Sample chapter now online
O’Reilly has posted a sample chapter from The Myths of Innovation book – Chapter 4: People like new ideas (PDF).
If you like that, you can get the rest here :)
O’Reilly has posted a sample chapter from The Myths of Innovation book – Chapter 4: People like new ideas (PDF).
If you like that, you can get the rest here :)
I spent 6 years at Intl Paper and saw a most odd thing : The very worst systems were being maintained and extended because in hiring hard-working, smart, team-playing IT people, they were ensuring that someone would come in, take that lousy software, and — monitor it, morning and night, ‘make it work’, impress others with their determination. An ordinary person would have pointed out how lousy things are, not been able to stand the pressure, etc. An example. IP had a documentation system that was manual and a mess. THey hired a great guy from FedEx, who put an Access front-end on the thing, checked every morning that it was up-to-date and single-handedly fielded all issues involving the documentaion.
It should have and could have been automated. In the rare times this person wasn’t available, others labored mightily to re-construct what had happened and how to fix it. Wish I could say more and better.