My thanks to Gary Oliver for this quote from 1972. He suggests, and I concur, that the quote stands even if you delete the word ‘computing’.
More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason - including blind stupidity.
Wulf, W. A. "A Case Against the GOTO," Proceedings of the 25th National ACM Conference, August 1972, pp. 791-97.
Efficiency is all about stripping away all apparently superfluous functionality so that all that is left is what you really need. It is at the heart of BPR and its modern successor Six Sigma. The problem is that the definition of what is superfluous at any one time is very specific to the context of that time and the knowable future. Focusing on efficiency is great for aspects of an organisation that are process based, but not for the more fluid and complex areas of innovation, service etc etc. There the issue is to be effective which implies a degree of planned inefficiency, the grit in the oyster, that provides adaptive capacity over time. Efficiency is all well and good for stable environments, but for all other context we need to focus on resilience.
All of this links well with a recent DEMOS report (picked up by several bloggers including Dissident) which indicates that government in the UK is finally starting to realise that evidence based policy, like process engineering has its boundaries. If we can start to break them of the habit of outcome based measures at the same time we may have a chance of a decent public sector in the UK sometime soon!
All feed the growing need for evidence-based policy. But expertise has always been about more than evidence. Expertise is also about judgement, about wisdom, about asking new questions and challenging convention.The one thing I am sure of is that a failure to realise the natural limitations or boundaries of process and evidence-based policy(or any other approach for that matter) can destroy otherwise healthy organisations. I have a nasty feeling that in a few years time we will be saying: More sins are committed in the name of evidence (without necessarily seeing it) than for any other single reason - including blind stupidity.
Comments (4)
This paper in a respeced medical journal makes good fun of excessive reliance on "evidence": "Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials" at http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1459 .
There are many things to learn from this paper, like spotting strange obsessions with irrelevant details (e.g. version number of statistical software used to analyzed non-existent facts)
Posted by christianhauck![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/nav-commenters.gif)
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January 18, 2007 11:12 AM
Posted on January 18, 2007 11:12
Jane Jacobs made a similar point in relation to the design of modern cities - homogenisation of function, simplification and separation out into neat sectors - in the name of efficiency - destroyed the variety of use and "close-grained diversity" that is necessary for a city life to occur.
So city life died in those environments, at least the bits that involve communities and constructive social interaction. "Dead zones" and crime-haunts thrived because social supervision and control of crime (it turned out) depended on traffic and micro level moment to moment human observation at all times of days and night, which in turn depended on diversity and INefficiency of design.
Exactly as you say, Dave, the stuff that drove efficiency was not the stuff that drove the ecosystem, and without the ecosystem, efficiency becomes irrelevant. So Jacobs had a notion of the necessary levels of inefficiency, which she measures in terms of diversity of use and diversity of building stock (age, size, use). Didn't you say somewhere recently that you were looking at how to calculate how much inefficiency is needed for "health" in a system? THAT would be useful!
Posted by Patrick Lambe | January 18, 2007 5:11 PM
Posted on January 18, 2007 17:11
I recently came across a similar example in South Africa. Many of the larger gold mines decided to centralise core back office services in central Shared Service Centres, to save costs and operate more 'efficiently'.
It had severe unintended consequences that they didn't expect. They now face an uphill battle to recruit new staff to work at the mines, especially the ones that are out in the middle of nowhere, far from cities or towns. Previously the wives of mine workers were offered back-office positions at the mine, so both partners could have an income. With the centralisation of the back office, they've essentially taken away the opportunity for a second income, so people are reluctant to work on the mines. Nobody thought of this when they opted for the 'greater efficiency' route.
Posted by Sonja Blignaut | January 23, 2007 1:00 PM
Posted on January 23, 2007 13:00
Here is an FT article telling how efficiency obsession can hurt a company's brand (in this case Starbucks), more likely to happen in services, I guess... The article also mentions the impact of blogs as well.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/66d76e0a-c53d-11db-b110-000b5df10621.html
Posted by Alp | February 26, 2007 5:52 PM
Posted on February 26, 2007 17:52