Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
solved by good standards. If you have a set of well-defi ned standards
you do not need clever programmers, nor must you fi nd yourself depend-
ing on them.”
90
At the very least, managers could learn enough about
computers to avoid being duped by the “garb of the arcane” in which
many programmers frequently clothed themselves.
91
At West Point,
cadets were taught enough about computers to prevent them from “being
at the mercy of computers and computer specialists. . . . [W]e want them
to be confi dent that they can properly control and supervise these potent
new tools and evaluate the signifi cance of results produced by them.”
92
In much of the management literature of this period, computer special-
ists were cast as self-interested peddlers of whizbang technologies. “In
all too many cases the data processing technician does not really under-
stand the problems of management and is merely looking for the applica-
tion of his specialty.”
93
In the words of one Fortune 500 data processing
executive, “They [EDP personnel] don't exercise enough initiative in
identifying problems and designing solutions for them. . . . They are
impatient with my lack of knowledge of their tools, techniques, and
methodology—their mystique; and sometimes their impatience settles
into arrogance. . . . In sum, these technologists just don't seem to under-
stand what I need to make decisions.”
94
The topic
New Power for
Management
emphasized the myopic perspective of programmers: “For
instance, a technician's dream may be a sophisticated computerized
accounting system; but in practice such a system may well make no major
contribution to profi t.”
95
Others attributed to them even more
Machiavellian motives: “More often than not the systems designer
approaches the user with a predisposition to utilize the latest equipment
or software technology—for his resume—rather than the real benefi t for
the user.”
96
Experienced managers stressed the critical differences between “real-
world problems” and “EDP's version of real-world problem.”
97
The
assumptions about programmers embedded in many of these accounts—
that they were narrowly technical, inexperienced, and “poorly qualifi ed
to set the course of corporate computer effort”—resonated with many
corporate managers.
98
The accounts provided a convenient explanation
for the burgeoning software crisis. Managers had in effect “abdicated
their responsibility and let the 'computer boys' take over.”
99
The fault
was not entirely the manager's own, though. Calling electronic data
processing “the biggest rip-off that has been perpetrated on business,
industry, and government over the past 20 years,” one author suggested
that business executives have been actively prevented “from really bearing
