Managing Software for Growth: Without Fear, Control, and the Manufacturing Mindset

Taylorism

The manager of a typical fast-food restaurant has a simple management philosophy:

Follow the steps to produce the perfect hamburger (or burrito, depending on the restaurant).

Anyone who doesn't like regimented structure would want to off himself if he worked at McDonald's^®.

For this philosophy of work, we can thank a man named Frederick W. Taylor, a foreman at the Midvale Steel Company in 1880. He noticed one overriding fact about steel production: ubiquitous inefficiency. Summarizing a bit, he suggested two broad causes:

• Managers weren't managing

• Workers were inefficient

Taylor's world was dominated by what he called “rule of thumb” management, which turned day-to-day operations over to foremen and allowed workers to produce in whatever ...