sobrique: (Default)
sobrique ([personal profile] sobrique) wrote2004-05-06 10:13 am

Corporate strategy

We've discovered something.

Our corporate strategy is goal based.
In a sort of 'where do you want to go today'.
But not in a technology sense, oh no. But by which vendors give the best jollies.

The analogy one of my collegues gave me was this.
The NSC (our resident REMFs) decree that we shall be going to the moon in a month. And that we're going to assign blah to accomplish it.

You thing 'well, that's a bit challenging really, innit' and shrug and go off and get started.

A month later, when you return with your report of the technical difficulties involved, and the cost/benefit analysis of the moon mission, they respond with:

"No, you've got that wrong. We've got 50 people going to the moon, not just the 2 you assumed, and we had a consultant tell use that it was viable, so it must be so. Because after all, if you send 50 people, you split the service cost between them, and it becomes cheap."

"And a fridge. We want a fridge to got to the moon too."

At which point, you're left with the choice of going and implementing an impossible project, and hoping that no one notices it disappearing (which they won't, because by then the next issue of Computing Weekly will be out, and it'll be something else).

or you tell them that actually, they're not being terribly realistic (translation, they don't have a fucking clue) at which point you're being 'unhelpful and obstructive'.

What fun.

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