Link: http://www.etc-architect.com/?p=248
From ETC-Architect
Do still like things you were forbidden as a child, even if they are junk? Most of us do and this behaviour is called reactance. It is also used in marketing to create a situation where you not be able to by a certain product any longer and as such forcing a purchasing decision. Reactance is a valuable tool for architects and project managers to push for a decision such as that if a certain consultant who is available today will be key to deliver the project and if he is not hired it will be a long until the project can start up again. In our line of work we are otherwise pretty assured against reactance as if a software or hardware vendor would use it we usually buying from him. A decade ago it was still used on PC components, but the wider communisation of components eliminated this.
An area where many architects lack the practical appliance of reactance is that of business and enterprise architecture, as many decisions and even strategies are driven by reactance. A good example is that of a higher margin business idea. All companies will always try to expand and push the margins. However usually the only way to grow is on the turnover as most executives have been told over and over the limit of margin in their industry. The result of the repeated delivery is almost always reactance. So if a new product arrives that has a high margin such as it was in case of the tablet a whole lot of companies wanted to develop tablets often even those without any IT engineering know how.
You will also see that reactance often leads us into strange positions in the IT field when a lot of low and mid managers where constantly told that they could not have this device or that software are promoted to executive rank they suddenly start to push for BYOD. Once architects take the executives on their word only a lot of things is implemented where the same executives will then blame IT if something goes wrong as a person who is pushing a point out of reactance often do not realise what they are doing. This is why it is important to push back on all cases where we suspect reactance for some objectivity and maybe a business case. A business case is usually a great way to weed out reactance.
