In this episode of ArrayCast, Turing Award winner Ken E. Iverson talks about Ian P. Sharp (founder of IPSharp and Associates) and shares this:
He was one of the early people in operations research, which came to be called management science. So he knows what this stuff is, but he also likes to speak of management science fiction, which I think reflects the correct thing that those techniques were very much overblown and oversold, at least for a period.
This of course reminded me of Gene Woolsey (again someone well known in operations research) who at the beginning of the book is seen saying:
:
5. Does it work?
6. If yes, is there a measurable, verifiable reduction in cost over what was done before, or a measurable, verifiable increase in readiness?
7. If yes, show it to me NOW.
If you think I am trying to take a dig at some current trend of overblown and oversold techniques using lessons and parallels from the past, you are correct :) I have expressed the very same opinion in private conversations about what is happening with GenAI today as I.P. Sharp had years ago about Management Science.
That made me smile for the rest of the weekend.
Managing organized complexity 