Comments on: Religion vs. Science

By: nothing happens :: echo chamber may 28, 2008

nothing happens :: echo chamber may 28, 2008 — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:13:56 +0000

[...] Religion vs. Science — No, not a general discussion of religion vs. science, but an analogy to IT management. [...]

By: Mr Angry

Mr Angry — Mon, 26 May 2008 02:08:18 +0000

Massimo: good analogy

Unhappy: been there, done that, got the scars to prove it.

Stew: You’re right, and nobody wins a holy war.

By: Stew Dean

Stew Dean — Sat, 24 May 2008 08:51:14 +0000

Thing is in this case it’s two religions fighting each other, that of the business and that of the technology. I work on many projects and know that if you really want to know what the requirements are then yes you do need to test against reality but reality in this case is not the business or the technology but the end users/customers. Now this could be another religion but my view is a system that users can’t use is a bad system and a business that customers don’t want to deal with is a bad business. In the BA/Tech view of things the BA (both forms) try to take on what they think the user/customer wants and often try to use bad things like ‘common sense’ – which as you know Einstein was no fan of. The solution is User Centered Design. That way there’s no faith required, you want to know if a requirement is good, test it, ask the people who the requirement is for and, more importantly, let them be the source of requirements. And most importantly see ‘IT’ as the implementation of the project, the engineering and have folks who think in terms of ‘how can we do this’ rather than ‘can we do this’. It’s a different world view than exists in many ‘traditional’ organisations but, to me, it’s a way to avoid what is essentially a battle of two faiths – the god of business and the god of technology.

By: Unhappy

Unhappy — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:19:00 +0000

And if you are unfortunate enough to inherit documents that have been signed off and then find out that they are shit then management will tell you get on with it as someone in your team signed off.

By: Arjan`s World » Blog Archive » LINKBLOG for May 18, 2008

Arjan`s World » Blog Archive » LINKBLOG for May 18, 2008 — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:00:00 +0000

[...] Religion vs. Science – Mr. Angry The everlasting management vs. IT game ‘ “If we all work together, we can meet the delivery date.” Reality be damned ‘ [...]

By: Massimo

Massimo — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:49:46 +0000

It is actually simpler. Science believes events happen because they have a cause in the past. Religion says events happen because there are goals in the future that have to be met. This is also why it is dangerous to mix them and one ends up with circular arguments.

By: Mr Angry

Mr Angry — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:23:07 +0000

That is the purpose of my rants

By: Papa Stokes

Papa Stokes — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:47:05 +0000

oh Mr. Angry, You make my day. No matter how shit of a day im having, Listening to your rants makes it all better.

By: Mr Angry

Mr Angry — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:48:47 +0000

Vlad: Yes, that’s a great analogy

Rob: It’s a skill I practice regularly and take great pride in

Simon: I do believe internal promotion is almost always better than appointment of external “experts” but the you do get the “Peter Principle” where people are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:09:59 +0000

They really should stop teaching management and employ the bottom level workers as managers so the person at the top knows what he’s doing and how things work :/