Comments on: Emergent Systems in Government: Let’s put the horse before the cart

By: jacksmith0141

jacksmith0141 — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:59:56 +0000

Nice blog, There was a time when IT projects necessarily costed tens of millions of dollars. But GCPEDIA was built on a (free) open source platform using a handful of internal FTEs (making McDowell's comments about vendors even more confusing).
jacksmith
thanks
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http://mls.fastrealestate.net ” rel=”mls ”

By: Paul McDowall

Paul McDowall — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:37:44 +0000

David,
In the future, I would appreciate it if you convey my comments accurately. In virtually every reference in your post, you have misquoted or incorrectly made assumptions about my 'concerns' as you put it. It was clear on the phone that you did not understand my comments because, as you may remember I frequently had to correct you in what you thought I said. I am absolutely amazed when I read your post. This was NOT our conversation!

I am very happy to have a full and though-provoking conversation, but not one where my every comment is misquoted or incorrect assumptions and judgments on your part slant your reporting of it.

This useless and frustrating conversation is one of the down sides of collaborative tools - which I fully support, by the way.

PS The correct spelling of my family is McDowall.
Paul

By: השיטוטים של השבוע: 27 לספטמבר – 3 לאוקטובר 2009 : ארבעה כיווני מידע

השיטוטים של השבוע: 27 לספטמבר – 3 לאוקטובר 2009 : ארבעה כיווני מידע — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:03:09 +0000

[...] האם ה- GCPEDIA תציל את השרות הציבורי בקנדה?: GCPEDIA או בשמו המלא: Government of Canada Wikipedia מהווה בדיקת התכנות של שתוף פעולה וידע בין עובדי השרות הציבורי באמצעות טכנולוגית וויקי. הפרויקט עורר וויכוח עז בקנדה סביב מספר שאלות: האם הטכנולוגיה תציל את השירות הציבורי?, כיצד מבצעים פרויקט וויקי? היכן מתחילים?, ושאלות רבות נוספות. ניתן להיחשף לחלק מוויכוח מעניין זה בפוסט: Emergent Systems in Government: Let’s put the horse before the cart [...]

By: jeremyvernon

jeremyvernon — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:03:19 +0000

Two remarks -

The struggle you're alluding to in software design is one of the longest religious debates in software engineering (along with Vi vs. emacs, or tabs vs. spaces). Agile methods vs. Big Design Up Front (BDUF) and the struggle between them fills bookshelves and software engineering degree programs. So government isn't the only place where this expresses itself.

Also, an interesting point made by Clay Shirky is poignant here - he was describing the role of the cell-phone. The most critical alteration it made was that it replaced planning with adaptability. He pointed out how nobody needs to plan social events with any specificity ahead of time, "I'll call you when I'm leaving" instead of "I'll meet you there at 6".

Leadership, in the mind of McDowall and old-school KMers is about planning. Planning is the mechanism for coordination.

To get metaphysical - what's going on in management is a shift away from Newton's mechanical cause to Aristotle's formal cause. A shift from "making things happen" to "making things possible".

By: Jacques Drolet

Jacques Drolet — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:09:30 +0000

I am with you David and feel how difficult it is to show patience in front of such fears or lack of understanding. Nevertheless, baby boomers like everybody else tend to learn more when given a bit of time. Onus on the “bit” of course.
I really appreciate you phoning him. You were able to go a bit further on the “implementation” path. A wee bit more patience maybe :-)

By: Paul Ramsey

Paul Ramsey — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:36:27 +0000

The first rule of government IT is “you can't do that”. And once they've gone and outsourced infrastructure to achieve cost savings, it becomes “we can't afford a server from Accenture for you to do that”. I've never seen a more robust management culture than in government IT. Process over product, every time.