Help for My Manager

[EVERETT813 at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/19/05 2:17:21 PM, hhowen at comcast.net writes:


> He knows all about playing by the old rules which require a project plan,
> budget, staffing levels, milestones, evaluation and testing procedure, and
> all the rest. But, what about all this "self-organizing" stuff? How do you
> play by the new rules? What are they? And last but not least - how do you
> rationalize what you have done under the new rules so that it looks like the
> "old rules" have been observed? This last part may seem sneaky and
> dishonest, but my young manager friend really likes his job.
>
Harrison,

Well, I'm not sure this is probable (it may be slightly possible).   As Kuhn
writes, the user of a new paradigm hasn't got the proof that it is the way to
go.   Everything says otherwise.   The risk takers are going on 'faith' in
their instincts.   Your young manager has more than that, he has deep world
experience with OS to draw on.   Maybe he can use it to get an "aha" about the
programming process itself.

But, about the self-organizing to write a new software program, that seems
really iffy.   Software requires strategy, discipline and right code, not
something that very easily emerges from no structure.   Even Chaos, with it's
structure of bounded instability, can't predict what the outcome will be or when it
will emerge.   Only that something will.   Rather like the instructions for
building an ant's nest.

1.   When an ant, carrying a stick, comes to another stick, the ant puts its
stick down.

2.   When an ant, not carrying a stick, comes to a stick, it picks the stick
up.

Those two instructions will build an ant hill (mathematically, I'm told) but
you can't tell where or when it will emerge, just that it will.   I doubt this
will be sufficient for the client.

Maybe the two process should be separated.   The 'chaos' of OS for
breakthroughs, the discipline of code writing for getting something needed to emerge in
a timely, semi-predictable manner to meet the needs of the client customer.

Paul Everett

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