25 years of standstill in ict?

Standstill is fall they say. Is this also the case for ICT? I attended a symposium on this subject. The massage we got is: proven and successful methods are available but still they are not applied. We were invited to assist in answering the question: which methods are successful and why aren’t they applied?

Personally I am in favour of applying methods and techniques. However I do not believe that they count for the major part of a possible success. Management factors are of more importance as is suggested by Capers Jones and mentioned during the symposium. We have the management of the project and the management of a company or group, and we face the cultural aspects of organisations and the personal style of the top manager. And we manage of course ourselves. These factors really count for success.

Unfortunately we see many managers inexperienced in software and ICT on positions where they may influence a lot. A solution might be to manage the fulfilment of these positions with qualified people as suggested in one of the workshops. Or help the inexperienced to overcome their shortcomings by smart and good advice. That is my job.

But to answer the question on fall of ICT: I do not think so. It has been proved (by measurements and I refer to the work of Lawrence Putnam) that productivity of software processes slowly increases during the years even when the size of software systems are growing. So we are getting better al the time (speaking with the Beatles) and must admit that the reason for this is a mix of factors. Methods and techniques count for a small part of this success I believe.