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Exactly. The resistance to change is stunning. It's an ingrained psychology of individuality continuing to dig our management hole for us. Ignore the system at

Exactly. The resistance to change is stunning. It's an ingrained psychology of individuality continuing to dig our management hole for us. Ignore the system at your peril.

lucozade 11y ago
> The resistance to change is stunning If you ask a bunch of people who are analytically trained to ignore all the evidence in front of them you should expect this reaction. Especially if you tell them, to paraphrase, all they need to do is change their culture and all processes and everything will be rosy. Pointing to books written by quality consultants isn't going to help your case much either I'm afraid. Which is a shame. If you've ever been in an organisation that has this deep-seated view of quality it is quite an eye-opener. Of those that I am familiar with, only GE really were able to take it beyond manufacturing and definitely the only one where I saw it applied to software. It felt a little "religious cult"y at first but was pretty impressive nonetheless. Your focus on Edwards Deming is a little unfortunate too, as I would expect that most people with an engineering bent will look at his work on SPC and, rightly, consider it inapplicable to software. It requires a high level of repetition to be valuable and software development doesn't have that. His work on organisations could be applicable but it would require most companies to fundamentally change the way they approach almost everything. On the basis that it's not necessary to do this, I can only see it occurring if it became necessary. A special set of circumstances brought it to prevalence in manufacturing and by no means universally. If it happens to software I think it would need an equivalent set.
- calinet6 11y ago
  Yes. Good feedback, thanks. Deming himself said that any company can grow in a favorable market, so it is difficult to argue for better when indeed even running a company in a mediocre fashion can be highly successful as compared to the baseline. What Deming's organizational view promises, instead, is joy in work. Very simply, that's what I'm really after.

Exactly. The resistance to change is stunning. It's an ingrained psychology of individuality continuing to dig our management hole for us. Ignore the system at your peril.

lucozade 11y ago

> The resistance to change is stunning If you ask a bunch of people who are analytically trained to ignore all the evidence in front of them you should expect this reaction. Especially if you tell them, to paraphrase, all they need to do is change their culture and all processes and everything will be rosy. Pointing to books written by quality consultants isn't going to help your case much either I'm afraid. Which is a shame. If you've ever been in an organisation that has this deep-seated view of quality it is quite an eye-opener. Of those that I am familiar with, only GE really were able to take it beyond manufacturing and definitely the only one where I saw it applied to software. It felt a little "religious cult"y at first but was pretty impressive nonetheless. Your focus on Edwards Deming is a little unfortunate too, as I would expect that most people with an engineering bent will look at his work on SPC and, rightly, consider it inapplicable to software. It requires a high level of repetition to be valuable and software development doesn't have that. His work on organisations could be applicable but it would require most companies to fundamentally change the way they approach almost everything. On the basis that it's not necessary to do this, I can only see it occurring if it became necessary. A special set of circumstances brought it to prevalence in manufacturing and by no means universally. If it happens to software I think it would need an equivalent set.

calinet6 11y ago
Yes. Good feedback, thanks. Deming himself said that any company can grow in a favorable market, so it is difficult to argue for better when indeed even running a company in a mediocre fashion can be highly successful as compared to the baseline. What Deming's organizational view promises, instead, is joy in work. Very simply, that's what I'm really after.