Jiri’s Notepad

Bob Herbold’s message to the world:

Fiefdoms are bad. They result in stifled organizations that freeze up and let competitors breeze on by. They lead to inefficiency and ineffectiveness, reducing market share and profitability. They breed mediocrity.The folks in charge of the fiefdoms jealously guard their high-performers, not letting other groups know about the people they value most, less that fiefdom lose a key contributor (to whom they might give so-so feedback to). Folks gravitate towards a comfort zone and stridently maintain the status quo. Once another leaner, meaner innovative group or competitor comes along, the fiefdom plain can’t compete and while it might save a little bit of time from obsolescence via plain mean business or political tactics, the folks who snuggled down into the comfort zone and jellified themselves to mediocrity usually end up out of a job.
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When you’re dealing with people shooting you with process arrows and telling you all the reasons why we can’t ship a feature, it’s always nice to have a quote like “‘Why didn’t you tell me that we weren’t interested in exciting the customer, that we’re interested only in making this thing risk-free and cheap?’” ready to go.