InformationWeek

Ask The Secret CIO

By Herbert W. Lovelace
Issue date: Oct 21, 1996

Your letters to my print column and this E-mail forum ask some serious questions about managing information technology in today's world. Since today's world is essentially absurd, my serious responses may sometimes sound a little whimsical, and my occasional whimsical one, serious. In any case, if you want to participate, write to me at secret@cmp.com . I'll respond to those letters that I can. I reserve the right to edit for size and content. Just sign your E-mail the way you want it to appear online.

Herb:

I like your mix of almost [dark] humor mixed with a good point: good business judgment's hostile relationship to status, power, and personal survival. Personal survival is the key, isn't it? Who really cares about the Corporation, its products or its services? The trick is to grab the credit for success and disappear from the scene like the proverbial Cheshire cat when failure triumphs.

It is no wonder that any gains realized from productivity increases have not gone to the workers who made it happen.

Paul

Dear Paul,

You sound the way I feel after being double-teamed by some of our business people, such as my arch-villains Gornish and Kratmeyer, who would never win nice-guy awards. It really isn't that bad, though. Most people, even these two, care about the company and are trying to do a good job. I am convinced that the issue is the lack of their understanding of what we face in trying to do our work and our own inability to relate to their problems. It is very difficult, but not impossible, to have great teamwork in hierarchical organizations, where the promotional pyramid narrows at the top. The analogy, hyped by many leaders, of a company to a sports team really is not valid. How many defensive linebackers try to get the quarterback's job?

Dear Mr. H,

Subject: "Good Enough" Software

I'm a little frustrated with this "good enough" philosophy of software development (or, rather, I see a challenge here, and I think it brings up some fundamental questions). On the one hand, I think I understand the pressures operating in the market and internally that force us to deploy beta software in production or in the marketplace, but I'm also a bit old-fashioned in terms of doing it right the first time. I've been told I need to increase my flexibility, but it seems that there are just some things that should remain immutable, like writing software that's complete, intuitive, and, most important, not broken. If this "good enough" software philosophy is really that good, then it seems to me that everyone would be praising our current crop of software instead of blasting it.

What's your take on the subject, and do you think there is any room left for old-fashioned IT folks like me ?

Thank You,
David
Virginia Beach, Va.

Dear David:

The short answer to why software is distributed with bugs is because we will buy it that way.

I am not persuaded that competitive pressures in the marketplace force us deploy unpolished code to the consumer. Remember American cars some years back? The argument was that new-car buyers expected problems that required bringing the vehicle back to the dealer and that it would be too expensive to produce a defect-free car. The analogy between cars and software may not be perfect, but consider how today 's software companies might handle service if they manufactured cars. Imagine being told by them that they know the defect exists and if you wait for a few months a new part will be available, or better yet, it won't be fixed but when the new car model comes out, you should buy that one to get your problem resolved.

We all know the cost of finding bugs in software. Obviously, it is very difficult and very expensive to find all the bugs in a system. I've touched on that situation, myself, in "The Year 2000" ( IW, May 27 ). However, what I think you are referring to, and what I am concerned with, is knowingly publishing software that has errors, or has not been tested to the point that there is a high confidence that it is trouble-free, and using marketplace pressures as an excuse.

We all know the importance of getting out in the marketplace first. However, is this still a smart business strategy in software? Certainly, in high-technology fields other than software (camer as, TVs, and even PCs) manufacturers know that consumers will not re-buy or recommend a product that is defective. In these hard goods lines, as with automobiles, getting there first with a defective product is a sure ticket to extinction. Why do we consumers continue to buy software products that are buggy? Is it because we assume that it has to be that way?

Well, you know what happened with cars. The Japanese came in with models that worked right the first time and created a massive upheaval in the U.S. automotive industry. Maybe there is a lesson there for all software publishers. They might even have the basis for a new advertising campaign: "Buy our product. It actually works the way we say it does! We don't have the biggest bells and the loudest whistles, but the ones we have really do clang and toot!"

I am convinced that there is room for "old-fashioned IT folks" like you. In fact, I think that when we all wake up and hold the software publishers to the same standards we expect from other peo ple to whom we give our money, then you and folks like you will be very much in vogue.

Dear Herbert,

You have an inviting writing style. Why don't you consider hiding yourself on a desert island for six to eight weeks to write the definitive business relationship book (really).

There are zillions of us out there trying to sell every IT and "service" contraption imaginable to a few thousand poor CIO types. We try our best to recant our understanding of the latest corporate aphorisms, but you're right--we're not very good at speaking to the essence. To "enhance quick decisions and implementation," real understanding is needed. Honesty helps, but that's clearly not enough. Listening (the active form of hearing) is key, but that's not enough either.

As the world becomes increasingly dynamic, business will respond or perish. In lockstep, business is becoming more dependent on information technology, and as a result, IT-related problems are increasingly visible. We need people who understand what is needed, but today there just aren't very many of them around.

Historically, business sought stability in order to improve margins. Today, business must invite dynamics (even chaos) to grow the top line in a world where new products and markets evolve over shorter and shorter periods.

Good look with your writings and career.

Dan

Daniel P. Gregerson
President & CEO
PeerLogic, Inc.
San Francisco, Calif.

Dear Dan:

Thanks for your comments. Your remarks about the rapidity of change and chaos in today's business world reminds me of the old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." I once heard that the only person who truly likes change is a baby with a wet diaper. Little wonder that those of us who make change for a living have more than our share of angst. Of course, we are better at inflicting change than in accepting it ourselves. Even so, I doubt that any of us could have believed a decade ago that we could deal with product life cycles that were measured in months and the levels of corporate realignments that we have had. I suspect that we have done a better job on "enhancing quick decisions and implementation" than we ourselves give credit for.

Dear Mr. Lovelace:

In your Aug. 5 column on technology's eliminating the boundaries between work and play, you make some very good points. Many new technological features, intended as tools to make work easier and more productive, are actually making things worse.

As to time off the job being personal time: I don't think technology matters. A boss could easily telephone a subordinate at 11 p.m. for a question if he feels like it--lack of E-mail won't stop him if the boss feels his people should be on call. A boss can easily load someone with a briefcase full of work to be completed while traveling, and leave orders to check in frequently by pay phone. A boss could simply load someone down with work so that they must stay until 6 or 7 p.m. every night in order to finish their work.

As to the usefulness of technology itself: I remember when we got home PCs with modems allowing us to check on work at night from home. The original idea was to save us the trouble of coming into the office at night on urgent problems. But in practice, it greatly increased the calls to home, since now it's easy to deal with them.

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

That column must have hit a real nerve judging by the amount of mail that it generated. I agree with your main point that we could always have been loaded down in the days before voice mail and E-mail. What I was trying to get across is reflected in your comment about the calls to home being increased because it is now easy to deal with them. In fact, most of us do not need the boss to load us down--we do a great job of taking more work upon ourselves. That's the insidious thing about technology: It makes it easy for us to let our workaholic tendencies come to the fore, which may not be the best thing for any one in the long term. On the other hand, some of the toys, like nationwide alphanumeric paging and lapel-sized cellular phones, are really awesome.

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