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How to deal with difficult people on software projects

people.neilon.software

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Re: How to deal with difficult people on software projects

#21

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

mikekchar wrote: post #11
mothsonasloth wrote: post #5

Am I a diva if I think DevOps people are getting in my way from doing what I want?

No. But if you are writing software that can't be maintained in production by the team that's doing the maintenance, then you a falling short in a massive part of your job. There are lots of reasons to have difficulty working with DevOps people, but you really do have to work it out in order to provide the kind of value that your company needs. I have met people that just don't care about that. They are only interest…

This reads to me like someone who has never seen a project die due to being stymied by unreasonable delays and forced technical constraints coming from devops or central IT, usually for reasons of their own political control or job security. This is why the cycle gets repeated and repeated where you have to break devops rules to innovate in some way that is deeply required by your project, you do so with great maturity towards the security implications, costs, maintainability, etc., of your new tooling, and deliver the whole thing as proof that devops was hindering unnecessarily, thus basically forcing devops to accept your changes, which is a horribly antagonistic way for it all to work, but it just goes on.

The problem occurs when devops no longer takes a customer service attitude towards developer teams, especially regarding how to incorporate new technologies into production. The developer teams are the experts of whether that new technology is the right cost effective choice for the project, and that needs to be respected by devops. Their job is to get it working in production or else find equivalent solutions that meet the properties identified by the development team as necessary. Unfortunately, devops tries to be involved early on almost like a consultant to constrain what choices can be considered at each step, risking that the company can’t benefit from the expertise of developer teams in identifying solutions.

Re: How to deal with difficult people on software projects

#22

Post by jibal »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #16
tw1010 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe things are different in the US (where maybe peoples personalities are extra rigid because self image and the concept of identity is so amplified), but the people I tend to interact with are usually much more subtle than this, and can easily shift from looking or acting like one archetype to another with a little empathetic communication, without me having to characterize them into a framwork, as an obstacle I n…

I agree. When you’re seeking to characterize unpleasant people you work with as “the dictator” or “the diva”, maybe you should look in the mirror and see “the reductionist” and try empathizing with people who anger you and treating them like human beings for a minute first. What feedback would they say about you?

Talk about rigid ... it's humor.

Re: How to deal with difficult people on software projects

#23

Post by jibal »

gtirloni wrote: post #15

This should come with a big warning that it applies to people's current moods rather than having them in a fixed personality. There are extreme cases where someone is always an "Extreme Overestimator" but those are rare. People will often shift between all of this made up classifications depending on the circumstances, their goals, their past experiences, etc. It seems to be a nice tool to raise awareness for these p…

For reasonable people who take it in the light-hearted manner that it was obviously intended, it doesn't need to come with warnings.

Re: How to deal with difficult people on software projects

#24

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

jibal wrote: post #22
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. When you’re seeking to characterize unpleasant people you work with as “the dictator” or “the diva”, maybe you should look in the mirror and see “the reductionist” and try empathizing with people who anger you and treating them like human beings for a minute first. What feedback would they say about you?

Talk about rigid ... it's humor.

Even if the site is, not all of the responses are. People really do think this way!

Re: How to deal with difficult people on software projects

#26

Post by mikekchar »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #21
mikekchar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. But if you are writing software that can't be maintained in production by the team that's doing the maintenance, then you a falling short in a massive part of your job. There are lots of reasons to have difficulty working with DevOps people, but you really do have to work it out in order to provide the kind of value that your company needs. I have met people that just don't care about that. They are only interest…

This reads to me like someone who has never seen a project die due to being stymied by unreasonable delays and forced technical constraints coming from devops or central IT, usually for reasons of their own political control or job security. This is why the cycle gets repeated and repeated where you have to break devops rules to innovate in some way that is deeply required by your project, you do so with great maturi…

If you build something that DevOps can use, then there is no problem. I can't tell you how to navigate the waters from the start of the project to success -- that's all dependent upon the people involved and requires a fair amount of people skills to do well. On the other hand I've seen enough "convenient for developers, impossible for devops solutions" to know that sometimes developers lack the background to get it right. Couple that with a bit of hubris and you get the classic, "Well, I did my job. It's not my fault that devops are clueless and can't do their job".

I'm not in any way saying that this is what you do. How could I know one way or the other? I'm just saying that it's a pretty common occurrence in my fairly extensive experience (hint: all my hair has been grey for a decade and I still work as a programmer ;-) ).

Thus my answer: No, having problems with DevOps is not being a "diva". Ignoring the problems of DevOps so that you can have things easier for you is an unfortunately common, but none-the-less disastrous approach. Are there teams where DevOps are inflexible at the cost of everybody else involved? Of course, that's common too: hence the "No".

Re: How to deal with difficult people on software projects

#28

Post by manicdee »

jibal wrote: post #22
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. When you’re seeking to characterize unpleasant people you work with as “the dictator” or “the diva”, maybe you should look in the mirror and see “the reductionist” and try empathizing with people who anger you and treating them like human beings for a minute first. What feedback would they say about you?

Talk about rigid ... it's humor.

Is it a humourous address to the issue with some real options for resolution such as introspection, or a humourous pisstakecwhich does nothing more than reinforce that people can be pigeonholed and you can deal with them without understanding what makes them behave a particular way towards you?
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