Game in the Brain

When I see an ERP that has its Database was built-in and not separated when they use Client Systems (install software to connect to the server) instead of Web Base (everyone connects with a Browser); that it was deployed in Windows instead of Linux. I could see the early 90s and what E. Goldratt was talking about when he was saying, “examine technology in how they break the rules.” 

Around the early 2000s, when web-based technology was beginning to pick up, and MySQL blossomed, and Open Source technology was struggling to be adopted, I realized those people saw the rules change.  

Open Systems are Decoupled Systems. It was designed to stand by itself, compartmentalized, and replaceable. If I change my mind about our MySQL database, I’m free to migrate to a different standard. 

Open Systems, Loosely coupled systems, Interchangeable components, are designed to allow one piece to fail and not cascade through the rest of the system – a Principle of Jidoka in Toyota Production System.  

Of course, new RULES means looking at all the previous practices and what rules did they follow. It’s re-evaluating what we’ve been doing. I’m so used to this when I learn a new technique or a new mental model that more accurately reflects the rules and thus allow me new ways of doing something with less cost, rework, and effort. 

I have a mental image of systems that were designed in the 90s as compared to systems when the rules were changed in the 2000s (Open source), and Systems that has changed (Clouds and Virtualization, Microservices). 

Systems that still carry their baggage because it has sunk cost in that baggage and because someone is willing to pay for that baggage as a “controlled factor.”