And modelers rarely if ever consider the feedback loop and the ramifications of their predatory models on our culture.

This does not happen with modelers only. It happens with everyone that has a “good idea” and rushes it forward without really thinking whether it will work or not, and how long afterwards we are going to see how what was introduced interferes with what was already there, fine tuned and working. And that is why I read about cybernetics; not because it is less obscure, or more useful than people think, but because it always reminds me of the feedback loop.

→ Homeostasis from a sysadmin perspective.

“When times are tough IT gets beaten hard” –Rolf von Roessing

When times are hard IT is the first to take the heat. Budget cuts, “rightsizing” (which always equals downsizing) and a mandate to do more with less is in order. And let us not forget outsourcing which of course costs less, provided there is still someone there, the key person, to inform the outsourcer and interface with the rest of the organization. Most likely that person jumped away upon seeing the iceberg and not after the hit.

So what do we get after this? We get a lower budget for the next year (hence a success!), poorly documented systems for which there is no one around to ask details about (and guess when will you need this tiny bit of missing detail) and systems that must continue to operate with large portions of them unpatched, unmaintained and halted not following the normal upgrade path of their cycle. This operations nightmare can easily become a security one too.

And what about training your staff? Training is spending and thus cut. After all, staff is supposed to freely dig the Net and find out appropriate answers. For that is the best it will get, answers, not training. No one will stop staff being trained on their personal time and budget, but not on company time. “What if we train them and they leave?”. Is that sensible? How about not training them and see how far they can go.

Management avoids errors of commission by making errors of omission that have hidden costs which appear further in time, in most unexpected circumstances and of course at a time when the responsible one for the chain of events has left the helm. But then again management stays less time in office than those who foresee such errors and easily silences them in an uneven power game.

All that is left are the system administrators, developers and security guys still on board trying to clean up the mess. Sometimes you have to spend your way up, but almost always management interprets this like a supernova: They keep absorbing amounts of energy (budget) trying to keep doing their thing avoiding evolution (organized abandonment) like dinosaurs. I used to dislike Rand’s advice about when to jump ship, but he is certainly correct.

/* This has been gathering dust for quite some time now */

“The cost of communication waste” made me think of the standard oxymoron in our line of business:

“We are forced to kill our children to make our point” says a fellow sysadmin. This is the case where, although the system administrator has recommended an update, upgrade, improvement etc. this is denied thus forcing the system to degrade slowly (or fast sometimes) no matter the effort put against decay by the administrator. Who will finally be forced to let the system die proving the point along the way. But this is no victory. System Adminitrators derive no joy by being right when disaster strikes; they want to have resources for their systems not to fail or at least abandon them properly.

As system administrators we build systems that are supposed to support certain operations for our employer. We build stuff, automate processes and generally walk a path, that the untrained eye thinks it leads to eliminating the necessity of our services. In essence we build our own obsolescence. When things do not work, users (sometimes rightly) believe that we do a lousy work. On the other hand when we sit idle in our offices, we are not needed and may sometimes even be considered a burden, a cost center. Why would one pay a system administrator, if he seems idle all the time? The contradiction is clear: When the systems do not work, it is because we do a lousy job. When the systems work, our services are supposedly not needed.

Fat behaviors rule the IT workplace (IT Gestapo, toxic meetings, pointless report generation) and BOFHs are equally guilty of this. This is the balance we have to keep up with daily, but when running systems with a lot of responsibility but without authority, we have to find ways to make management not only listen, but also act. Because management takes a bet: Things won’t break while they are in office. Since we have to either leave or live with that, we either take the same bet or we make damn sure that our technical points are permanently recorded.

“Lean behaviors” is a fantastic paper written by Bob Emiliani. If I was to use a highlight marker, I could easily paint the whole paper.

“[an organization] must possess an ability to change how it thinks, which requires a culture characterized by trust, shared responsibility and openness to experimentation without fear of failure“.

“Lean behaviors are defined simply as behaviors that add or create value. It is the minimization of waste associated with arbitrary or contradictory thoughts that leads to defensive behavior; ineffective relationships, poor co-operation, and negative attitudes. […] [“fat” behaviors] include the display of irrational and confusing information that results in delays or work stoppages, or the articulation of unsubstantiable subjective thoughts and opinions. Fat behaviors are recognizable as lots of talk where nothing has actually been said, or indirect words whose meanings are subject to variable interpretations”.

What an accurate description of the Public Sector!

[The cost of communication waste]

Yes! It is this time of the year again. Sysadmin Day is today. So off your desk and walk towards that guy who is taking care of your network and machines and is required to perform magic when your PC is damaged, the network is not responding and your work is lost. Give him a hug, say “Thank you“, buy him coffee, a book, do a small gesture of appreciation, for if you reflect back in the past 364 days, you surely had a chance to thank them and you did not.

When treated properly at least once a year, sysadmins do not bite!

“A system is a construct or collection of different elements that together produce results not obtainable by the elements alone. The elements, or parts, can include people, hardware, software, facilities, policies, and documents; that is, all things required to produce systems-level results. The results include system level qualities, properties, characteristics, functions, behavior and performance. The value added by the system as a whole, beyond that contributed independently by the parts, is primarily created by the relationship among the parts; that is, how they are interconnected.”

[source]

I was trying to find a particular quote on “responsibility without authority” (and still am) and thanks to Google Books I bumped into this:

Though he would probably have preferred another word to describe it, “purposing” was something like what James M. Burns had had in mind a decade earlier. Leadership is nothing, he wrote in his insightful and influential 1978 study of the subject, “if [it is] not linked to collective purpose.” Burns agreed that a crisis had arrived. People in power were too often mediocre or irresponsible. But he thought this crisis was fundamentally an intellectual one: We simply do not know enough (indeed, we know very little) about leadership. He argued that leadership comes basically in two forms: transactional and transforming. Transactional leadership, in which the relationship between leaders and followers is based on an exchange of favors for support, had become the dominant mode. The transforming variety is “a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents”. To be a transforming leader is to recognize the relationship with followers and their needs and goals. That relationship and the character of the leader were prime ingredients of Burns’s theory of effective leadership.

Emphasis and links added by me. Good stuff to contemplate on until the May 6 elections…

Update: I use to say that one of the greatest faults in the Greek Public Sector is the existence of parallel hierarchies. Which means that there exists the documented organizational hierarchy and there exist also conditions where a subordinate, because of being close to people “with power” (meaning a political ally, a party member or even an elected member of the Parliament), is ranked higher than his direct supervisor. How is one supposed to lead someone who he cannot order to perform any function at all? Transactional leadership at its best.