The Next Big Thing

When I was relatively new to the field of data processing, I would occasionally come across articles that would talk about how difficult it was to get old-timers to change the way they did things. These fogeys would tell you it couldn't be done, had already been done and didn't work, worked but it caused lots of problems. I would wonder, a bit, why these people were like this. I didn't really believe that they were simply set against change, but I couldn't figure out what their motivation was, if not that.

Since then, I've sort of become one of those people whose seen, if not it all, then enough of it to recognize when it comes around again. I wouldn't say that everything old is new again, but it does seem that these management concepts are something like a bride: they always have something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Ideas that are simply flat-out new -- excuse me, New! -- sometimes work, as long as you have lots of caveats and accommodations. Something old, though it has lots of problems, is comfortable -- even when it hurts, we know how it works and who to call -- who to really call -- when it doesn't. Sometimes you get something borrowed, too -- concepts that worked over there which must, therefore, easily work over here. And sometimes they do. And something blue -- well, if you've heard the comments about the new processes made by the people who have to make them work, you've heard the something blue.

Over the next couple of days, I will be proctoring two exams for a technique of improving the delivery of technical services thats called ITIL - Information Technology Infrastructure Library. I volunteered, just for the novelty of it. I don't know much about ITIL, but what I do know sounds like another concept that was supposed to save the industry -- in fact, a couple, ranging from the Deming Quality concept through other sellers of that method up to ISO9000. Each of them works in some locations, and if you're generous with your definition of 'works', in a few more. They're not bad, and they're not snake oil. But they do take an awful lot more effort, time, and thought than is generally recognized by the high concept-big picture guys in the boardroom (its my belief that these management fads get started by one CEO talking to another in the country club locker room, glossing over the details and pumping up how successful the process has made them). So its a little discouraging to see another parade starting, knowing that someone down the road, someone's going to have to make it work -- do the scut work thats the equivilent of having to clean up after the elephants. Glad its not going to be me.

Its not that these things can't work -- they can, and they do. But they can't be done cheaply except at the lowest level, and they can't be done without thought, and planning, and effort, at all. They don't work quickly, and they don't always work obviously. They're not magic.

I think I just lost whatever CEOs were reading this post!