Re: [OT] Business Requirements Analysis... Sort Of
- From: docdwarf@xxxxxxxxx ()
- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:57:39 +0000 (UTC)
In article <t995u3lods5e970rbvqrgnuqr0bl8ucu1i@xxxxxxx>,
Robert <no@xxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:36:56 +0000 (UTC), docdwarf@xxxxxxxxx () wrote:
In article <12s4u31plmj6csf7fgbji575cq3b3nee9t@xxxxxxx>,
Robert <no@xxxxxx> wrote:
Users SHOULD ask for a general purpose query screen that THEY can run
without running the
bureaucratic gauntlet every time.
In my experience, Mr Wagner, people don't always do what they 'SHOULD'
(caps original).
If I were working there, I'd sell them
the idea, then
write it for them.
When I started on this contract there was a fellow who expressed a similar
desire; he was told it would be better to address this after the main
project went live.
After Go Live a bunch of consultant/contractors/hired guns were given
their walking-papers... he was one of them.
This illustrates why software technology in some mainframe shops has not
changed in 20
years. It's not because workers are lazy or uninformed, nor because
opportunities are
absent. It's because management blocks change. They do it to retain
hegemony over users.
I might agree with your statements, Mr Norris... but I'd quibble with
words like 'sotfware technology', 'mainframe' and 'retain hegemony'.
Let's see... from
<http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.cobol/msg/12e0303b6b75284f?dmode=source>
--begin quoted text:
I am not sure if this is the cause or it is the difference between 'if it
ain't broke, don't fix it' and 'let's take it apart to see how it works!'
A buddy o' mine used to be Materials/Inventory Manager for a jewelery
manufacturer... he could never understand folks who considered inertia to
be valuable, in and of it'sself. After a meeting where things got a
bit... heated a VP took him aside and asked, seriously, what the problem
was... after all, in his (the VP's) department they'd been doing things
exactly the same way for the past twenty years.
'Where's your passion for work?', asked my buddy, 'Where do you strive to
do something more, where to you work to make things better?'
'You don't understand', said the VP, 'we've been doing the exact same
thing for the past twenty years.'
The VP could not understand why anyone would not see this as a Very Good
Thing.
--end quoted text
[snip]
The difference wasn't
technology, it was IT
management's refusal to change.
It might have something to do with a given organisation's attitude towards
risk and reward, Mr Norris. If errors are not tolerated - remember the
buzz-word phrase a decade or so back of 'We can't afford not to get it
right the first time'? - then the surest way to keep a job is to not waste
money or time on things that might not work.
Some managers welcome change. After my system went live last month, they
extended me six
months to improve it. I'm now working on improvements like the above.
I was contracted at my present site in November '03 for a project that
went live in May '05... I think I posted my Musings After Go-Live here.
There was, of course, a massive dismissing of consultants... and since
then there's been a steady leakage of personnel, folks retiring and not
getting replaced, other folks getting fed up with an eternal heaping-on of
More Responsibilities and nobody (as far as I can see) getting hired on.
Meanwhile, the customer list continues to get larger (up about 25%, we
started with about 60,000, we're now at a hair under 75,000... and just
starting go-live on a new phase to bring in another 13,000 or so).
DD
.
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