Gerald M. Weinberg > Quotes

“What you don't know may not hurt you, but what you don't remember always does.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg

“problem-solving leaders have one thing in common: a faith that there's always a better way.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach

“PREFACE PROBLEM: Nobody reads prefaces.
SOLUTION: Call the preface Chapter 1.
NEW PROBLEM CREATED BY SOLUTION: Chapter 1 is boring.
RESOLUTION: Throw away Chapter 1 and call Chapter 2 Chapter 1.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg

“People don't become leaders because they never fail. They become leaders because of the way they respond to failure.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach

“The best computer programmers never write a new program when they can use an old one for a new job.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader

“Once you eliminate your number one problem, number two gets a promotion.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully

“If you don't have questions about a product's risks, then there's no reason to test. If you have at least one such question, then ask: Will these tests cost more to execute than their answers will be worth?”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Perfect Software And Other Illusions About Testing

“If you are a leader, the people are your work.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach

“One of the hardest choices for technical stars who become leaders is losing touch with the latest in technology.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach

“Testing gathers information about a product; it does not fix things it finds that are wrong.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Perfect Software And Other Illusions About Testing

“Leadership is familiar, but not well understood.”
― Gerald Weinberg

“There are many technical workers who enjoy wandering so much that, like Alice in Wonderland, they don’t much care where they go, so long as they get somewhere.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach

“If you cannot think of three ways of abusing a tool, you do not understand how to use it. Faithful”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, An Introduction to General Systems Thinking

“Fisher's Fundamental Theorem states—in terms appropriate to the present context—that the better adapted a system is to a particular environment, the less adaptable it is to new environments.”
― Gerald Weinberg, The Psychology of Computer Programming

“In the seed model, Leadership is the process of creating an environment in which people become empowered.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader

“Why is it that we reward programmers who work all night to remove the errors they put into their programs, or managers who make drastic organizational changes to resolve the crises their poor management has created? Why not reward the programmers who design so well that they don’t have dramatic errors, and managers whose organizations stay out of crisis mode? Organizing”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader

“*No matter how strange it may look, most people are actually trying to be helpful.* That”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader

“Although technology often leads science in discovery, the philosophy of technology is usually drawn from the scientific philosophy of its time. In our time, the technology of machines has drawn its inspiration from mechanics, dealing with complexity by reducing the number of relevant parts. The technology of government, on the other hand, has drawn upon statistical mechanics, creating simplicity by dealing only with people in the structureless mass, as interchangeable units, and taking averages.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, An Introduction to General Systems Thinking

“Good testing involves balancing the need to mitigate risk against the risk of trying to gather too much information.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Perfect Software And Other Illusions About Testing

“Separation of function is not to be despised, but neither should it be exalted. Separation is not an unbreakable law, but a convenience for overcoming inadequate human abilities, whether in science or engineering. As D'Arcy Thompson, one of the spiritual fathers of the general systems movement, said: As we analyze a thing into its parts or into its properties, we tend to magnify these, to exaggerate their apparent independence, and to hide from ourselves (at least for a time) the essential integrity and individuality of the composite whole. We divided the body into its organs, the skeleton into its bones, as in very much the same fashion we make a subjective analysis of the mind, according to the teaching of psychology, into component factors: but we know very well that judgement and knowledge, courage or gentleness, love or fear, have no separate existence, but are somehow mere manifestations, or imaginary coefficients, of a most complex integral.10 The”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, An Introduction to General Systems Thinking

“Unless and until all members of a team have a common understanding of the problem, attempts to solve the problem are just so much wasted energy.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader

“you don’t have to be a boss to be a leader”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach

“problem-solving leaders have one thing in common: a faith that there’s always a better way”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach

“It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so. - Will Rogers The”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, An Introduction to General Systems Thinking

“Linear models tend to define relationships in terms of roles rather than people: the boss rather than the person actually exerting influence. The organic model tends to define relationships in terms of one unique person to another unique person.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach

“Within IBM at that time, growing a beard without getting fired was an indisputable mark of technical genius. In”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader

“One of my clients told me the story of the optimist and the pessimist who were arguing about philosophy. The optimist declares,"This is the best of all possible worlds." The pessimist sighs and says, "You're right.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully

“There's never an easy answer to the question "Should we do more testing?" because information can guide risk reduction, but doesn't necessarily do so.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Perfect Software And Other Illusions About Testing

“Testing gathers information about a product; it does not fix things it finds that are wrong. Testing does not improve a product; the improving is done by people fixing the bugs that testing has uncovered. Often when managers say, "Testing takes too long," what they should be saying is, "Fixing the bugs in the product takes too long"—a different cost category.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, Perfect Software And Other Illusions About Testing

“By making the time tradeoff explicit and by indicating a willingness to contribute time now, I make it clear that it is a problem of limited time, not a problem of limited respect for the other person.”
― Gerald M. Weinberg, The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully