Make me recall The Mythical Man Month, on the one hand, and the UNIX foundational lore. I think of UNIX vs Windows as bookends for system design--bottom up vs top down. Organic vs rationalized. Democracy vs autocracy. You get the idea. The fundamental problem with solving information environments for large organizations is not software, not hardware, but brainware. Management’s explicit power to say yes seldom takes into account the implicit power of subordinates to think “yes, but, the way we do it now is an awful mashup and too much of the documentation consists of sticky notes but at least everyone KNOWS how to use it to get their work done.” It’s the IT Lament all over again: the System would work perfectly if only we could get rid of the users.
Make me recall The Mythical Man Month, on the one hand, and the UNIX foundational lore. I think of UNIX vs Windows as bookends for system design--bottom up vs top down. Organic vs rationalized. Democracy vs autocracy. You get the idea. The fundamental problem with solving information environments for large organizations is not software, not hardware, but brainware. Management’s explicit power to say yes seldom takes into account the implicit power of subordinates to think “yes, but, the way we do it now is an awful mashup and too much of the documentation consists of sticky notes but at least everyone KNOWS how to use it to get their work done.” It’s the IT Lament all over again: the System would work perfectly if only we could get rid of the users.