Balance and too much of a good thing

In the IT world we run into this question a lot; "When is too much of something a bad thing?"
In my world of networking too much bandwidth makes your CFO angry but typically your users are very happy to not have limits placed on their use of the network. The angry CFO will then ask you to justify every "circuit" or network expense in an effort to see that you have just enough to get by and that is all he/she will be willing to pay for.

I recently encountered a situation that reminded me that balance is also needed for those of us who strive to have a career in IT. Balance applies to numerous situations including decisions like how much to outsource, how hard to push a project team to get something done, and how hard to push yourself to achieve whatever goals you have in mind.

The situation was one of having too much of a good thing but having it out of balance. As most of you know I fly airplanes for fun and I enjoy the process of teaching others how to fly as well. Recently I encountered a situation in a plane I had not flown before where there was too much fuel on one side of the plane and too little on the other. This is not an unusual situation for the most part but in this case it was exaggerated a bit. Taking off for the first time the plane wanted to turn to the side with the most fuel. Logical enough, but when I could not stop the turn from continuing the situation got a bit more intense. I had a mountain in front of me and no real place to go if things turned really ugly. Fortunately with a bit of experimentation I was able to get the situation "righted" for the moment until I could figure out what was truly going on. Turned out that the cause of the imbalance was a fuel miss-feed issue from a previous flight.

When things get really hairy in the IT world you have to wonder whether we are keeping everything in balance or not. Too much pressure on one side can cause things to go out of control in the direction the pressure is being applied to. The question remains if there is enough control authority to get things level again. In my case I had plenty of tools in the bag to make that happen but not every situation in the IT world allows for that. Turns are good and serve as the only way to change direction when needed. The trick is to do them under control and in balance with other things. Making your IT staff aware of the situation, the need for a change in direction and that the control authority exists to stop the turn when you have reached the desired course are all good things to know and communicate.

The fact that a mountain stands in the way of your current path helps as well as long as everyone can see it coming.