When casting programmers in such roles, it is necessary to gain a balance of perspectives. I recommend the book "logic of failure" by Dietrich Dorner for such a perspective. In that book, he presents simulation based studies on the psychology of dealing with systems with many interconnected parts and details how normally "smart" people who can "break down problems and solve them" fail in consistent ways while others succeed. In the studied cases, "failure" is leading a community of nomads into famine and "success" turned out to be a very gradual improvement in their condition. In particular, he points out the dangers of standard heuristics like "one thing at a time" when dealing with such interconnected systems. IIRC, he concludes that our "standard" reductionist heuristics may not work in the areas of administration and public policy.
Comments
When casting programmers in such roles, it is necessary to gain a balance of perspectives. I recommend the book "logic of failure" by Dietrich Dorner for such a perspective. In that book, he presents simulation based studies on the psychology of dealing with systems with many interconnected parts and details how normally "smart" people who can "break down problems and solve them" fail in consistent ways while others succeed. In the studied cases, "failure" is leading a community of nomads into famine and "success" turned out to be a very gradual improvement in their condition. In particular, he points out the dangers of standard heuristics like "one thing at a time" when dealing with such interconnected systems. IIRC, he concludes that our "standard" reductionist heuristics may not work in the areas of administration and public policy.