For years, software development has focused on creating reusable objects that can be combined in various ways to create applications. The idea has been to break down tasks, routines, even processes; encapsulate them into code; and then assemble the code into different programs to serve various needs.

It’s all about mathematics, of course, and now the idea is being applied to people — their skills, experience, how people use their time, and even whom they meet with and what they say in conversation.

In a book excerpt this week, BusinessWeek reports that IBM has been working on a massive project to build mathematical models of 50,000 of its top technology consultants. “The idea is to pile up inventories of all of their skills and then to calculate, mathematically, how to deploy them,” the article, entitled “Management by the Numbers,” says. The book, called The Numerati, is by BusinessWeek senior writer Stephen Baker.

Is this the next logical step in the science of management, one that will lead to more efficiently run companies that perform at higher levels? Or is it an example of technology straying too far in the direction of Big Brother?

Whatever your view, the capability is being developed. As Intel’s Andy Grove is fond of saying, if it can be done, it will be done. Like other theories of management that have come before, the question will be not whether to use such a capability but in what context and according to what rules.

Let the negotiations begin.

—David R. Brousell, MA Editor-in-Chief

Posted by Diane Himes at 09/08/2008 09:53:24 AM |