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It's about costs. If you are a large company and have robust processes in place, you don't need smart people with tons of experience. Such people are expensive

It's about costs. If you are a large company and have robust processes in place, you don't need smart people with tons of experience. Such people are expensive. You need average people who don't need to think too much for themselves and can follow directions and work hard. The process is designed to compensate for mistakes and guide inexperienced workers. Thinking in computer terms, the analogy goes like this. A long time ago, servers had to be very powerful and very reliable. Then came cloud computing and redundant architectures. Now, you plug in relatively cheap components into an architecture that can tolerate failure. You no longer buy high-availability components as the system can function around issues seamlessly.

phkahler 9y ago
>> If you are a large company and have robust processes in place, you don't need smart people with tons of experience. Such people are expensive. That was the fallacy put forth in the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) right on page 1 or 2. The notion that process could eliminate the need to rely on experts. There are a couple problems with that. Number one is that there is no process that can solve all problems or write all code. Number two is that those processes are probably not lower cost - they rely on a larger group of people. All you really get from such things is better consistency, and that is often what large companies are looking for. I would argue that having some experts in such places is extremely beneficial at times. I've benefited from them and I've been one in my niche. Without pockets of expertise, a vast group of mediocre people will drift at times.
- koliber 9y ago
  >> Without pockets of expertise, a vast group of mediocre people will drift at times. I completely agree with each thing you said. I should have been more clear and said "a large company does not need to fill their entire workforce with smart people with tons of experience. Just a few is enough once a good process is in place." A small company needs very smart people when starting up. They don't have any processes in place and each problem is new. As companies grow, these experts develop and polish processes. As time goes on, more and more can be done with less capable people. Not all experts can be eliminated as a company grows. There will always be problems that don't fit the process. An expert is needed for those. A process also needs to adapt with the times. Experts are needed for that. However, for any class of problem, the pareto principle is in play. An army of mediocre people with an excellent process can handle 80%* of the issues. The remained will need to be handled by experts. If you have a small company you may need 10 experts to handle X load. You don't need 1000 experts to handle 100x load. You need 20 experts, a good process, and 980 hard working people. * - numbers depend on actual cases. These values are for illustrative purposes only.

phkahler 9y ago

>> If you are a large company and have robust processes in place, you don't need smart people with tons of experience. Such people are expensive. That was the fallacy put forth in the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) right on page 1 or 2. The notion that process could eliminate the need to rely on experts. There are a couple problems with that. Number one is that there is no process that can solve all problems or write all code. Number two is that those processes are probably not lower cost - they rely on a larger group of people. All you really get from such things is better consistency, and that is often what large companies are looking for. I would argue that having some experts in such places is extremely beneficial at times. I've benefited from them and I've been one in my niche. Without pockets of expertise, a vast group of mediocre people will drift at times.

koliber 9y ago
>> Without pockets of expertise, a vast group of mediocre people will drift at times. I completely agree with each thing you said. I should have been more clear and said "a large company does not need to fill their entire workforce with smart people with tons of experience. Just a few is enough once a good process is in place." A small company needs very smart people when starting up. They don't have any processes in place and each problem is new. As companies grow, these experts develop and polish processes. As time goes on, more and more can be done with less capable people. Not all experts can be eliminated as a company grows. There will always be problems that don't fit the process. An expert is needed for those. A process also needs to adapt with the times. Experts are needed for that. However, for any class of problem, the pareto principle is in play. An army of mediocre people with an excellent process can handle 80%* of the issues. The remained will need to be handled by experts. If you have a small company you may need 10 experts to handle X load. You don't need 1000 experts to handle 100x load. You need 20 experts, a good process, and 980 hard working people. * - numbers depend on actual cases. These values are for illustrative purposes only.