What Capello could teach us in Data Migration and complete line up of speakers for the DMM2 conference taking place on 1st October 2009 in London announced.

Let us start with some reflections on the strength of teams against the power of gifted individuals. 

I was privileged to be at Wembley Stadium on Wednesday night to see the England football (soccer for out transatlantic friends) team win by a crushing score of 5 goals to 1 against the not inconsiderable talents of Croatia. They thereby secured a place in the World Cup finals in S. Africa.

Now I have been to see our national side many times over the last few years, including their miserable defeat, and resultant inglorious exit from Euro 2008, two years previously at the hands of this same Croatian side.

I'm not going to become a football commentator on this blog. As my readers from beyond these shores will probably guess, such a momentous event is still reverberating through the press here and not just on the sports pages. I'll not add to the column inches by giving my limited assessments of tactics and individual performances. But one of the key changes was the degree of team work evident on the night against that dismal performance 2 years ago.

Now what has this jingoistic passage got to do with Data Migration you might ask? Teams win games. I remember being told that by a coach many years ago when I still played competitive sport. What he meant by that was that a collection of brilliant individuals will nearly always loose against a well organised team that plays in a disciplined manner and plays as a team.

Well if you have been following these blogs for some time you will know that one of the themes I return to is the need to build a virtual team across the enterprise encompassing both technical and none technical staff if you are to succeed in large data migration exercises. It's no point having the best technology or the best technicians if you are not linked in one team with your business colleagues. On the other hand as one team, even with the most hackneyed of technologies you stand a good chance of success. And a team is more than a collections of roles and responsibilities. There has to be a unity of purpose and an esprit de corps.

At least a third of your energies needs to be directed at building the team. This is more than just having the odd team building day. It is about genuinely including all the talents you need and getting them bought into the success of the project.

Again those of you who have been following this blog diligently will know that I harp on about super smart tasks - ones that are designed not just to get the required job done but build the team at the same time.

Seeing Wayne Rooney (England's star striker) back in defence, which isn't his role, and where his over enthusiastic efforts occasionally result in dangerous free kicks, lifts the fans and lifts the team. Everyone tries harder and the results bare this out. In good teams everyone is prepared to act outside of role to get the job done, whilst retaining the discipline to get their own job done competently.

And talking of teams we now have our full rota of speakers pasted up on the web siite for the Data Migration Matters 2 conference. Check it out at www.datamigrationmatters.org

We have speakers who have been there done that (Nigel Key of BT, Chris Bradley ex Readers Digest CIO, Tony Ellis Head of IT London Borough of Brent), we have industry experts (Dylan Jones of Data Migration Pro and Data Quality Pro, Philip Howard of Bloor Reasearch) to name a few. Check out the web site for the full list. And of course I’ll be there to top and tail the event with my proffered wisdom. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the 1st.

Johny Morris

jmorris@iergo.net