In-House Production and Introspection

Mastering Both In-House Production and Introspection

What is In-House Production?

In-house production refers to creating software or concepts within your own organization.

By relying on in-house production, communication costs can be minimized as everything is completed within the organization without the need to outsource. Naturally, this approach allows for an easier reflection of the company's domain knowledge. Challenges like domain-driven development become less burdensome. Even if the company does not have its own developers, it's often more cost-effective to train them internally rather than outsourcing.

What is Introspection?

Introspection involves reflecting on oneself independently.

Through introspection, you can face your current situation and beliefs head-on without neglecting or stifling them. The extent to which you can respect them depends on reality's constraints and your abilities, but it's far better than not introspecting at all. The consequences of a lack of introspection are dire, leading to becoming a slave to a specific person, organization, or capitalism itself. While you might earn a living, your experience as an engineer will be diminished. These conditions are often justified by saying, "It's just work," or "It's my role."

Achieving Both

As an engineer, and within an engineering organization, it's crucial to achieve both.

Lacking in-house production means you get overwhelmed by communication costs. Our true intention should be engineering, not communication.

Without introspection, you cannot maintain your autonomy and risk becoming enslaved. Engineers are supposed to be creative, but they may end up as mere "workers" or "busy businesspeople."

To avoid these outcomes, it's necessary to achieve both in-house production and introspection.

Japan Struggles with In-House Production, While the West Struggles with Introspection

For a better understanding of the current situation, let's organize by country. In conclusion, Japan struggles with in-house production, while the West struggles with introspection.

Japan Struggles with In-House Production

In the West, in-house production is generally an accepted value. Engineers belong to user companies and are entrusted with development related to their own company.

In contrast, there are no engineers in user companies in Japan. Instead, projects are outsourced to specialized organizations known as system integrators (SIers). This naturally leads to high costs and significant communication burdens, and it's unlikely that products tailored to the company's domain can be created. Moreover, a negative culture known as "middlemen" exists where subcontracting occurs in multiple layers, each taking a margin. This is undoubtedly one reason why Japan remains a backward IT nation despite its diligent workforce.

Currently, there is a growing momentum for achieving in-house production in Japan. This is particularly discussed in the context of DX (Digital Transformation), low-code, and no-code. To transform the company into a digital forefront, individuals who understand the company domain must be capable of development. However, training engineers from scratch is difficult. Thus, the discourse suggests using comparatively easy-to-learn low-code, no-code solutions, and recently, even generative AI.

The West Struggles with Introspection

On the flip side, the West struggles with introspection. Practices like writing work diaries daily or securing more than half a day on weekends for solitude and free-thinking activities are uncommon.

More precisely, they are not possible. Due to cultural unfamiliarity with solitude, people don't even consider such ideas. Introverted nerds might manage, but they are a minority in contemporary times, comprising less than a few percent of the entire engineering population.

Fortunately, the value of solitude, or more specifically, introspection, has been recognized by predecessors. Some concepts have been introduced into our engineering field. Mindfulness and meditation are prime examples. Many people might have encountered Zen concepts. Thanks to initiatives by major corporations like Google, these ideas have expanded enough to be considered part of soft skills, but it's still insufficient. Until we can consistently secure truly solitary time, it's hard to say we've achieved introspection.

Investment by Management is Essential

Be it in-house production or introspection, introducing these concepts requires investment. For in-house production, budget must be allocated to foster or hire IT personnel. For introspection, education and enlightenment are needed to allow every employee to secure solitary time.

Regardless, it's not something that can be resolved with individual effort or bottom-up thinking—it requires a top-down push to even reach the starting line. Thus, it's up to the management with the necessary authority to take action. More specifically, management must recognize the value of in-house production and introspection.

The Role of Knowledger

Knowledger is a third strategic role alongside engineers and managers, responsible for creating and spreading knowledge.

The terminology "in-house production and introspection" is a concept I, as a Knowledger, have articulated. For a Knowledger, this level of task is trivial. Moreover, they can educate and enlighten others on these concepts, something that cannot be done by managers who handle people, engineers who handle software, or executives who handle the company. It is a task only possible for a Knowledger, who deals with knowledge.

I call this self-produced knowledge. If the term knowledge is hard to grasp, think of it as concepts. It's self-produced concepts. Having a Knowledger within a company allows for the creation and dissemination of such concepts.

Conclusion

We have explored in-house production and introspection. In any case, investments from executives are indispensable, and a role to create and spread these concepts, including managers, is needed. This role is feasible for a Knowledger.