[Ocaml-biz] Decisionmakers

[Brian Hurt]

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> Yes, we have to persuade / convince / sell to various parties,
> obviously.  But we can rely on some part of the food chain using
> coercion to make things happen.  As I said before, the line worker does
> not count.  The Decisionmaker is what counts.  Doing what Decisionmakers
> want is more important than doing what line workers want.
> 
> The line worker is valuable for bringing a technology to the attention
> of a Decisionmaker.  Thus, line workers need to be persuaded / convinced
> to some degree.  But, we shouldn't please them in ways that aren't
> compelling to Decisionmakers also.  Otherwise the line worker says, "Hey
> boss, look at my cool toy!" and the Decisionmaker says, "It is a toy,
> get back to work."
> 

If the line worker is dumb enough to call the technology he's pitching a 
toy, he deserves what he gets.

I've had five managers in my career.  They've ranged from a full-throttled 
PHB to a guy where the exchange "Look at my cool toy!"  "Shut up, boss, 
and let me get back to work" could easily have happened (he wasn't the 
flake that makes him sound like, but he was definately an early adopter 
who loved technology for it's own sake).

The bad ones had their minds made up.  They were going to do what 
Microsoft or the trade glossies or the voices in their heads told them to 
do.

The good ones developed in-house techies they went to for technical 
opinions- just like they found good lawyers they could go to for legal 
opinions.  The Managers would make the decisions, but it was surprising 
how often what the trusted tech recommend was the decision the Manager 
made.

*No* manager- not even the technophile- is going to base their decision on 
a bunch of yahoos on the internet.  We don't have enough corporate muscle 
to change the minds of the bad managers- in the future, we might see the 
glossy magazines with headline articles like "Ocaml- it's the future.  We 
tell you how to jump on the bandwagon before it's too late!"  But not now.  
And we might see Microsoft pushing F# in the future.  But until we do, I 
think the bad managers are beyond our reach.

The good managers, however, aren't.  They don't listen to Microsoft, or 
the glossies.  They listen to their pocket geeks.  And the easiest way to 
get to them is through the techies.

You keep saying the "line programmers" don't matter.  I argue the 
contrary- at least for Ocaml's purposes, they're about all that matters.

-- 
"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive,
difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of
mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it."
                                - Gene Spafford 
Brian