Memorial Day 2016: A war story that predicted the future of IT

I like traditional paper books and resisted going to ebooks. I like to think it wasn't because I was stupid, I certainly understood the value of their portability but I thought ebooks were soulless. I grew up in a time where a quality bound book was a piece of education and also a work of art. It was collectible and you could get an author to sign it. It had value. But eventually I succumbed to the lure of being able to have thousands of books on my phone.

I was slow to adopt audio books too, but recently started up after flooding in Houston caused my commute to become longer. And I've wiped out three books in six weeks or so, improving my rate of attacking my backlog.

One of those books was Day of Infamy, by Walter Lord. It was written a long time ago but is a detailed overview of the Dec 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It's a great book. The Pearl Harbor attack was a surprise and a shock to many on the islands. Some people even mistook the inbound Japanese airplanes for Americans on training maneuvers.

When the servicemen understood what was going on, many moved to respond, trying to help others or pass the word. Many others tried to put up whatever resistance they could, even firing at passing planes with small arms. Getting those small arms was sometimes difficult. Lord's book mentions a couple situations relevant to this blog.

There were some instances where even amid the attack the supply clerks refused to issue arms or ammunition to the men without the proper authorization. This represents several of the themes I've noticed in our IT industry.

• Revering Process at the cost of Effectiveness. The intransigent supply clerks had a narrow focus on their role, which was essentially to control inventory. They lacked an appreciation for the larger picture and worshiped the traditions of their gods rather than the reality surrounding them. The impetus for this thinking may have been grounded in reasonable motives (cost control, safety, accountability) but such adherence to dogma rather than the primary goal of the institution (in the case of the US military, to defend the nation) may have cost lives. This anti-pattern is often the fallout of large organizations that have naturally segregated duties for specialization and formed silos of knowledge. These silos have their own management chains and can take a counterproductive focus as they work to justify their existence. This behavior doesn't require a large organization though; there are plenty of inexperienced managers out there that can do the same thing even in small companies.
• The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions. I probably don't need to explain this one. In a world increasingly driven by people and groups that have mastered the ability to push personal interests over what's really important, you can find plenty of real world examples.
• The Tactical Reality will Override the Theoretical Ideal. Lord mentions that in some desperate cases, servicemen took axes to the locks on ammunition cages and did what they had to do. Yes, an accountant somewhere will be very hurt by the loss of the lock, but although Harlan Ellison astutely noted that "the world is becoming a cesspool of imbeciles," people are not completely stupid and sometimes humans can be surprisingly functional. Even though I can't stand the ludicrous edicts of the Sarbanes Oxley act, SOX procedures do allow for the people who can get the job done to have provisional authority in emergencies. But I'll bet money it wasn't Sarbanes or Oxley that allowed for that, but the grunts in the trenches that fought back against the original rules.

In honor of the servicemen that lost lives at Pearl Harbor that fateful day, I wish you a happy Memorial Day.