Ptolemaic Confidence

I came across an entertaining metaphor in a rather wordy book:

"Designing Engineers", Louis Bucciarelli, ISBN 0-262-02377-6

[talking about a business design]

"The figure conveys an illusion of simplicity. In its reductive, abstract focus on a single order being processed, it mimics a medieval (sic) representation of the earth orbiting the sun -- a few Ptolemaic epicycles will do. If the epicyles are replicated, the motions of all the wandering stars can be explained and brought under control. So, too, our diagram is meant to control and manage the processing of many orders. It shows the same Ptolemaic confidence in a wandering star's inevitable return at a predictable time, ready to go round again, regardless of the epicyclic complexity or how many other stars it crosses in conjunction. Reduction to a mechanism of one controlling agency is its essence in accounting for many processes occurring simultaneously."

This feels like a good description of the command and control types of project management. Is ExtremeProgramming our Copernican revolution? -- SteveFreeman (suffering from metaphor overflow)

CategoryBook