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In 1605 there was an attempt to blow up the British Parliament during the state opening by placing explosives in the cellars. 415 years later they still search

by altacc 6y ago

In 1605 there was an attempt to blow up the British Parliament during the state opening by placing explosives in the cellars. 415 years later they still search the cellars for barrels of explosives, using oil lanterns and armed with swords. I feel that so many organisations are doing the same thing, maintaining an old solution for a problem that no longer exists. So I think it's just as, or more, important to apply this thinking to the business requirements which drive development. Half of solution architecture is asking why something is the way it is, and asking again and again until you're sure there's a real reason. A lot of the time the answer is because that's how it's always been and traces back to a technical constraint from long ago. I see this a lot with companies moving from decades old legacy systems to modern applications. Same with processes, authorisations, security risks, etc... They tend to start when somebody mad a mistake and they stick around regardless of if they're still relevant, effective or blocking progress.

giovannibajo1 6y ago
I think this is more typical in public administration. Employees just follow the existing rules/laws because it’s not their job challenging them, and decision makers are mostly concerned on shifting away blame from them. Nobody wants to be that guy that ordered to stop searching for a bomb, the day that a new bomb will be placed. The only reason why one should stop doing it is to gain efficiency (= be more productive but doing less useless things), but the efficiency metric is non existent in public administrations.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  > Employees just follow the existing rules/laws because it’s not their job challenging them, and decision makers are mostly concerned on shifting away blame from them >but the efficiency metric is non existent in public administrations. And both of these have very insidious downstream consequences. The nature of government employment selects over time for people who are dedicated to process for process sake so of course there's nobody around who asks "why?" and nobody around to say "the tradeoff is worth it let's do X instead". Politicians and high level bureaucrats control the resource streams. The less efficient the larger the resource streams and the more power they have. Not only is there no incentive for efficacy at a high level because "screw it's other people's money" but there is an incentive for inefficiency because it lets the people calling the shots preserve/grow their power. The only time you get a push for efficiency is deep in the bowels of a silo/fiefdom where the teams are small and the organizational unit's resource inputs are static but their performance metrics are pegged to outputs. Of course this sentiment dies on the way up the org chart because resources are mostly a "use it or lose it" type thing. One effect is that this drives away exactly the kind of results driven people who should be working as public service. Another effect is that it cements the status quo such that it is basically impossible for a government or government unit to pivot from "being inefficient and generally sucking" to "decent use of taxpayer's money" without an existential crisis for the organization. Basically nobody says "hey, WTF are we doing" while the organization is becoming an ineffective graft ridden mess. Everyone just keeps their head down until a shock forces them to actually solve the problems. This is why you never see government organizations in rich places like NYC, Boston or DC clean themselves up but you occasionally see government organizations in poorer places like Buffalo or Newark clean house because as painful as making do with less and cleaning your own house is to those kinds of organizations the alternative of having politicians do it for you to win brownie points is worse. The rich places can just paper over their organizational problems with money. The poorer places have to stay on task or clean house much more frequently if they don't because there's less money to float along on. BigCos have some similarly bad feedback loops but it's much more common to see them lop off an org that's dead weight because when the metric the people at the top use is profit you get much more incentives value driven behavior.
- majewsky 6y ago
  I don't see what's different between public administrations and large corporations here. You say that the efficiency metric is non-existent in public administration, but it's mostly the same for many organizations within large corporations as well. Efficiency metrics may not be entirely non-existent, but they're incredibly opaque or difficult to measure. (For instance, R&D efficiency is usually difficult to measure because of the inevitable time delay between successful R&D efforts and market success.)
- aksjfnkajsnd 6y ago
  Did you read the article?
agumonkey 6y ago
> maintaining an old solution for a problem that no longer exists. - new people - systemic change all this means to me that experience is not passed along and that regularly the new team will just face a somehow new problem with whatever reflex solution they can come up with with whoever is in the lobby at the time. It has to be between 5 minute smalltalk to 1 meeting at the end of the day.
DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
I think searching government property for explosives and terroristic threats is a reasonable precaution to make. The fact that they were able to discover the explosives in the first place back then without Parliament exploding shows the value in preventative measures.
- altacc 6y ago
  Except the plot was betrayed by one of the plotters, so the search was because they already knew. It's probably an overly complicated metaphor to use!
- dx034 6y ago
  Absolutely, even for large companies it's standard to have security regularly look for suspicious items.
huffmsa 6y ago
Well I see no reason why the treason should be forgot.
noelsusman 6y ago
To be clear, they don't continue to search the cellars as an actual security measure. It's purely ceremonial and done as part of the traditions around opening Parliament for a new session. Hence the oil lanterns and swords. They also (ceremonially) hold a member of the Commons "hostage" while the Queen is in Parliament to ensure her safe return.

by altacc 6y ago

giovannibajo1 6y ago

I think this is more typical in public administration. Employees just follow the existing rules/laws because it’s not their job challenging them, and decision makers are mostly concerned on shifting away blame from them. Nobody wants to be that guy that ordered to stop searching for a bomb, the day that a new bomb will be placed. The only reason why one should stop doing it is to gain efficiency (= be more productive but doing less useless things), but the efficiency metric is non existent in public administrations.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
> Employees just follow the existing rules/laws because it’s not their job challenging them, and decision makers are mostly concerned on shifting away blame from them >but the efficiency metric is non existent in public administrations. And both of these have very insidious downstream consequences. The nature of government employment selects over time for people who are dedicated to process for process sake so of course there's nobody around who asks "why?" and nobody around to say "the tradeoff is worth it let's do X instead". Politicians and high level bureaucrats control the resource streams. The less efficient the larger the resource streams and the more power they have. Not only is there no incentive for efficacy at a high level because "screw it's other people's money" but there is an incentive for inefficiency because it lets the people calling the shots preserve/grow their power. The only time you get a push for efficiency is deep in the bowels of a silo/fiefdom where the teams are small and the organizational unit's resource inputs are static but their performance metrics are pegged to outputs. Of course this sentiment dies on the way up the org chart because resources are mostly a "use it or lose it" type thing. One effect is that this drives away exactly the kind of results driven people who should be working as public service. Another effect is that it cements the status quo such that it is basically impossible for a government or government unit to pivot from "being inefficient and generally sucking" to "decent use of taxpayer's money" without an existential crisis for the organization. Basically nobody says "hey, WTF are we doing" while the organization is becoming an ineffective graft ridden mess. Everyone just keeps their head down until a shock forces them to actually solve the problems. This is why you never see government organizations in rich places like NYC, Boston or DC clean themselves up but you occasionally see government organizations in poorer places like Buffalo or Newark clean house because as painful as making do with less and cleaning your own house is to those kinds of organizations the alternative of having politicians do it for you to win brownie points is worse. The rich places can just paper over their organizational problems with money. The poorer places have to stay on task or clean house much more frequently if they don't because there's less money to float along on. BigCos have some similarly bad feedback loops but it's much more common to see them lop off an org that's dead weight because when the metric the people at the top use is profit you get much more incentives value driven behavior.
majewsky 6y ago
I don't see what's different between public administrations and large corporations here. You say that the efficiency metric is non-existent in public administration, but it's mostly the same for many organizations within large corporations as well. Efficiency metrics may not be entirely non-existent, but they're incredibly opaque or difficult to measure. (For instance, R&D efficiency is usually difficult to measure because of the inevitable time delay between successful R&D efforts and market success.)
aksjfnkajsnd 6y ago
Did you read the article?

agumonkey 6y ago

> maintaining an old solution for a problem that no longer exists. - new people - systemic change all this means to me that experience is not passed along and that regularly the new team will just face a somehow new problem with whatever reflex solution they can come up with with whoever is in the lobby at the time. It has to be between 5 minute smalltalk to 1 meeting at the end of the day.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago

I think searching government property for explosives and terroristic threats is a reasonable precaution to make. The fact that they were able to discover the explosives in the first place back then without Parliament exploding shows the value in preventative measures.

altacc 6y ago
Except the plot was betrayed by one of the plotters, so the search was because they already knew. It's probably an overly complicated metaphor to use!
dx034 6y ago
Absolutely, even for large companies it's standard to have security regularly look for suspicious items.

huffmsa 6y ago

Well I see no reason why the treason should be forgot.

noelsusman 6y ago

To be clear, they don't continue to search the cellars as an actual security measure. It's purely ceremonial and done as part of the traditions around opening Parliament for a new session. Hence the oil lanterns and swords. They also (ceremonially) hold a member of the Commons "hostage" while the Queen is in Parliament to ensure her safe return.