Technological Deconstructionism

[Palit, Nilanjan]

> From: discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org [mailto:discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org] On Behalf Of Jim Gasek
> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 8:46 AM
> Subject: Re: Technological Deconstructionism

> It isn't sexy.   It isn't always quick. 

> If management listens to an 18 or 20 year old kid, and  
> bets the future of the company on some slick new tool, 
> or language, and they bet wrong, the market will punish 
> them for their incorrect decision.   The natural 
> evolution of bad process is bankrupcy.

I agree that decision making should not be "quick" or "sexy".

However, we cannot discuss decision making in a vacuum without considering risk taking. It's also very important that we "listen to an 18 or 20 year old kid", and we make it a *part* (i.e., not the whole) of the decision making process, since they are the ones with the new ideas that can break the mold and bring in the productivity/efficiency/markets that we were missing.

Far too often -- and this maybe more of a large organization thing than a small/startup organization -- we have management going the opposite way. They keep listening to the same old stale ideas from the same old "senior", and almost guaranteed, risk averse, team members (middle managers or senior tech leads) who are more interested in protecting their turfs/jobs/feudal empires than actually in advancing the state of the art.

-Nilanjan