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Everyone has a right to his opinion. But no man has a right to be wrong in
his facts - [log in to unmask]
Pardon me for bring up the "E" words, ethics, or the "P" word, professional.
But we hire 'professionals', with the assumption that they know something we
don't, and in many cases, where we are not in a position to double-check
their findings, because they have acquired an esoteric knowledge at a time
and expense that is not practical for us.
What it is we do here is a young profession, so our standards of
professional conduct are not codified yet. Frankly, I prefer the Babel of
'professional standards' out there over being regulated by the government,
as those archetypal professionals, doctors and lawyers, are.
And I appreciate that some of the standards are wrong-minded, being based on
something other than IT. Who was it who pointed out on this list that ISO
900x is an engineering standard? I'm glad Boeing et al use it to build their
planes, but don't know how well it works for software. Our parent company
may be the first consulting firm in the U.S. to achieve ISO 900x
certification; they have in Canada. This will be interesting... While others
have the sense to stay off the record with this observation, perhaps there
is a reason why none of the big names have done so yet. At the other extreme
are standards that for now are simply too vague to be any more immediately
applicable to us than the Boy Scout oath. But we are new at this, and I hope
that we will do better as we continue to work toward a set of standards.
In contrast to the bad advice that is easy to find, I saw my ENT just
yesterday, for tonsillitis (singular! whatever that would be called). She is
a surgeon, and has offered more than once to open up my sinuses, in keeping
with her bias. But she is in no hurry to remove my tonsils, although that
might be in her best interests, and in keeping with her biases, away from
drugs with side effects (no prescriptions without a lecture on side effects
and why they are bad), and toward a 'surgical solution'.
I hope that someone there will educate your consultants.
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