The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Competitive Sourcing

I read in an article recently someone mentioning outsourcing in that manner. Anyone else heard of it put that way?

No, I don't want to talk about outsourcing. But management terminology. I think often about getting my MBA, but am always stopped by the amount of double-speak that is inherent to the position. Maybe its the engineer in me, but I favor clear, concise terminology any day, to vague generalizations.

How has anyone else whose made the transition from software engineer to businessman handled the terminology?

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Andrew Hurst
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Andrew,

We should dialog about your self-fullfilment needs in light of your failings to grasp the synergies involved in competitive sourcing. Think out of the box.

Huh?
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

He should make it his primary action item.

Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Make yourself a favour and read "Death Sentence: The decay of public language" by Don Watson ( http://www.dymocks.com.au/ContentDynamic/Full_Details.asp?ISBN=1740512065 ). Simultaneously funny and depressing.

uncronopio
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

I go to http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html whenever I need to sound impressive.

Ron
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Andrew, opaque language like that is not really characteristic of management any more than it's characteristic of engineering. It's characteristic of deceit.

Competitive sourcing as a term is an attempt to put a positive spin on the sacking of lots of people. It comes from the same family as right-sizing, best shoring, free markets, competition and so on.

In those contexts, competition means competition for everyone except us because we're on million dollar packages.

Wednesday, January 7, 2004

I prefer to call the products created by competitive sourcing as "Elseware"

apw
Thursday, January 8, 2004

"Andrew, opaque language like that is not really characteristic of management any more than it's characteristic of engineering. It's characteristic of deceit."

And a characteristic of deceit is often a characteristic of upper management. Particularly those that attempt to hide and twist the facts through the use of complex language.

Huh?
Thursday, January 8, 2004