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I’m blanking on the name of the essay, but there’s a compelling argument for the only viable alternative to a Benevolent Dictator being a very thoroughly and pr
by namuol 4y ago
I’m blanking on the name of the essay, but there’s a compelling argument for the only viable alternative to a Benevolent Dictator being a very thoroughly and precisely defined shared terminology of the underlying product/software system. Basically you can achieve a shared vision only by relentlessly checking the assumptions of the group and codifying everything, or using a singular visionary as the stand-in for a cohesive shared vision. Hoping someone here can share the original essay since it does a much better job than I can…
- namuol 4y agoCan’t edit my post, but the term I was trying to remember was “conceptual integrity”, coined by Fred Brooks in a The Mythical Man-Month. Here’s a c2 wiki page on the subject: https://wiki.c2.com/?ConceptualIntegrity https://wiki.c2.com/?ConceptualIntegrity
- ramphastidae 4y agoPlease share if you remember!
- nonethewiser 4y agoBut does "what is" really beget "what should be?" I'm sure what you describe would be very helpful but I don't see how it could eliminate disagreements on direction.
- namuol 4y agoYeah that’s an important distinction! Iirc, the essay distinguishes between singular visionary vs decision-maker roles. A decision maker is there to break ties and contain bike shedding, and you pretty much always need one, whereas a singular visionary is really there to steer high level design decisions cohesively. There’s a spectrum here of course.