The Dilbert Principle
Information Systems is a subject which was covered passed and forgotten by my peers as in practise some suited ape made a decision which a was always correct.
In time one gets to appreciate the subject matter and apply it or just wear the suite. When I have to discuss the typical hierarchy of an organisation in lectures, it usually goes from fun to awkward as one moves from the basic Introduction to Information Systems to actual practical implementation.
The Dilbert Principle is a variation of the Peter Principle. The Peter Principle addresses the practice of promoting staff who demonstrate competence in their current position.It goes on to state that, as one advances in the hierachy due to this practice, a competent employee will eventually be promoted to, and remain at, a position at which he or she is incompetent.
The Dilbert Principle, takes the satirical view that incompetent employees are intentionally promoted to prevent them from doing harm (such as reducing product quality, offending customers, offending employees, etc.) According to The Dilbert Principle , the upper echelons of an organization thus have little relevance to the actual productivity of the organisation. Hence the depiction in Adams Scotts’ Dilbert comic, shows the majority of real, productive work in a company is done by plebs lower in the power ladder.
This eventually leads to observations like:
“Why is my collegue on Facebook when I do not have rights to save my VB project”
“Did the IT Department ( i.e. Manager) do this as a subject.”
If this does not happen in your environment consider the fact that the other counter-productive threat is the “god-complex” of your friendly aspiring techie who dictates what you achieve with your IT Systems.Well that’s if he had time to sort it out today.