Around the turn of the millennium, my industry began experiencing a radical change in the way software is made. For decades we had toiled away going through phases of requirements gathering, multiple layers of design, and at least as many layers of testing. Time to market for products was often measured in years.
What began in the 1990s was a movement toward more agile methodologies for developing software. These new approaches to software didn’t simple acknowledge that needs change as our understanding of the task at hand evolves. They embraced this for faster time to market – weeks and months instead of years.
An interesting concept began to take hold along with these new processes: The notion of deferring decisions to the last responsible moment. For years the pace of change had been increasing and we came to realize that committing to a particular course of action prematurely led to unwanted re-work. The concept is rather simple: the right time to make decisions on design, architecture, and many other facets of the project is the point where the cost of not making a decision becomes greater than the cost of making a decision. It’s worth noting that cost doesn’t necessarily mean money. It might just as easily be the cost in time or other resources.
What if we applied this same notion to government? What if instead of asking what the federal government can do for us we asked if state government was better suited to providing a given service? Or what if state government is handling (or mishandling) something your county or city government could just as easily tackle?
What if we deferred decisions to the lowest responsible level of government? Every layer of government brings with it a layer of bureaucracy and added expense and creates an opportunity to be out of touch with we the people. We owe it to ourselves, our children, and our children’s children to ensure that government is responsible and responsive to our needs.
Joe Combs Thoughts on Harrison, Ohio 