Data Sharing Review

[David Hansen]

On 19 Jul 2008 at 22:58, Ian Batten wrote:

> The military, of course, have that `chain of command' thing mapped out  
> in precise detail.   There's a precise set of rules to determine who,  
> in any given combination of people, has command authority.

Though this can be varied as necessary. Particularly amongst senior 
officers, who have nothing in particular to prove, there is a tradition 
of a senior officer agreeing to serve under a junior one if that 
arrangement best suits the situation.

An important factor is that junior people are able to step up if a 
senior person is killed or injured, which implies a more skilled 
management and workforce than was typical at Sludgeworthy's widget 
factory. A typical example was in the first battle of Narvik in 1940. 
When the captain of one of the destroyers was killed, along with almost 
everyone on the bridge, his secretary (in civilian terms a junior 
manager attached to the MD) took over command, despite severe injuries 
(he struggled to the bridge with a smashed foot), fighting the ship for 
many minutes. Eventually the second in command took over, it having 
taken some time for the message to reach him and he then had to decide 
whether to fight the ship from the bridge or from the secondary command 
position (the name is a somewhat glorified way of referring to a 
platform with a compass and very limited means of communicating with 
the rest of the ship).

While there are not many Sludgeworthy's widget factories these days 
their replacement "knowledge economy" offices are at best much the 
same. Everyone has no doubt had the frustration of speaking to someone 
who is told not to think, but instead read the responses the computer 
tells them to utter.

-- 
  David Hansen, Edinburgh 
 I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents 
me   
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54