Deep Thoughts, by Sree Kotay

From my wit and witicisms collection, a few personal reflections from life at a big company:

[remember to read these with a Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handy voiceover in your head... though mine aren't quite nearly as funny, except in that horrific Dilbert-esque that's-only-funny-because-its-my-life kind of way :)]

- There's a big difference between "on time and on budget" and "good software as quickly as possible"
- Rewarding ability, attitude, and commitment leads to consistently better results than rewarding results
- If you're doing great work, then its a great place to work - everything else is noise
- Accountability and predictability are orthogonal - one does not presume the other; optimizing for predictability sacrifices innovation, creativity, and (ironically often) predictability
- Culture flows top down; Credit flows to whoever claims it
- Span of control is depressingly valuable
- Necessity is the mother of good software
- It takes commitment to succeed - its not a sprint, its not a marathon, its a relay race [marathon]; faint heart never won fair maiden
- Innovation does not mean "successfully copy", but with a lemon twist; you can't lead by following

And one from the real Jack Handy (which about sums it up):
- I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

Some of these apply equally well to small companies, but not all of them. Some of my small(er) company observations I found to be surprisingly stronger in the context of a larger organization.