When the "do-loop" becomes the "don't do-loop"

A friend/coworker shared this xkcd comic today. As with so many of these comics, it's pure genius. Randall Munroe, the creator of xkcd, has a knack for nailing topics that resonate with geeks. But this particular comic struck me because it had a couple different layers of meaning.

The first layer is the most obvious.......the idea that people make many small decisions, each of which makes sense  in isolation, but ultimately results in a "Franken-architecture" that's brittle and difficult to adapt. I've seen a number of IT systems that evolved in this fashion, adding "barnacles" over time that complicated upgrades and limited flexibility. 

The second layer of meaning is more subtle. Just like IT systems can evolve in this fashion, organizational operating practices can evolve to become an end in-and-of themselves. I refer to these as "self-licking ice-cream cones." They lose sight of the fact that they're cogs in a larger machine that's intended to deliver real capabilities to real users. 

One characteristic of this situation is processes that are locally optimized vice globally optimized. Each step in a process may have its own request forms, its own boards/decision forums, sometimes even their own tools/databases for tracking status. Each step is responsible for doing "their thing", but has little responsibility for delivering capabilities. Jeff Bezos famously reacted against this behavior at Amazon by issuing his "API mandate". These (locally optimized) behaviors are particularly pervasive (and frustrating) in government organizations, where authority  and accountability is often spread across many different groups. 

Fortunately some forward-thinking teams are starting to challenge the status quo and inject modern practices into government IT. I'm helping to build awareness of DevOps practices with my customers, and am encouraged by the "light bulbs" that are starting to go on. Some days I feel like we might, just might, be starting to turn the battleship.