Dave Snowden

when people become obsessed, the cure to any failure in application of their obsession seems to be more of the same….... However BPR advocates want their method to apply to everything. When the failures start to be documented they don’t realise they have exceeded the applicable boundaries of their concept. Instead they argue that it was not done properly, or the management were not committed enough or worst of all: the culture was not aligned. Next thing we know, six stigma arrives: BPR on speed…...

Just because something works in one domain, it doesn’t mean it will work in another. Everything has limited applicability. You don’t want test-driven bomb disposal. Put like that it’s obvious but people¹ love their golden hammers. Some things are best modeled as state machines; most things aren’t.

Even Scrum style planning might not be appropriate to a all projects: if you have unlimited resources, you don’t have to worry about delivery dates.

¹ Including me: I like to think of myself as a person.

Monday, November 06, 2006 | Permalink | 1 Comments