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Why enterprise software is bloated
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Re: Why enterprise software is bloated
#12When a private citizen buys software, the question is "does it do enough, for the price, for me to buy it?"
When an enterprise procurement office buys software, the question is "is there anything it does NOT do that will cause someone to fire me for having purchased it ?"
Re: Why enterprise software is bloated
#13Because checking off features matter more than usability when a manager is the one buying it instead of the person using it Next question
It's easy to say this (and it's part of the problem) but it ignores why software built in-house is often just as bad, or worse. The article addresses this, pretty early on in fact.
Re: Why enterprise software is bloated
#14Because every customer needs different features. No one wants to make their workflow follow what the software dictates, they want the software to support the workflow the business uses
True. People only miss out on the fact that, especially ERP systems, are to a huge extend a colection of process best parctices. By sticking as much as possible to the out of the box solution, not only and release changes or integrations become easier, but you also get a busoness process benchmark and consulting on top, automatically. Benefiting from all that does require so more depth of thought than most upper mana…
A lot of variation in business processes doesn't have any real justification it's often just "that's how we've always done it".
Edit: There can be risks when an ERP supplier fundamentally fails to understand your business model - SAP managed to do this with a former employer of mine which led them to be shown the door.
Re: Why enterprise software is bloated
#15The first point tracks with my experience building in-house software for a publicly traded Enterprise healthcare company. I think in our case it was a byproduct of having one person on the business side who "owned" every application. So anything they thought was important, they wanted as a feature in "their" app. It didn't matter if that feature existed in this other app, that they also used often. If it wasn't in "their" app, they would complain - usually to the VP or SVP level, and let it trickle down the multiple layers until it reached development. It got so bad when we were talking about what we were working on we'd say "today I'm working on the $NAME web app and tomorrow on the $OTHER_NAME mobile app."
Re: Why enterprise software is bloated
#16Because checking off features matter more than usability when a manager is the one buying it instead of the person using it Next question
>There are two types of baby outfits. The first is targeted at people buying gifts. It's irresistible on the rack. It has no fewer than 18 buttons. At least 3 people are needed to get a screaming baby into it. It's worn once, so you can send a photo to the gifter, then discarded. >Other baby outfits are meant for parents. They’re marked "Easy On, Easy Off" or some such, and they really mean it. Zippers aren't easy en…
As a parent who remembers all to vividly dressing uncooperative baby I've often wondered if designers of baby clothes have even seen live baby in person or are they just going off by random pictures on the internet.
Re: Why enterprise software is bloated
#17Because checking off features matter more than usability when a manager is the one buying it instead of the person using it Next question
Plus: Parkinson's law for software. As PG wrote: "Software has bloated to consume the resources available."
Re: Why enterprise software is bloated
#18Because checking off features matter more than usability when a manager is the one buying it instead of the person using it Next question
> Because checking off features matter more than usability when a manager is the one buying it instead of the person using it
As someone that buys a lot of enterprise software and runs a lot of software tenders (particularly for enterprise ERP and WMS) - I would say picking software which matches user/organisational requirements is actually the most important thing (which is checking off the right features).
Absolutely this is more important than usability, which comes secondary to meeting the requirements (what good is usability if I can't get it to do what I want?).
Most botched software tenders I have seen happened because the company purchasing the software wasn't clear on their requirements (i.e. the features they needed) and then bought a software which did not match what they required and then need to somehow just 'make it work'.
Big ticklists of generic features aren't useful though, but ultimately if you are purchasing an ERP and need to be able to put stock into bins within it, and it doesn't have this feature but it is really usable and built with really great architecture, it's still not going to work.
Re: Why enterprise software is bloated
#19One only needs to look at the language he suggested, Javascript, to see an example of incredible bloat with the 5gib of modules it brings it to do print "hello, world"... but despite that, I don't think that's the root cause.
It has to do everything with poor management of features and lack of leadership. Software _should_ be developed as features are needed. Average humans are absolute crap at predicting things like markets or what will actually be used in production. The translates to developers wasting tons of time on features that provide little value. Lack of leadership and communication of a clear business vision contributes to a panic mentality "if we don't do it now, we'll never get the chance to do it!" and edge cases are chased down, delaying the move to production.
Re: Why enterprise software is bloated
#20Because checking off features matter more than usability when a manager is the one buying it instead of the person using it Next question
>There are two types of baby outfits. The first is targeted at people buying gifts. It's irresistible on the rack. It has no fewer than 18 buttons. At least 3 people are needed to get a screaming baby into it. It's worn once, so you can send a photo to the gifter, then discarded. >Other baby outfits are meant for parents. They’re marked "Easy On, Easy Off" or some such, and they really mean it. Zippers aren't easy en…
I have a four month old and was inspired to buy one outfit with magnets because of this tweet. It works fairly well, but is no better than a single zipper outfit and is much more expensive.