Capability vs Product Orientation

In response to: http://iamwilchung.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/make-tools-for-yourself-and-others-around-you/

I have always thought of the creation of internal tools and libraries in terms of the following dichotomy:

"capability-oriented" vs "product-oriented"

The "capability-oriented" approach seeks to maximise the capabilities of the organization over the long term, opening up opportunities for cost amortization over disparate products. By contrast, the "product-oriented" approach is "lean" in the sense that it seeks to minimize work not absolutely necessary for the current product.

The "product-oriented" approach seeks a local optimum, and is prevalent in industries with heavyweight cost controls and minimal opportunities for investment (Defense, for example), whereas the "capability-oriented" approach seeks a global optimum, and is only possible in situations where organizational leadership is capable and willing to get involved with detailed technical planning.

As with all dichotomies, organizations must seek a compromise position that varies from product to product and project to project.

A sweet-spot that I have frequently found: Third-party libraries are necessarily written in a very general manner, capable of being used in a wide variety of ways. A particular organization generally only uses a small subset of the features in a particular third-party library. As a result, an internal library that acts as a thin wrapper around an external/third-party library can help encourage and enforce a consistent approach within an organization, helping to create an institutional culture and improving interoperability between teams whilst reducing learning barriers for new team members.