Quote Of The Week

Quote of the Week 48 " Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce systems which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations . " ―  Melvin Conway ( Conway's Law ) In short :    " The product of any group reflects the structure of the group. " Even shorter:           " Architecture follows Organization " Triggered by the reference to a variant of Conway's Law in Fred Brooks's renowned book " T he Mythical Man Month: Essays on Software Engineering " (see quote of last week for a reference to Brooks's Law ). The original quote was used by Martin Fowler in his noteworthy October 2022 article   on the same subject:  " Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure . " Fowler states: "Important enough to affect every system I've come across, and powerful enough that you...

Quote of the Week 47 " Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later . " ― Fred Brooks  ( Brooks's Law ) Frederick P. Brooks, the author of the renowned book " T he Mythical Man Month: Essays on Software Engineering " that introduces this law, passed away last week (November 17, 2022) at the age of 91. [ LinkedIn ]

Quote of the Week 46 " I’m often wrong, but never in doubt . " ―  Ivy Baker Priest Triggered by the use of a variant of the quote commenting a  tweet by Kara Swisher on the recent Twitter turmoil: One thing I am rather enjoying in the current Twitter turmoil is @karaswisher letting it rip. „frequently wrong but never ever in doubt“ would be a fitting epitaph for many of the users (pretty much all of them men) that have most aggravated and frustrated me here over the years https://t.co/Pb5dU3tsFB — Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) November 7, 2022 [ LinkedIn ]  

Quote of the Week 45 " Anything lost can be found again, except time wasted. " ― Kevin Gates Triggered by the use of the quote  ―  from " Wish I Had It " song lyrics by  Kevin Gates   ―   in a comment to a post on LinkedIn by Corporate Rebels . Anything lost can be found again Except time wasted     A vision without action Is merely a dream Action is the pride It the hustle It's the persistence   ... See also related quotes by Peter Drucker and  Henry Ford . [ LinkedIn ]  

Quote of the Week 44 "Trust, engagement, and happiness are outcomes. If you treat them like your inputs, you'll never get them." ― Leandro Herrero   A quote from Herrero's book " The Flipping Point " cited here . " There is a lot of confusion around inputs and outputs in Culture Change. Many organizations agree on broad values and directions for their culture and put things like "Trust, Engagement, and Happiness" in their value statements. But this is the output, the result. The input are behaviours. "

Quote of the Week 43 " Sometimes you change the subject, and sometimes the subject changes you. " ―  Timothy Snyder   As stated in his recent blog article " How does the Russo-Ukrainian War end ".

Quote of the Week 42 " Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. " ― Frank Zappa   Triggered by the use of the quote in a discussion of "normality" in the WDR 5 "Philosophical Radio" podcast .

Quote of the Week 41 " I quote others only in order the better to express myself. " ―  Michel de Montaigne Triggered by the discussion of Montaigne's Essais in a WDR 5 podcast . A variant of the original French quote : "Je ne dis les autres, sinon pour d'autant plus me dire." "I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better."

2nd Quote of the Week 40 " Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. " ―  Steve Jobs (who passed away 11 years ago today)

  Quote of the Week 40 " Gratitude is letting the power of knowing what you have, overpower thinking about what you don't. " ―  John Maeda