Vashbear reviewed Recoding America by Jennifer Pahlka
Trust in Government at Risk
5 stars
While the book is specifically about Government IT iniatives, it is more broadly about how large organizations made of constituent with different incentives are badly hampered from serving their users.
Politicians make policies to further their agenda, and then leave it to implementers to sort through all the ambiguity, inconsistencies and deliver something useful. Failure is almost assured at the outset. Much of the description rang true to me as a software developer in the private sector -- I experience the same sort of issues but perhaps at a smaller scale.
But the most interesting thing to me was Pahlka's argument that the impact of failed process is much worse than a bad user experience, a budget overrun, or a delay ... it is undermining trust in Government.
If you work in software/IT you will greatly enjoy this book. And if not, you will still find the sociology and a …
While the book is specifically about Government IT iniatives, it is more broadly about how large organizations made of constituent with different incentives are badly hampered from serving their users.
Politicians make policies to further their agenda, and then leave it to implementers to sort through all the ambiguity, inconsistencies and deliver something useful. Failure is almost assured at the outset. Much of the description rang true to me as a software developer in the private sector -- I experience the same sort of issues but perhaps at a smaller scale.
But the most interesting thing to me was Pahlka's argument that the impact of failed process is much worse than a bad user experience, a budget overrun, or a delay ... it is undermining trust in Government.
If you work in software/IT you will greatly enjoy this book. And if not, you will still find the sociology and a look at how the sausage gets made enlightening.
