Managing Computers in Large Organizations

Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html
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VISION AND VALUE GETTING THE MOST OUT OF MICROCOMPUTERS 9
culture and change the organization. At another level, the functional managers
need to develop an intuition about the business—about what works and what
doesn't work. By and large, they are the people who achieve the operating
results of the organization. At a third level, there are analysts who are clearly
the prime target for the new tools of the technology. How are we to derive value
for these three defined users of microcomputer technology? Do we rely on some
sort of invisible hand? Should we merely give them the tools and say, “Go do
something useful with this elegant technology?” To what extent should we
focus on data management, on security, on controls, on education concerning
what the tool can do?
We are left with many unanswered questions. However, I would be
amazed if they were answered at this stage because I do not think that we yet
know where we are going with the technology. And if you don't know where
you are going you can get there any way you like.
These papers reflect the candor of informed experts in the field who are
not afraid to admit that “we don't know where we are going.” There's an old
Zen saying: “In the mind of the beginner, there are infinite possibilities; in the
mind of the expert, there are very few.” Right now, we should beware of
experts who claim to have all the answers; at this stage we really can't know
what we are getting into.
Perhaps one word we need to hear more often is “vision.” Organizations
must have a strategic purpose for this technology. They must head toward some
goal. As a whole, the papers in this volume may present what appears to be a
dichotomy between two broad themes. On the one hand, there is the very clear
theme of using automation to increase productivity. This goal raises very
familiar management issues of planning, organization, and control. The
response is relatively straight forward. We can apply the tools of planning and
management that we have learned over the last several decades, and they ought
to stand us in good stead. We will manage our way through it, if that is where
we are going.
On the other hand, some of these authors suggest that our goal has to do
with unleashing capability, with leveraging a person's mind, with innovation
and creativity. If this is the goal I am not at all sure we know how to manage.
Perhaps it is appropriate at this point to hand out tools and say, “You figure out
what to do with them.” Perhaps this is a time of intelligent experimentation, a
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