Dear Bob ...In a recent column you took a shot at George Will as being against progress ("A progressive view of IT," Keep the Joint Running, 6/23/2008).Actually, I think George Will's point is not that progress itself is bad; it's that when you have something functioning, most things that you can try out on it are likely to make it worse, because the range of things that can improve it is small in comparison to Dear Bob …In a recent column you took a shot at George Will as being against progress (“A progressive view of IT,” Keep the Joint Running, 6/23/2008).Actually, I think George Will’s point is not that progress itself is bad; it’s that when you have something functioning, most things that you can try out on it are likely to make it worse, because the range of things that can improve it is small in comparison to the range of things which can destabilize, impede, or otherwise hinder it. In other words, progress isn’t bad; it’s assuming that because it’s new, it must be better, is a faulty concept.In a fast-moving, relatively young field (think PC software circa 1985-1995), things are so fluid that you can try out lots of ideas and see what works. Over time, the bad fall by the wayside and the good shine through (or at least, the good enough), and once critical operations come to depend on the status quo being, well, the status quo, the range of things you can do to improve things shrinks dramatically. But the number of things you can do, period, hasn’t shrunk at all – in fact, there may be many times more things you can do than before. So most new ideas make things worse.Does that make more sense? – ReconcilerDear Reconciler …Kevin … It would make sense if Toyota wasn’t the best-managed company on earth. Since it arguably is, I’ll take its kaizen philosophy over George Will’s every day of the week.The employees at Toyota … all of them, give or take a few who probably won’t survive all that long … are expected to always assume there’s a better way, look for it, and recommend it. That’s been the case for decades. By George Will’s theory, Toyota should have been in one long downward spiral throughout that period of time.“It ain’t broke so don’t fix it,” is, as a way of life, trumped by “Good enough is the enemy of better.” – Bob Technology Industry