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From: donm@margot.Eng.Sun.COM (Don Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Specification Tools and Code Testing
Summary: Experience and Quality
Message-ID: <141583@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 30 Aug 90 17:11:25 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> <29541@athertn.Atherton.COM>
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In article <29541@athertn.Atherton.COM> mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) writes:
  I said:
>>    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.
>
>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.  

   Good, I think the thesis that we can agree on is something like this:
   "Inexperienced people often initiate organizational change.  However,
    experienced people are largely responsible for operationalizing the
    change."
   How's that?
   
>>> Scott writes that you can ship a product without quality or support
>>> but can't ship it at all if it hasn't been invented
>
>>    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. 

   I'll have to agree with this as well.  When in survival mode
   a company must sometimes make decisions which fly in the face
   of long-term success.  Sacrificing quality and support is
   such a decision.  Hopefully, over the course of time, Darwinian
   selection will result in all companies, no matter how small,
   realizing the value of quality and service.
>
>Scott McGregor  
>Atherton Technology

Don Miller
Software Quality Engineering
Sun Microsystems
donm@margot.sun.com