The Godot Effect

Personally, I wouldn’t even know him if I saw him.  –Estragon,Waiting for Godot

Some years ago I was sitting in a product design meeting. The discussion kept circling around some particularly knotty issues that no one in the room actually knew much about.

In one sense, this wasn’t a serious problem given that the company was still actively hiring and there was a recognition that more people were needed. Someone finally commented that we’d have to make sure to hire someone with the particular expertise in question, and in one fell swoop, that task was assigned to a non-existent person. Again, this is not necessarily a problem … yet. It became a problem, however, as the meeting progressed:

“We don’t have anyone on the team who can handle […technology…] either.”

“That’ll be the next hire.”

“Wasn’t the next hire supposed to be […original problem…]?”

“We’ll need someone who can do both.”

Read the rest at ERE.Net