In my previous post I asserted that there's really no such thing as a tactical solution, but what should you do if you are asked to design one? Before I answer that, let's summarise what a tactical solution is all about.
... a tactical solution can be thought of as a stopgap. It's an interim solution. It's something potentially quick and dirty. It satisfies a very immediate need. Importantly, it has a limited lifespan.
Tactical solutions are all about fast delivery and limited lifespans. You need to take *both* of these into account if you are asked to design a tactical solution because they will undoubtedly influence your design decisions. Let's look at each in turn.
Fast delivery
Compressed timescales will alter the way in which you tackle the design process, so here are my suggestions for dealing with this.
- Don't agonise over design decisions. Do the simplest thing that could possibly work in the available time and then stop.
- Be explicit about what your solution will and *won't* do. If the timescales have made you choose a design with limited future extensibility and flexibility, make this explicit so that everybody (including the stakeholders) understands the trade-offs that have been made and the impact they have in the future.
- On a similar note, make sure any assumptions you're working with are known by everybody.
Limited lifespan
A limited lifespan typically provides you with some boundaries for your key non-functional requirements and you can use this to your advantage.
- A tactical solution with a one year lifespan means your solution (in theory) only needs to scale to support data volumes for one year (plus a bit for safety). This makes some design decisions much easier, such as whether you need to design a solution that is horizontally scalable.
- Be explicit about what your solution will and *won't* support. If the limited lifespan has influenced your decision to build something that is simple rather than highly scalable, make this explicit so that everybody (including the stakeholders) understands the trade-offs that have been made and the impact they have in the future.
- Again, don't agonise over design decisions. Do the simplest thing that could possibly work for the anticipated lifespan and then stop.
As Kevin commented, a better approach to building a tactical solution is to make it the first delivery of a larger and more strategic solution. Sometimes this isn't possible though and delivering a solution with a limited lifespan in compressed timescales means that you have to make some trade-offs. If you find yourself in this situation, don't agonise over design decisions and make sure you're explicit about what the solution will and *won't* do.
