Let me pretend to be a scientist. "Proofs are for mathematicians and philosophers." Instead, I have a theory, based on observing QA and other control fetishes from the POV of a worker actually creating goods and services - that the people doing the work are the best suited to organise it, because the devil's in the details.
These sort of discussions remind me of those interminable geek vs hippy arguments about the benefits/evils of Science, which conflate Science the Ideal with Science the Fallible Human Institution, and confusion reigns. QA the Ideal = the systematic eradication of error to earn the badge of confidence. QA the FHI = a cost hurdle to earning the passkey to play with the big boys.
The best chef in the world ... needs management.
Now, I am aware that completing complex cooperative tasks requires logistics, strategy, research, foresight and so on, but to use these as a justification for management as it exists in large organisations today is akin to those arguments that support capitalism by citing the opportunities it provides to the Mom'n'Pop entrepreneurs on Main St. In practice, large concentrations of privately owned capital rob small entrepreneurs of their successes, while leaving them with all the risk.
Similarly, claims that management enables workers to do their work seem at odds with real world experience of workers doing their work despite the interference of management. A more plausible reason for all the hierarchy and centralisation is the need to extract and concentrate the surplus labour of the proles. Without that, the useful organisational functions of management might be distributed back out onto the shop floor.
Indeed, quickly so we can knock over the next one.
Sorry, I don't get what you mean here. O_o
In any case, by "death to the key performance indicators" (or ergometrics, as they liked to call it in the Victorian era) I'm calling for organisers to have their models follow the work being done rather than expect workers to follow the model. Shackling them to a number often results in perverse and counterproductive tactics in order to meet unrealistic goals. As the layers of abstraction build up, so do the errors of approximation, especially since subordinates have an incentive to lie to superiors to gain approval. So we end up with some version of the fabled Pentagon simulation of the Vietnam War that informed the generals that they'd already won years before.
Apologies for incoherence - no sleep, 45 hours. Will rant bowt gold and such tomorrow.
no subject
Let me pretend to be a scientist. "Proofs are for mathematicians and philosophers."
Instead, I have a theory, based on observing QA and other control fetishes from the POV of a worker actually creating goods and services - that the people doing the work are the best suited to organise it, because the devil's in the details.
These sort of discussions remind me of those interminable geek vs hippy arguments about the benefits/evils of Science, which conflate Science the Ideal with Science the Fallible Human Institution, and confusion reigns. QA the Ideal = the systematic eradication of error to earn the badge of confidence. QA the FHI = a cost hurdle to earning the passkey to play with the big boys.
The best chef in the world ... needs management.
Now, I am aware that completing complex cooperative tasks requires logistics, strategy, research, foresight and so on, but to use these as a justification for management as it exists in large organisations today is akin to those arguments that support capitalism by citing the opportunities it provides to the Mom'n'Pop entrepreneurs on Main St. In practice, large concentrations of privately owned capital rob small entrepreneurs of their successes, while leaving them with all the risk.
Similarly, claims that management enables workers to do their work seem at odds with real world experience of workers doing their work despite the interference of management. A more plausible reason for all the hierarchy and centralisation is the need to extract and concentrate the surplus labour of the proles. Without that, the useful organisational functions of management might be distributed back out onto the shop floor.
Indeed, quickly so we can knock over the next one.
Sorry, I don't get what you mean here. O_o
In any case, by "death to the key performance indicators" (or ergometrics, as they liked to call it in the Victorian era) I'm calling for organisers to have their models follow the work being done rather than expect workers to follow the model. Shackling them to a number often results in perverse and counterproductive tactics in order to meet unrealistic goals. As the layers of abstraction build up, so do the errors of approximation, especially since subordinates have an incentive to lie to superiors to gain approval. So we end up with some version of the fabled Pentagon simulation of the Vietnam War that informed the generals that they'd already won years before.
Apologies for incoherence - no sleep, 45 hours. Will rant bowt gold and such tomorrow.