Search and Flexible IT
January 6, 2011
I read “McKinsey: Run IT Like a Flexible ‘Factory‘”. I generally pay some attention to the musings of a blue chip consulting firm. Heck, years ago I did a tiny bit of work for McKinsey in London. This write up shakes my confidence in the wisdom of the blue chip poobahs, however. Keep in mind that I did not chase down a McKinsey partner, nor did I make any effort whatsoever to obtain a copy of the McKinsey research findings. I read the words “flexible factory” and experienced a kidney stone type of pain.
McKinsey is a global outfit, but the methods were honed in the USA that had resources to fuel its MBA economy. Right now, the USA is not number one in my book in designing, building, operating, or managing factories that make stuff. If I want a “flexible factory”, I snag my Chinese business associate and head to China with a stop in Taiwan as a jet lag shaker.
The notion that search and content processing vendors can “run IT like a flexible factory” is interesting, but I don’t think the analogy or the suggestion is on point.
Here’s why:
- Software is more like making art or making an episode of 30 Rock. There are some general guidelines and then all bets are off. Management intervention often guarantees a disaster of one sort or another. A factory, on the other hand, makes stuff. The key is repeatable processes, not art.
- Search and content processing are shipped in a broken state. Yep, I can hear the bleats from those who think commercial search and content processing software is perfect. Some search vendors and search licensees already operate in outsource mode, and I am not sure that it is working much better than the old style method of having a building stuffed with programmers.
- The buzz words sound great but “industrializing” information technology has already happened at Apple, Amazon, Google, and many other places. Industrializing search, like consumerizing search, does little to address the hard problems in information access.
Net net: cost reduction and zero commitment to human resources. No fancy talk needed.
But if a blue chip consultant articulates it, many senior managers will emit a sheep like bleat and follow the sheep herder and his faithful dog.
Stephen E Arnold, January 6, 2011
Freebie because I am no longer a blue chip consultant, just a rental goose in rural Kentucky
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