It's Only Pressure....

To start the week I would have us consider the pressure we are under every day. I start the week knowing that I will need to deliver to a client this week a document that will help them understand how to improve their current data warehouse implementation. Then tonight, together with my team, the Remax All-stars hockey team will start our playoff run for this season. I am the goalie of the team and I understand the pressure to deliver for my team. In addition the IOUG and Oracle recently put out a survey about Critical Patch Update Practices and if you are a DBA or a CIO you better understand the pressure your database is under.

So how do we manage pressure? In all of the cases above I can tell you that the team is the solution. For my customer deliverable, I have a great team of DW and BI architects that are thought leaders and understand what the client needs and how to get them there. We have done some good investigative work and we carefully prepare our message to be valuable to our client and provide them with a manageable roadmap to gain incremental improvements in data and analysis. For my hockey team tonight, I will act as a foundation, it will be up to me to keep the team in the game and then leave it to them to score often enough to keep ahead of the other team. The pressure for me is to stop each shot, no easy task sometimes, but it is about effort and not taking a play off. We need to work hard every play and use the pressure as a driver to put the pressure on the other team. By being assertive we can channel the negative pressure into positive energy.

Finally consider the pressure that is on our databases today. The recent survey shows that our databases are under threat and we can do something about it. It surprised me was just how few people are diligent in their implementation of Oracle Critical Patch Updates. We think that are data is secure, but we leave known security gaps in our software. We need to do a better job minding the store. If you need to do more with less and this pressure cooker environment, then one item we must all be considering is how to get our organizations to put in a process that allows for installation of CPUs would take some pressure off the DBAs and CIOs to lower their pressure.

The pressure is all around us to deliver. The pressure is to do what you do and do it well. It’s how we manage pressure that will influence success. So welcome the challenges and be the goalie to your team, your database, your organization and be that solid foundation.