Abstract
Five years ago Stanford decentralized business application programming groups into their client business units, generally at the Vice Presidential level. The primary goal was to strengthen the connection between business management, work simplification, job enhancement, and systems development. A secondary goal was to reduce management overhead. Fundamental premises were that "the diffusion of information technology and the availability of flexible user-friendly software have blurred the distinction between applications programming and user-systems analysis . . ." and that "administrative systems . . . need to evolve continuously in response to the changes in task specifications and new ideas about how to do things more productively. In this panel discussion, four application-programmer managers will reflect on how well this decentralization has achieved its objectives, what factors have facilitated and inhibited this achievement, the soundness of its premises, what the negative consequences have been, and what changes they would recommend.