Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!samsung!usc!apple!voder!pyramid!athertn!hemlock!mcgregor From: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Specification Tools and Code Testing Message-ID: <29541@athertn.Atherton.COM> Date: 29 Aug 90 16:45:53 GMT References: <141454@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <20013@well.sf.ca.us> <1990Aug13.140347.9441@nixtdc.uucp> <19578@well.sf.ca.us> <8316@fy.sei.cmu.edu> <29390@athertn.Atherton.COM> Sender: news@athertn.Atherton.COM Reply-To: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) Distribution: usa Organization: Atherton Technology -- Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 54 > I disagree. In many cases experienced people have become entrenched > in doing things the way they have been successful. This tends to make > them resistant to change, regardless of its potential merits. > Inexperienced (but not necessarily ignorant) people are often > more reactive to change because they don't recognize it as such. I don't think that this is a disagreement. First, when I said that I have obsevered that inexperienced people sometimes hesitate, there is nothing to disagree with. I have observed this. Maybe others have not observed this, but I have. On many occassions. Inexperienced people don't always hesitate, and not all of them do. But I have observed that many often hesitate when there are no experienced gurus to go to. Second, I didn't say that the experienced people spearhead the change, only that they catalyze it. I have observed as you have that the experienced people ones are often more entreched in what they already know. Some of the less experienced people want to try something different to "make their mark". But they often don't try the truly outlandish breakthrough type approaches unless they think that a safety net (in the guise of an expert) is nearby. What I find interesting is how few times the safety nets are tried, given the hesitation before they were installed. One danger though is that the outlandish ideas of the inexperienced people must be carefully tended, and defended, because sometimes inexperienced people will under recognize their own contributions and over-recognize those of the experienced people. My reason in bringing this up is merely to point out important human dynamics issues that affect productivity that are often forgotten when people are described as interchangable resources (as usually is the case in want ads). > AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! Run for your lives!!!! > I guess you could ship it with poor quality or poor support but > you know what... Your net return will be worse than if you hadn't > shipped it at all. Many people won't agree. At a billion dollar company, you often have enough predictability in sales and enough cash to float out a few R&D efforts a few months more without killing the company. For single product companies running out of venture capital, they may see themselves as just a few steps ahead of the grim reaper. They often figure if they can get the revenue today, they MIGHT be able to fix things tomorrow. But if they wait until tomorrow they will CERTAINLY be dead first! I cannot comment on the correctness or incorrectness of this view. But correct or incorrect, many people hold it sometimes, and it causes the sorts of value systems described above that have real impact on people's lives. Excellent companies usually get past this problem sometime, but many companies aren't there yet, and peoples livelihoods hang in the balance while they learn by darwinian selection. Scott McGregor Atherton Technology