It's interesting watching this debate on the year 2000 problem.
Summarising some sides of the issue:
- how could the analysts/programmers be so dumb
- why are we so scared to challenge the dominant culture (that "has
always" coded dates in two digits because of historical technology
constraints)
- why are CIO's not doing something (in a business environment that
emphasises short-term (3 month) profits, when everyone knows that the year
200 problem is still sometime away.
There is a deeper issue underlying all this - and I think relates to LO
:->.
Whenever we build something we define the problem, bound it in some way,
make assumptions about what we're going to use it for, and apply
constraints to what we can do. In the computing industry, all systems are
based (whether they know it or not) on Newell and Simon's information
processing theory that views a computer systems as a state space. Other
sciences have their own theories which they use as the starting point for
developing new ideas.
The year 2000 "problem" originally arose because of technology
constraints.
It continues to exist because the COMPUTING COMMUNITY have simply assumed
that the historical models that have been developed are good models on
which to build new systems (after all, you wouldn't want to reinvent an
operating system every time you built a database application would you?).
The problem arises because the real-world environment has changed -
technology has improved, and time has progressed so we're closer to the
year 2000. People who understand the FOUNDATIONS on which the historical
models/theories have been developed should have been examining the
implications of how real-world change affected the foundations. Some parts
of the computing community have, most have not.
Why haven't they? I would argue that in most organisations, no time is
made for people to REFLECT on what they're doing. Reflecting seems like a
pretty pointless activity, until something like the year 2000 problem hits
you. However, reflection is an essential activity if your organisation is
going to have the capability of being able to adapt to the changing
environment. To be able to reflect requires NOT being in reactive mode,
not being "always busy", not having endless meetings - it requires time,
and quiet spaces, and the ability to reason about why things have and
haven't worked, and the implications of environmental change on how things
currently are. Donald Schon and John Dewey both talk about this.
My guess is that in most organisations, the people who have time to
reflect are the people who are first "downsized" or told to be more
productive (with some pointless measure).
We have another community here on LO - how do we influence the rest of the
world about the importance of reflective activities on a daily basis?
John O'Neill
DSTO C3 Research Centre, Australia
email: John.ONeill@dsto.defence.gov.au
--"John O'Neill" <jao@cook.dsto.gov.au>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>