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In a crime novel you never know who did it. There is, obviously, a subgenre in which everybody knows who did it, but in those cases no one knows where the suspect is. There’s a third model where you – the reader – knows exactly who did it, but this time the idea is that the author gets you annoyed over how long it takes for the other characters in the book to understand the obvious – that he did it.

That’s how it works in the world of fiction.

In the world of Content Management projects it’s usually a combination of all three: whenever a Documentum system is incorrectly designed and architected, no one knows who did it. If they know who did it, it’s always a contractor or a partner who’s no longer with the project or they’re currently on the other side of the world. But rest assure; you will spend your days getting annoyed over the obvious fact that this totally incompetent lowlife – who designed the freak Documentum system you are currently trying to fix – not only got paid three times as much as yourself for messing it up in the first place; but others are unlikely to realise he did something wrong at all.

Situations like this often turns into a scene from The Emperors new Clothes on steroids combined with the Candide Camera;  where not only the the Emperor, but EVERY person is in the nude without realising or admitting it. Meanwhile, you begin to scan the conference room for hidden cameras, thinking; surely this must be a joke. Sounds familiar? In meetings like this I’ve noticed that I slowly begin to use the same tone of voice as when I speak to a small child, an idiot, or EMC Tech Support.

It’s not uncommon for people to lie when things have gone wrong. If they did it themselves they simply claim they dont have a clue who did it it; blame someone else for doing it or claim that who ever did it is on the other side of the world and they dont know where he is or how to get in contact with him. I’ve heard this so many times that at one point in life I was confident every Documentum system in the world was designed by an evil Documentum-troll who became invisible and magically disappeared after creating as big mess as possible.

Now, the real problem presents itself when it is not only apparent who did it, but the person in question has yet to vacate the scene of the crime; he’s right there in front of you. Most likely swaggering around the office with a title like “Technical Design Authority” as he whiles away his working day designing another system with 120 million folders that violates every rule in the document management book.

And this is where it usually gets tempting to reveal that the person may actually be wrong. Flush out the black sheep in the family, as it were. And more importantly, shouldn’t the industry be able to benefit if people who messes up are named? Tell people who did it, so to speak.

-“Don’t be such a dick”, I was told when I gently ran the numbers and presented all the stats which clearly showed that it is not a good idea to do what the “Technical Design Authority” had done. –“He’s a very clever consultant”. This raises an interesting thought; why do they consider this man to be a genius?

You know they say the line between genius and stupidity is a fine one? It’s interesting how closely related they are, not just in the Documentum world. Stephen Hawkings for instance, the paralysed physicist. In his best seller, “A brief history of time”, he explains why we can’t live in a universe restricted to two dimensions, and he does this by drawing a picture of a dog. The dog must eat and poo and if there are only two dimensions the dog will fall apart, separated by the digestive system. Twenty years later I’m still not to certain if this is genius, stupid or a joke.

However, after getting annoyed about the thing for a couple of weeks I felt it was time to reveal my thoughts and that’s when the comparison with male genitals was made.  It was apparent that no one was to be blamed. For anything. Didn’t want to know who did it.

Ever encountered the “no blame culture”? The idea is, apparently, an evading mechanism, a “get out of jail” card to be played when the proverbial sh*t hits the fan. Basically, it becomes a way to evade responsibility. It says: “I know I messed up. I should have known better. I know that the consequences have caused damages to the company in the $1 million range and have been bad for my colleagues. But hey, we have a “no blame” culture, so let’s forget about it and move on.” I see this card being played time and again when Documentum consultants try to avoid being accountable for their actions. All of this is silently agreed, of course. Not to be spoken openly, hence the claims that the person who did it is not there anymore. On the other side of the world. Nobody knows who did it.

My experience shows that what people in the Documentum world perceive as being signs of an incredibly rude and unsightly nature of personality is when someone rightfully blames someone for an obvious mistake or points out to them that they are wrong, or just recently did wrong.

It becomes even nastier if the person in question moreover is ready to explicate WHY someone is wrong – and in addition is prepared to show empiric facts that clearly exemplifies how crazy an argument or design might be. In the event of such case, they are clearly dealing with an asocial madman who – in the event that they are totally unable to defend their complete and utter lack of knowledge or incorrect gibberish, for that matter – should be thrown out of the project not only to prevent the sinister character from revealing someone’s lack of competence with proper statements supported by empiric facts – which is apparently perceived as being “a dick”, but especially for being able to point out the person who did it.

The day it’s decided that Documentum consultants cannot be “a dick” it is inevitable that this industry will lose – in my opinion – the last of whatever minor chance it initially had to actually offer the customers some ROI and eventually survive in the financial turmoil in which we operate.

With that in mind, I will continue to be as big “dick” as I potentially can.