Re: The Holy Wars -- LAME!

Subject: Re: The Holy Wars -- LAME!
From: "Walker, Arlen P" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 09:31:26 -0600

I told them to lay down the law and make it final: that the company
had made a business decision to standardize to one tool and one
platform. I told them that this decision was made on both
technological and economic factors. That the inconvenience of
converting to a single tool was minor in
comparison to the benefits.

The only comment I'd make on this is that IMHO you (and they) are
absolutely, positively and dangerously wrong. That's not a holy warrior
speaking, just common sense. Diversity succeeds more easily and surely than
monomania. When you bet the farm on one choice, you're far more likely to
lose.

The tools should fit the job. Period. No one would seriously suggest
"standardizing" on a tool set that contained only one kind of screwdriver.
Why is it that we refuse to accept that in our fields of endeavor? The
performance of a tool varies with the job you require it to do. Yes, a
patient worker can drive a phillips screw with a flat-blade screwdriver; I
know, I've done it when pressed. But it takes a lot longer to do, and you
have to expend a lot more energy than should be necessary.

Then I gave my regular line about technology holy wars: holy wars
are
destructive to an organization. They cause people to waste time on
useless debating and arguing. Moreover, a holy warn can divide a team
and cause miscommunication and resentment. This leads to bad
products
and lost profits.

There I agree. But I disagree that slamming the door on the fingers of the
dissenters is the best way to handle it. I think it's better to acknowledge
that it's part of human nature for this to happen, and to structure the
policies and procedures of an organization to accomodate them as much as
reasonably possible. In the computing arena the best way is to avoid
standardizing on products, but instead standardize on interchange formats.
That's part of the impetus behind SGML, for one example.

A job needs to be done. People have different work styles. Companies as
much
as possible should accomodate divergent work styles as long as the job gets
done, because every person is more productive when working in their own
style, rather than an imposed one. And *that's* the bottom line, not
whether
the work is done in Frame or Word or Pagemaker, or whatever.

Not having worked in Frame, I don't know how well it co-exists with Word.
But I'd have looked for a win-win solution before advising them to drop the
bombs. Perhaps the input from the various SME's would come in in Word,
while
the final document assembly and production was done in Frame. I don't know,
as I wasn't there.


Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
----------------------------------------------
In God we trust; all others must provide data.
----------------------------------------------
Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.




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