
Bureaucracy in the Planet of the Apes - DanielRibeiro
http://www.luisprada.com/Protected/bureaucracy_in_the_planet_of_the_apes.htm
======
zizee
I like this story, but imagine for a second the water hose replaced with a
flamethrower giving the apes severe burns, and it remains always hooked up.
Suddenly it becomes a sensible way for the apes to act.

I say this becuase, sometimes, even blindly keeping status-quo is the best
course of action.

The real lesson for the apes is that they need to communicate better with each
other about what the basis of their processes are.

~~~
gcb
Even cold water was bad enough.

The fun fact is not to say "monkeys are dumb"

It's to compare our ways to mere monkeys, who can't even communicate

~~~
zizee
The point of the story is a metaphor for how burocratic process can establish
itself for good reasons, but if followed blindly, the process may continue
beyond its usefulness.

The point I was trying to make (poorly) is not that it is fun to torture
monkeys, but instead that it can also be dangerous to stop following an
established process if you don't know the reason for its existence.

The lesson here is that it is important to record the reasons for establishing
a process, as once it is established, people move on. If no-one knows why the
process exists, they might be stuck with it lest they get badly burnt.

------
DanielRibeiro
This story originally came to my attention from Yishan's great post on
_Engineering Management - Process_ [1]

[1] [http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/engineering-management-
process...](http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/engineering-management-process.html)

------
cpt1138
I've always referred to this as the Angry Monkey effect. Comes up in
development a lot.

