First published May 2017. I’ve been trying to write about authority, responsibility, accountability, & other properties of productive, functiona

Software Design: Tidy First?

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2024-09-27 18:00:03

First published May 2017. I’ve been trying to write about authority, responsibility, accountability, & other properties of productive, functional relationships for a couple of decades. I hope I’m getting close, because there’s a chapter in the new book labelled “Authority & Responsibility”.

Just before writing this I had been on a teaching trip in central & southern Africa. Met some life-long (well, the remainder of it anyway) friends, made some music, & learned about my narrow understanding of people & culture.

I was terrified much of the time I was walking in Lagos. Traffic was chaotic. Drivers were hyperaggressive. Roads were narrow.

There was one time I wasn’t worried: bareheaded on the back of a motorcycle, dodging and weaving through that self-same traffic.

Partly it was because the first thing I did on arriving in Lagos was go to church (a whole other story), which I figured improved my chances of surviving and at least got me into a desirable afterlife should things go sideways. Partly, though, it was because of principles that I find both useful when followed and frequently violated in organizations as they scale.