Fred Brooks Interview
QUOTED OFTEN, FOLLOWED RARELY - December 12, 2005
Fred Brooks interview. This is great, particularly this section which I think I will frame and put in my cube:
What advice would you give to one of those young managers?
The best single advice … “Never uncertain, always open.” Sometimes the first part is put as saying, “You can’t steer a ship that’s not underway.” … sitting still in the water waiting to decide which way to go is the wrong thing to do.
The other was when I was a new IBM employee and heard Vin Learson, a VP …, “The problem is not to make the right decision; it’s to make the decision right.” …
I came to understand that he was talking from an executive-level point of view. As decisions bubble up they are first 80/20 decisions, then 70/30, then 60/40, and then they are 49/51 decisions. At that level the arguments on each side are pretty strong; going either way can be made to work, but it’s very important to pick one and then go whole hog. … Whatever you’re doing, you’d better go do it.