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> Maybe we could define a new kind of organization that combined the efforts of individuals without requiring them to be interchangeable. ...reread the whole t

by nnq 14y ago

> Maybe we could define a new kind of organization that combined the efforts of individuals without requiring them to be interchangeable. ...reread the whole thing and this thing got my imagination "high" ...I feel there's some deep wisdom in here ...maybe we do thing wrong in most of our organizations by requiring complex components like people to be interchangeable, instead of accepting the fact that they are not and that the "personality" of an organization should be allowed to radically change as people (or bigger "unique" subsystems) become part of it or leave it... maybe we could even end up with what Nassim Taleb calls "antifragile" organizations...

saraid216 14y ago
It's not just the "personality", though. It's also the idea that if your sysadmin gets hit by a bus, your site doesn't become unusable.
- nnq 14y ago
  yep, the compromise is probably to separate maintenance from creative tasks, and accept that maintenance tasks need replaceable components, but then again, maybe it's ok to accept things like having a certain software component written by a "lone wolf eccentric genius" in a dialect of lisp he alone can understand (replace with your fav equivalent phrase) as the price for having really unique features and performance for that component that no competitor can match, and make contingencies for the risk of having to throw away that codebase and rewrite from scratch if he gets hit by a bus... maybe if the APIs and interfaces are properly designed (or processes or however else you may call then in peopleware land), you can accept working with unique and not easily replaceable components and somehow design systems that are architected to embrace the "hit by a bus" type of risks ...and if I think further along these line, the organization that can best afford these types of risks are big software corporations (think Google, Microsoft) that could afford to scrap entire codebases and projects (if they ever got over the "mind brakes" that make the managers consider such things insane), or start things in completely new directions when they bring new "genius visionaries" ...these types of innovation based on risky and irreplaceable components/people would be prohibitively expensive or impossible for start-ups, but may bring us new breakthroughs in things like general purpose AI or god know what ...maybe true progress really is the work of unique individuals and our whole focus on "team work" and "replaceable peopleware" is what suffocates and kills innovation

by nnq 14y ago

saraid216 14y ago

It's not just the "personality", though. It's also the idea that if your sysadmin gets hit by a bus, your site doesn't become unusable.

nnq 14y ago
yep, the compromise is probably to separate maintenance from creative tasks, and accept that maintenance tasks need replaceable components, but then again, maybe it's ok to accept things like having a certain software component written by a "lone wolf eccentric genius" in a dialect of lisp he alone can understand (replace with your fav equivalent phrase) as the price for having really unique features and performance for that component that no competitor can match, and make contingencies for the risk of having to throw away that codebase and rewrite from scratch if he gets hit by a bus... maybe if the APIs and interfaces are properly designed (or processes or however else you may call then in peopleware land), you can accept working with unique and not easily replaceable components and somehow design systems that are architected to embrace the "hit by a bus" type of risks ...and if I think further along these line, the organization that can best afford these types of risks are big software corporations (think Google, Microsoft) that could afford to scrap entire codebases and projects (if they ever got over the "mind brakes" that make the managers consider such things insane), or start things in completely new directions when they bring new "genius visionaries" ...these types of innovation based on risky and irreplaceable components/people would be prohibitively expensive or impossible for start-ups, but may bring us new breakthroughs in things like general purpose AI or god know what ...maybe true progress really is the work of unique individuals and our whole focus on "team work" and "replaceable peopleware" is what suffocates and kills innovation