Seeing like a software company

J'avais été assez marqué par le bouquin Seeing like a State. Sa déclinaison pour les entreprises de logiciels (et les grandes en particulier) est particulièrement stimulante :

What does legibility mean to a tech company, in practice? It means:

• The head of a department knows, to the engineer, all the projects the department is currently working on
• That head also knows (or can request) a comprehensive list of all the projects the department has shipped in the last quarter
• That head has the ability to plan work at least one quarter ahead (ideally longer)
• That head can, in an emergency, direct the entire resources of the department at immediate work

Note that “shipping high quality software” or “making customers happy” or even “making money” is not on this list. Those are all things tech companies want to do, but they’re not legibility.

Les zones permanentes et temporaires de non-légibilité deviennent donc particulièrement fécondes et surtout un territoire à préserver : un excellent essai de Sean Goedecke...