Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
work in the computer industry. “Programmers, systems analysts, and
other software workers are experiencing efforts to break down, simplify,
routinize, and standardize their own work so that it, too, can be done
by machines rather than people.” The use of high-level programming
technologies and structured development methodologies represented
“elaborate efforts” to “develop ways of gradually eliminating program-
mers, or at least reduce their average skill levels, required training, [and]
experience.” The once-proud computer programmer, he contended, has
been relegated largely to subsidiary and subordinate roles in the produc-
tion process. “While a few of them sit at the side of managers, counseling
and providing expert's advice, most simply carry out what someone else
has assigned them.”
29
Kraft suggested that managers have generally been successful in impos-
ing structures on programmers that have eliminated their creativity and
autonomy. His analysis was remarkably comprehensive, covering such
issues as training and education, structured programming techniques
(“the software manager's answer to the conveyor belt”), the social orga-
nization of the workplace (aimed at reinforcing the fragmentation
between “head” planning and “hand” labor), and careers, pay, and
professionalism (encouraged by managers as a means of discouraging
unions). Greenbaum followed Kraft's conclusions and methodology
closely in her topic
In the Name of Effi ciency: Management Theory and
Shopfl oor Practice in Data-Processing Work
in 1979. More recently, she
has defended their application of the Braverman deskilling hypothesis:
“If we strip away the spin words used today like 'knowledge' worker,
'fl exible' work, and 'high tech' work, and if we insert the word 'informa-
tion system' for 'machinery,' we are still talking about management
attempts to control and coordinate labor processes.”
30
There is validity to both interpretations of the changing attitude of
managers toward programmers that occurred in the late 1960s. Certainly
there were numerous technical innovations in both hardware and soft-
ware that prompted managerial responses. It is true that many of the
larger software development projects in this period did run over budget
and fall behind schedule. The cost of software development relative to
hardware purchases did continue to climb, and the labor cost of pro-
gramming did become a serious burden to many manufacturers and
users. It is also true that some managers were interested, as Kraft and
Greenbaum maintain, in creating software factories where deskilled pro-
grammers cranked out mass-produced products that required little
thought or creativity.
31
The SDC referred to its in-house programming
