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Service catalog: Difference between revisions
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But software is dumb. It follows rules. It can only do what it was bought to do; it usually disappoints even at that. To augment or change the application to which your software is dedicated, to meet a new challenge or opportunity — that requires ''judgment''. An executive decision. Only a person can make an executive decision.<ref>[[AI]] freaks who beg to differ : [mailto:enquiries@jollycontrarian.com mail me] if you want an argument. I’m game. </ref> | But software is dumb. It follows rules. It can only do what it was bought to do; it usually disappoints even at that. To augment or change the application to which your software is dedicated, to meet a new challenge or opportunity — that requires ''judgment''. An executive decision. Only a person can make an executive decision.<ref>[[AI]] freaks who beg to differ : [mailto:enquiries@jollycontrarian.com mail me] if you want an argument. I’m game. </ref> | ||
But your human [[employee]]s are ''not'' dumb animals, however much tethering them to a service catalog might make them feel like it. You have them precisely ''because'' they can make quick value judgments, based on imperfect information and amid unknown contingencies, and still take executive decisions: ''to do imaginative stuff you weren’t expecting them to, when a sticky situation calls for it''. Software ''cannot'' do this. Not even [[Alpha Go]]. | |||
Humans catch the bits that the [[service catalog]] didn’t anticipate. | Humans catch the bits that the [[service catalog]] didn’t anticipate. | ||
This is the profound difference between humans and machines. In the [[hive mind]]’s evangelical fervor for [[AI]], this distinction has been lost. We overlook it at our peril. | |||
===[[Lawyer]]s. A special case. === | ===[[Lawyer]]s. A special case. === | ||
If there is one bunch of employees who are uniquely unsuitable for a [[service catalog]] it those, like the [[legal eagles]], whose job is to sort out edge cases. The common belief that | If there is one bunch of employees who are ''uniquely'' unsuitable for a [[service catalog]] it those, like the [[legal eagles]], whose job is ''to sort out edge cases''. The common belief that “the [[legal department]] exists to own and answer all legal issues” is a canard. Each business owns, and must be able to answer, its own legal issues. It is expected to understand without help, all legal questions that arise in the course of its ordinary daily operations. | ||
The [[legal department]] is there to advise | The [[legal department]] is there to advise only where this business-as-usual understanding runs out of road; where new or unusual issues arise. [[Legal]] comes in when an exception is thrown. It is an [[escalation]]. Inside the [[normal science]] of the [[paradigm]], you should not espy your young attorneys abeam the tilled and and tended fields of existing practice: they should keep away. Those the business people and operations staff must understand themselves. ''These'' risks one can catalog easily enough, ''but they are not owned by [[legal]].'' | ||
That is, the [[legal department]] is there to answer the questions the organisation ''was not expecting to to be asked''. By definition, they will not cleave to [[carving nature at its joints|joints at which your risk taxonomy has | That is, the [[legal department]] is there to answer the questions the organisation ''was not expecting to to be asked''. By definition, they will not cleave to [[carving nature at its joints|joints at which your risk taxonomy has proposed to carve nature]]. | ||
[[Legal]] owns the legal risks you ''can’t'' catalog in advance. | [[Legal]] owns the legal risks you ''can’t'' catalog in advance. | ||