"Systems in general work poorly or not at all."
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
"Great advances are not produced by systems designed to produce great advances."
"Efficiency Expert. Someone who thinks he knows what a system is or should be doing, and who therefore feels his is in a position to pass judgment on how well the system is doing it. At best a nuisance, at worst a menace."
I have claimed that in computer management, there is a "Conservation of Complexity": e.g. a tool that makes some things easier for 90% of your systems will demand horrible hacks to work with the rest. I've also spoken of myself as a political Godelian--any set of laws and regulations will have situations it does not justly address, and adding new rules creates a new set of failures in an infinite and increasingly unwieldy game of whac-a-mole. John Gall takes the analysis further, and amusingly.
1 comment:
I remember the Foxtrot strips where Mr. Pembrook called in an efficiency expert. A nitpicking b*yaay* who even reprimanded Roger for wasting steps when Roger was trying to shake her off.
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