RE: Another thing that goes wrong with naming

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukcrypto-admin@...
> [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@...]On Behalf Of Clive
D. W.
> Feather
> Sent: 04 February 2004 14:53
> To: ukcrypto@...
> Subject: Re: Another thing that goes wrong with naming
>
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
> In article <HCEGKCLCHALDGMOIAHFDIENHCMAA.oml@...>, Owen Lewis
> <oml@...> writes
> >No need to tell me that govt has regularly bogged-up IT projects
> that should
> >have been hardly more challenging. That is an observation on incompetence
> >and not on incapability. IMO, the prime reasons so many govt projects
> >founder are:
> >
> >               -       Insufficient or too wide a project
> definition at the outset.
> >
> >               -       A desire - driven by management by
> committee - for the project to become
> >all things to all men, this amending continually the original
> specification.
> >
> >               -       Poor project management with inadequate
> incentives and penalties for
> >exceeding/failing to achieve specified milestones. Anyone - any
> group - who
> >can deliver such a project to spec, to budget and on time should become
> >wealthy in personal terms. Those who fail should thereafter make their
> >living at road-mending.
>
> What reason do you have to suggest that these won't apply equally to
> your proposed IT project?

My observation was in regard to incapability and not incompetence. The
capability is not in doubt, I think. Incompetence is a management issue and
its prevalence can be well moderated in schemes with limited objectives that
are clearly understood and have a relatively simple structure.  Perhaps
someone else would like to comment on incompetence as a function of
complexity and disordered change?

Owen