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  August 2002

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Feedback loops in action sometimes seem to have a mind of their own.
That’s because managers are blind to the key role that people -
especially management people - play in each feedback.
All of the loops that contain management contain decisions by people:
Whenever there’s a human decision point in the systems, it’s not the
even that determines the [...]

For the last few days I’ve been having ADSL upload problems, which may cause subtle problems with this site. At first I thought it was the server, which had to be rebooted a few days ago for the first time in about 2 years. But, although it’s having a few teething problems readjusting to life [...]

A project manager (Humpty) becomes aware that he is sitting on a very
narrow ledge of some sort.
Humpty tells his manager about his anxieties.
Humpty’s manager says: “Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen. But,
i it does happen, I’ll bail you out with lots of resources. The
only thing is, you must not go around talking about this [...]

The big mistake commited most often by software managers is choosing a
linear model when nonlinear forces are at work. By all accounts
managers everywhere seem to make this modelling mistake. One of the most common examples of such linear modelling is the assumption that the same patterns that produced quality small systems will also produce quality [...]

Employees at the Jim Beam bourbon distillery are being limited to four bathroom breaks per 8 1/2 hour shift, only one of which can be unscheduled. Extra trips to the bathroom can result in reprimands. Workers with six violations can be fired.
When will employers stop this sort of idiocy? The company claims that this had [...]

“Their first response to control the pain is usually denial - controlling the information so they don’t notice. When denial fails, they may blame others, because people generally prefer familiarity to comfort or efficiency. When blaming fails, they may try to remain where they are by trading off one set of demands against another. If [...]

The principle device for closing a culture to information is the circular argument.
Some years ago, I helped a client make the transition from Pattern 2 to Pattern 3. The transition was necessary because they were producing telephone equipment that had to have down time of no more than one hour in forty years! They were [...]

Whilst I’m not a big fan of all these Levels of Software Development, I liked this snyopsis of how to move between them:

Pattern 0 to 1: Humility, produced by exposure to what others are doing.
Pattern 1 to 2: Ability, produced by technical trainging and experience.
Pattern 2 to 3: Stability, produced by quality software management.
Pattern 3 [...]

Cory discovers that he’s inspired a pentecostal sermon about Abraham setting his clock to D.S.T. In an even more bizzare twist, his co-inspirator is Stocki.
There are probably very few people in the world that this would mean anything to, but it’s possibly the most surreal thing I’ve encountered all week.

Studies of individuals have consistently shown variations of 20:1 or more in schedule, cost, and error performance among professional programmers, so it makes sense that this is the level of variation we see in Pattern 1.
— Jerry Weinberg, Quality Software Management Vol 1, Chapter 2
I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot again [...]

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