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> Engineering was all posturing: great hand-waving plans papered over nasty middle-management infighting. Hundreds of engineers in new glass-walled offices, pro
by par 4y ago
> Engineering was all posturing: great hand-waving plans papered over nasty middle-management infighting. Hundreds of engineers in new glass-walled offices, producing plans.
Sounds a lot like a lot of FAANG companies today.
- abxytg 4y ago[]
- duxup 4y agoSadly just sounds like ... human organizations often get.
- bhawks 4y agoThe iron law of bureaucracy: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization. https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
- dmix 4y agoI've always wondered what the Iron Solution to Bureaucracy looks like. Usually it's smaller companies eating the big companies lunch via competition. But that usually takes a very long time (or competition is crushed by 'good intentions' aka gov policy). I know 'intrapenuership' and spawning isolated startups internally, where teams that are walled off from the middle managers of the larger company, was pushed by Clayton M. Christensen. But the two areas that seem to be in a death grip with this problem are: modern western governments and monopolies (usually with market position enforced by said governments). Whenever people push for reducing bureaucracy in gov they get accused of only wanting to help the rich or get crushed by the benefactors (lobbyists/NIMBYs/'local jobs' protection rackets/etc). And monopolies survive even when they are an organizational disaster internally, because where else can customers go?
- Rury 4y agoSome degree of bureaucracy is necessary and inevitable in any organization, as it's basically the glue that makes a group of people an organization. Imagine how difficult it'd be to collaborate on a project with even just one other person, if you didn't meet / pass notes / info on what each you were doing on the project, at least once. That process of passing info, is what constitutes bureaucracy, and bureaucrats act as the gatekeepers of such processes. So unfortunately, there isn't really an "Iron" solution to bureaucracy (depending on what you mean by "Iron"). The best you can do is work to minimize the amount of it (akin to optimizing an algorithm so that it's more efficient), but some level or amount will always remain, and that amount is largely related to how large the organization is.
- iancmceachern 4y agoAlas, like so many things in life we can't "solve" it, we can only minimize the negative, better ourselves, and learn to cope with it.
- trevyn 4y ago>I've always wondered what the Iron Solution to Bureaucracy looks like. Open Source? Specifically, removing the power to coerce.
- spaetzleesser 4y agoProbably like every large organization.
- nr2x 4y agoCan confirm.