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Occam’s Razor & Technology Disasters And Why We Refuse To See The Elephants In The Room.

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The elephants in the room are people. But there’s a resistance to see the elephants or deal with the often obvious steps necessary to solve “people problems.” As the pace of technology accelerates, digital competition explodes, and the need for agile leadership grows, companies must revisit and reimagine how it recruits, rewards and manages their technology teams — including especially executive leadership.

Simplest Explanations Are Still the Best

The Occam’s Razor principle “stated that ‘plurality should not be posited without necessity.’  The principle gives precedence to simplicity:  of two competing theories, the simpler explanation of an entity is to be preferred.  The principle is also expressed as ‘entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.’  There are similar principles out there, notably the “KISS” principle – keep it simple, stupid – which “most likely finds its origins in similar minimalist concepts, such as Occam's razorLeonardo da Vinci's ‘simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,’ Shakespeare's ‘brevity is the soul of wit,’ Mies Van Der Rohe's ‘less is more.’ Bjarne Stroustrup's ‘make simple tasks simple!,’ or Antoine de Saint Exupéry's ‘it seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.’  Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus Cars, urged his designers to ‘simplify, then add lightness.’  Heath Robinson machines and Rube Goldberg's machines, intentionally overly-complex solutions to simple tasks or problems, are humorous examples of ‘non-KISS’ solutions,’” including Einstein’s "make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

The point?  When it comes to enterprise technology, we insist on attributing failure to anything but the obvious.  Sure, there are a few analyses that focus on the simplest explanations, but by and large we like to explain failure around methods, tools, techniques, technologies, networks, platforms, data — anything we believe we can define and “measure.”  Our obsession with “capability maturity models” is a perfect example of how we aggregate competencies into measurable “frameworks.”  Agile is a surefire methodology to fix broken software projects!  ERP is perfect for integrating accounting and finance!  Project Management Certifications will make us better project managers!  And so IT goes.

What Humans Believe

We’re not good at this.  We often want to believe things that have no basis in fact – or even reality.  Like the earth is flat, Covid vaccines make us magnetic and left-wing democrats consume babies. On the not-as-crazy list are what tens of millions of Americans actually believe, such as:

  • “About 30% of Americans believe that climate change is mainly caused by “natural changes in the environment.”  (Yale/Gallup/Clearvision Poll)
  • 10% of Americans think it’s the environmentalists themselves who cause devastating oil spills.  (Public Policy Polling)
  • 18% Americans believe that the Earth is the center of the universe.  (Gallup Poll)
  • One in four Americans believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth. (National Science Foundation Study)
  • A quarter of Americans think the Darwin´s theory of evolution is not real. (Pew Research Report)
  • Almost 33% of Americans believe in ghosts and 18% of Americans even claim they have seen some. (Pew Research Report)
  • More than three quarters of Americans believe there are indisputable evidences that aliens have already visited our planet. (National Geographic Survey)
  • 7% of Americans believe the historic 1969 Moon Landing never happened.  (Public Policy Polling)
  • Nearly one third of Americans believe that Bigfoot really exists.  (Public Policy Polling; this is taking into account the “not sure” answers.)
  • More than half of Americans suspect that a secretive global elite is trying to create a New World Order.  (Public Policy Polling)
  • 26% of Americans still believe in witchcraft.  (Gallup Poll)
  • Almost a quarter of Americans believe in reincarnation (i.e. they are convinced they were once another person).  (Pew Research Report)
  • 15% of American voters believe that the media adds secret mind controlling technology to TV broadcasts.  (Public Policy Polling)
  • 20% believe that cellphones cause cancer but that the government is afraid of large corporations and refuse to address the health hazard.  (University of Chicago Study)
  • More than 40% of Americans believe in extrasensory perception.  (Gallup Poll)
  • 1 in 4 Americans believe they won their independence from a country OTHER than Great Britain.”  (Gallup Poll)

The Kicker

Why such a long list? Well, it’s not long. There are at least fifty more things I could have listed. It’s important to understand that many of the same people who believe these (and many other things) run projects, companies and government agencies.  Many of the people who believe these things are technology consultants, run technology companies and manage technology projects.  To assume otherwise, defies Occam’s core principle – and other common-sense notions of likelihoods, not to mention any statistical measures of probability.  Stated differently, what’s the probability that none of the believers of any of these (and so many other) things run technology companies, manage technology projects or consult? It gets worse.  When we delve into the psychological profiles of many of our friends, associates and leaders, it gets horrifyingly messy. What’s the probability that none of the people in your professional orbit believe any less-than-factual things and have no personality challenges?

The point?

The simplest explanations for why so many enterprise technology projects fail – in addition to all of the conventional explanations – are traceable to people.  Before you rip out and replace all of your methods, tools, techniques, frameworks, data, platforms and technologies, look closely at the people in the room. Study the belief systems, the personalities and relationships exhibited (noting that many are hidden), and think about how all these influence planning, decision-making, promotions, investments — and, yes, technology project failures.

The Elephant in the Room

I started this analysis a while ago when I attempted to explain why so many technology projects fail.  I offered that it was all about the people, all the time, and that the lack of the right talent, poor executive support and an anti-technology corporate cultures explained more about failure than the old favorites, like “scope creep,” requirements mismanagement, etc.  It’s the long way of saying that incompetent people with strange world views (and other traits) can be damaging to project success (not to mention corporate success). Who knew?  Everyone – and that’s the elephant in the room so few of us are willing to see.  How many people do you know have no business doing what they’re doing?  I stopped counting years ago.  William of Ockham had it right:  the simplest explanation is usually the best. Our problem is we just refuse to see it.

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