The Software Mumu
Too many managers make the same decisions on software in their company… mostly because they do not understand the low-level workings of what their employees do anymore.
This leads them to purchasing a one-size-fits-all solution… like a ‘mumu’; something that is not designed for their business needs but merely fits everyone the same.
How Management Promotions Work
You may have heard of the ‘Peter Principle’ and you may have not. The Peter Principle effectively states that people will be promoted to their level of incompetence.
The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to “a level of respective incompetence” — wikipedia
This specifically relates to management (more than anything else).
Why do I say that? You have to take into consideration how management promotions work. If you are the most highly adept person on a team and a very high performer, will management want to promote you? Hell no!
They promote mediocre talent with people skills rather than high performers. To remove a high performer from a team would impact the business/dept. So instead, they promote mediocre talent with people skills.
How this leads to the ‘Software Mumu’
Promoting mediocre talent means you will get mediocre decisions. Management starts becoming less and less informed about how their business operates and starts ‘outsourcing’ decision making rather than consulting with their team.
But most managers are ill-informed on infrastructure, scale, integration, etc and just want an off-the-shelf one-size-fits-all solution (so they dont have to SAY they dont know/dont understand).
So they will build one-size-fits-all solutions/products in order to SELL to the largest target audience they can. Like a Mumu…
They will start to look for one-size-fits-all solutions like cloud services and start to rely on them entirely…
This is what I call a ‘software mumu’.
The greater problem is that corporations are perfectly ok with creating/selling mediocre answers. A corporation really only has one concern and that’s their bottom line and quarterly earnings.
So they will build one-size-fits-all solutions/products in order to SELL to the largest target audience they can. Like a Mumu…
Why is a software mumu bad?
Mumus ‘cover’ everything but they are not ideal (or fashionable). You cannot use them when waterskiing, hiking, parasailing, doing yardwork, etc. Mumus are a fashion designed for ‘general purpose’… much like alot of cloud services.
They are not designed to adapt to custom requirements.
Corporate mediocrity leads to them selling you a ‘software mumu’ solution; something that can WORK but is not ideal in every situation.
Software is meant to be geared for your specific business needs/business logic. It needs to fit your company like a glove… not a mumu.
A ‘software mumu’ limits customization, configuration and choices.
But leadership doesn’t understand and continues to buy ‘mumus’.
Do Enterprises use Software Mumus?
Enterprises KNOW this is a bad choice and limit what they use ‘mumus’ for. They build custom solutions for their needs all the time. But they are more than happy to sell YOU the ‘mumu’ because they know management (who makes the decisions) doesn’t understand.
Just being in the API field, I see so many people just DEFAULT to AWS Lambdas not understanding the limitations and security risks of this choice.
This is not to say they are bad: they have a purpose but to use them for EVERYTHING is like using a hammer as a screwdriver. Once companies start relying on these services, they start to lose the skills they need to actually develop their own solutions.
They are not reliant on the ‘mumu’ providers to resize their mumu.
Conclusion
Alot of cloud services are making and pushing ‘mumus’. They can be useful when starting up your company but after a point, you WILL have to create a custom solution per your business requirements.
