and others strange gear to combat the elements. I like it all best, when two of the players [seems like a misnomer!] get their face masks interlocked. Recall those little tugs-of-war in your office [with similar interlocking] over what should be done, how]? Now doesn’t this sound like your cube/office on deadline day? Darn betcha it does!!! But your Super Bowls occur EVERY time you issue the specs for a new project. See the similarity to football—time sensitive; rushing; confusion- often times; yelling for revised work or finishing the task. If you are a Product Representative, you have the buzz of last minute bidding, gathering sub-bids, discounting or adjusting cost to be more competitive, issuing your bid to generals for inclusion in their bids, re-checking all your work [to avoid forgetting the labor by one sub to install the rebars supplied by another!] Can’t let the lesson[s] learned in Super Bowls go by without comment-- and comment on how the games and specs run some parallels. The games are now history-- amazing and quite dramatic history. They are re-hashed, be re-played, and repudiated for months if not years. Of course, one side is admirable: worker-like, hard-nosed and evidencing unflagging dedication, maximum effort, sacrifice and focus. The other is total let-down: a we-had-it-but-lost-it misery, lots of second guessing; and some how and why did he do that, then, and then, and then? Nonetheless, lesson[s] can be taken from the bruising? hits, amazing sprints and in the-trenches football warfare. Some of these can be applied-- oddly? enough-- to specifications and spec writing! I kid you not! 1. It is ALWAYS better to play with a lead, not by coming from behind! A lead gives you confidence of purpose, a more relaxed approach to what may come, and a feeling that you are, indeed, in a good measure of control of the situation. See the specs parallel? 2. Never let down until your task is truly finished [as in time runs out and your deadline is met] Here the charm of assumption-- "I’m OK because this is this and there is so little time left, what can go wrong" usually is a good harbinger of good ol’ Murphy’s law. Just get in this frame of mind; check and re-check; ensure and re-ensure; bug and insist, but be sure! Assume nothing! 3. Don’t rely on last minute theatrics, miracles, or divine interventions! Human foibles being what they are, we simply can’t do this. Two Super Bowls, now, have come down to a “miracle” play, one catch against a helmet and the last a tippy-toe catch! Great stuff, BUT consider how very close these miracles were to failure, disaster and “second place”! Best to try to establish-- no! by jingo, ESTABLISH!!! a route of concurrence, keeping abreast of the project document development from the git-go to the finale-- don’t play catch up; risk missing something, miss being so nosey as to finding what others know and haven’t or don’t communicate, etc. etc., etc.! Stay even by matching, in football parlance, score for score. Now this does not guarantee success and winning championships, but it sure gives you a far better chance of doing so. 4. A year-round effort is an absolute necessity! The football season starts the day after the Super Bowl-- for both winner and loser, and all other contestants. Of course, many will revel while others “kick themselves” and still others will treat hurts, have surgery, recuperate, relax, regenerate, re-direct their focus, have family fun, count their money [one more time]—and yes, a few will do really stupid things. But the day is not far off when they all begin again, from scratch, at square one to get their bodies and minds ready for “next year”! Because their task is both to repeat and to get better at what they do: develop new plays and techniques, learn new formations, and find a miracle worker in the draft; to re-form, check fundamentals, review basics and refine techniques. OK! Spec writers don’t have to go through this strenuous routine, but ours is a task of endlessness through the many days of the year, doing our basic best, adjusting/checking, searching developing, fine-tuning, getting better, adjusting as necessary and teaching/mentoring others for the tasks ahead of them. Don’t worry about counting your money, that will take but a short time in comparison, but then you don’t have to put with MRIs, broken bones, strained muscles, clean-out surgery on your knees, and such. You may just need a new red pen! Ah, lessons learned!