Personal Blogs

Context

• Activity P1.2 - Metaphors in my situation of interest
• Activity P1.3 - Using metaphors in my situation

Task

Continuing with the metaphors you identified in activities P1.2 and P1.3, consider the entailments of the metaphor and make notes on: 
a.aspects of the situation that the metaphor highlights
b.aspects of the situation that the metaphor possibly hides or makes less open to discussion.

A. Aspects of the situation that the metaphor highlights

By spinning up a cell or team there is the implication of something mechanical which is inert and awaiting a command to (get ready for) action. It does not consider human aspects like willingness and motivation. Additionally, it does not take into account latency as it assumes that resources (i.e. people in this case) are sitting, maybe assembled or coordinated for action, and awaiting to be called into play. A metaphor for this metaphor could be players sitting on the bench during a match, already warmed up and waiting to be called into participation or play.

B. Aspects of the situation that the metaphor possibly hides or makes less open to discussion

There are two aspects in this metaphor. The perspective which is internal to the consultancy and the second aspect is the external or perspective as seeing from the client's viewpoint.

Perhaps the most pivotal in this case is the client's perspective as it might lead to false and unfulfilled expectations. For example, by continuing to use the metaphor of "spinning up a team" we leave open to interpretation the collective experience of the team. We are explicitly saying that gathering the IT Consultant does not guarantee their ability to immediately gel and effectively work together as a team. They might have never worked together until that point and this lack of collective experience will increase the time needed to have a team performing successfully. In other words, this metaphor leaves client interpretation open for assuming that the (outsourced) team is using the client's money and time to learn how to work together. 

Consider situations of interest associated with your chosen area of practice. 
Identify and list some of the metaphors that are in regular use.

Situation of Interest (SoI) - How IT Consultants manage work-life balance when allocated to client sites

Metaphors

Since my situation of interest relates to IT Consultants and the problematic behind managing work-life to achieve a healthy and sustainable balance, I have chosen phrases used to describe commercial agreements (leading to IT Consultants being allocated) that represent metaphors where the human aspect as either abstracted or altogether disregarded.

• "Spin up a delivery cell" - suggests machinery, human resources available as parts that can be assembled when required
• "Resource augmentation" - de-humanises by shifting considerations, from human to resource
• "Fixed Time and Materials (type of contract)" - when used in the context of software delivery, this term again de-humanises by not including people and their efforts