October 1, 2019 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item It's Natural to Avoid Problems
October 1, 2019 at 12:39 pm
You need to be careful extending hardware techniques to software. For one thing, hardware tends to be limited by the nature of physicality itself. Hardware devices are made of simple components that interface with each other in limited ways.
Further, changes made to the system, ala kaizen, work better within the limits imposed by hardware. A process change in hardware doesn't normally have knock on effects to other components. And hardware components tend to be standardized.
This, of course, is the ideal in software but alas software does not lend itself to this. Libraries, APIs, etc. are of course standardized but most mutate rapidly, new versions, deprecated features, etc. Plus, software tends to be one-off. Every new project requires very different components. A word processor is not a spreadsheet is not a database is not an ERP system...
Don't get me wrong. I love reuse. But software is subject to combinatorial explosions far more than hardware is.
October 1, 2019 at 3:07 pm
I completely agree with you 100%. I know that for my own part it's hard to receive criticism. And most of it is just me. Even when criticism is blameless, in my own mind I translate it to blame. Very irritating and not kind to the person trying to be helpful.
Your editorial points out how it is hard for management to adjust to allowing teams to work autonomously. I see this a great deal where I work. And I'm not blaming them - I believe that this practice in government is so long standing, so prevalent, that no one alive today even knows when it got started. Its just a part of the culture, like having a cup of coffee in the morning. And I'm not calling for anarchy where teams do whatever they want without ever notifying management as to what the team has decided. But it is difficult to get anything done in a timely manner what nearly any decision, no matter how small and trivial, cannot be done until management has had a chance to be informed, meet (once a week only, BTW), discuss all options, regardless of how irrelevant, etc. We're all kind of caught up in tradition.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
October 1, 2019 at 4:02 pm
Not just government. Plenty of private groups, even social groups, have this happen.
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