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Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

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Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#61

Post by ThalesX »

For me, after years producing software, I've set myself up to be able to say no.

I disregard urgency when it exists for urgency's sake, coming out of business despair or a gut feeling. I will gladly work for 2 - 3 months on hyper mode, giving away my mental and physical health for a feature that will actually provide business value and for which the business can make a good case for why it's needed yesterday.

Working with multiple companies on executive and / or consulting levels, I feel like a lot of business rush is done because business 'needs it now' in the hope that it will improve the bottom line because it's easier to expect a miracle than it is to take a good look at your fundamentals.

The businesses with the most solid foundation I find are the ones that rarely need to rely on speed and instead rely on quality and produced value... once in awhile, a feature idea comes up that can propel the company - especially in the face of competitors - and it needs to be done as fast so that the producer can get as much value out of it before the competition catches up. That's a good reason to expect speed.

Today's society expects hyper growth, hyper speed, hyper scale, but that is because this is what is mostly advertised and we as humans have a tendency to expect the world to work as is advertised, when in reality, there are a lot of smaller companies that don't create anxiety filled working days for their employees.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#62

Post by wongarsu »

realharo wrote: post #46
danielecook wrote: post #2

Efficiency is also more important than it seems. You can have lots of low quality, half-baked output. How much forethought do we put into what we will work on to begin with? Some projects and ideas are not worth the effort. Or an alternative solution to a problem is preferable over one you’ve been hammering away at for days, and would be easier to implement. And in the realm of programming, it’s often easy to take sh…

There is also a possibility that your predictions about the future turn out to be wrong. It's definitely a balancing act. One extreme is always going for the instant gratification, paying no attention to how things fit into the overall design. The other extreme is trying to design everything up front with no feedback and getting more and more divorced from the practical reality as time without implementation goes on.

Even worse, the correct balance depends on the project. Sometimes everything around you is well understood and set in stone; in that case it's beneficial to plan meticulously ahead. In other cases everything is in flux and nobody knows what the requirements even are; then you just have to incrementally build towards a solution with frequent refactoring. But knowing where on that spectrum you are is crucial.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#63

Post by lr4444lr »

EGreg wrote: post #54
lewisjoe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Too much of anything is bad. I keep this mode on for as long as I don't get mentally tired. Usually, that's a span of 2-3 hours. Surprisingly, at the end of the day (typically after two/three of these zones) I feel more fresh, satisfied and productive. But that's just me.

Too much multitasking and producing software for years has made me feel this weird thing: Which is that all accomplishments are meaningless in the end. And we are just getting older. Once a person dies they aren’t experiencing any stuff that came as a result of their effort. They may as well have just messed around and had a family sooner, or traveled, or not. It’s all meaningless anyway. I can’t shake it. Anyone fel…

Yep. The thought process you describe came on hard once I actually had my first child. The tech that dominates today is just pushing bytes from client to server in the pursuit of some business person's perception of value for the fleeting moment - all we write is dust in the wind. Failing getting a the chance to work on some truly novel technology or research, my next work move will be a big company where work hours and load is better respected.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#64

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

ThalesX wrote: post #61

For me, after years producing software, I've set myself up to be able to say no. I disregard urgency when it exists for urgency's sake, coming out of business despair or a gut feeling. I will gladly work for 2 - 3 months on hyper mode, giving away my mental and physical health for a feature that will actually provide business value and for which the business can make a good case for why it's needed yesterday. Working…

>I will gladly work for 2 - 3 months on hyper mode, giving away my mental and physical health for a feature that will actually provide business value and for which the business can make a good case for why it's needed yesterday.

I feel sorry for you.

As some who's been around the block a few times, I will never, EVER, give away my mental or physical health for someone's business.

My health is more important than their quarterly targets.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#65

Post by jmartinpetersen »

skybrian wrote: post #7

It seems like this should work the other way too? If you want to break a habit, add a delay. This seems like a good idea for a browser extension. Maybe sometimes you want to undo the work that the website did making things go faster?

I don't know if that's why, but HN is usually way faster than the linked sites, and I more often than not end up browsing the comments instead of the intended content.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#66

Post by jillesvangurp »

Don Reinertsen has been making this point and uses economical arguments to back it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6v6W7jkwok&list=FL6P7ZzM6GT...

I love this presentation because it adds strong economic arguments to a lot of practices that are quite common in software engineering but typically lack good argumentation as to why they are good. He covers a lot more ground in this presentation. Well worth your time if you are involved in any way in planning software development. I love his notions of option value and cost of delay. Cost of delay is exactly the economic argument why working quickly is important. Once you get it, is obvious that you should do agile, release early, and avoid embarking on long/uncertain refactoring/redesign efforts unless you can justify the payoff.

In short, any development that ships early maximizes the useful economic life on the market. If you ship something new earlier than your competitors, you get to charge a premium until they catch up. At some point your new thing becomes a commonality and the value drops. In some case, OSS just gobbles it up and the value becomes 0$.

So shipping 3 months earlier means you get to earn revenue for 3 months extra when it is still most lucrative. If you instead delay for 3 months because you are doing some thing that make things better in some way, you have to consider the cost of doing that AND the cost of missing out on that early revenue.

Don Reinertsen suggests you simply do the math consider the cost of delay when e.g. deciding on a big refactor vs. a lets get this to market ASAP type strategy. You don't even have to do a particularly good job at doing the math to out-compete gut feelings here.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#67

Post by OedipusRex »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #64
ThalesX wrote: post #61

For me, after years producing software, I've set myself up to be able to say no. I disregard urgency when it exists for urgency's sake, coming out of business despair or a gut feeling. I will gladly work for 2 - 3 months on hyper mode, giving away my mental and physical health for a feature that will actually provide business value and for which the business can make a good case for why it's needed yesterday. Working…

>I will gladly work for 2 - 3 months on hyper mode, giving away my mental and physical health for a feature that will actually provide business value and for which the business can make a good case for why it's needed yesterday. I feel sorry for you. As some who's been around the block a few times, I will never, EVER, give away my mental or physical health for someone's business. My health is more important than thei…

This culture of sacrificing everything for the bottom line is a cancer on our industry.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#68

Post by late2part »

EGreg wrote: post #54
lewisjoe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Too much of anything is bad. I keep this mode on for as long as I don't get mentally tired. Usually, that's a span of 2-3 hours. Surprisingly, at the end of the day (typically after two/three of these zones) I feel more fresh, satisfied and productive. But that's just me.

Too much multitasking and producing software for years has made me feel this weird thing: Which is that all accomplishments are meaningless in the end. And we are just getting older. Once a person dies they aren’t experiencing any stuff that came as a result of their effort. They may as well have just messed around and had a family sooner, or traveled, or not. It’s all meaningless anyway. I can’t shake it. Anyone fel…

I used to feel this way, a little bit. Then I had a family and was glad to have the financial security to provide for my family compared to so many others.

So, consider your heirs, and work long enough to build a nest egg cushion the devote time to having a wonderful spouse, making babies and enjoying them.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#69

Post by late2part »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #52
amelius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but could it also increase risk of stress, anxiety, burnout?

I've been wondering if 20 minutes of coding in 'urgent mode' then a 5 minute break, repeated, with a lunch break, would be more productive than 'average mode' all day, and without the burnout.

Try it and let us know - it's different for many people. I can work weeks at 14 hours a day without more than brief bathroom/food breaks if I'm passionate and not distracted.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#70

Post by alexanderdmitri »

late2part wrote: post #68
EGreg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too much multitasking and producing software for years has made me feel this weird thing: Which is that all accomplishments are meaningless in the end. And we are just getting older. Once a person dies they aren’t experiencing any stuff that came as a result of their effort. They may as well have just messed around and had a family sooner, or traveled, or not. It’s all meaningless anyway. I can’t shake it. Anyone fel…

I used to feel this way, a little bit. Then I had a family and was glad to have the financial security to provide for my family compared to so many others. So, consider your heirs, and work long enough to build a nest egg cushion the devote time to having a wonderful spouse, making babies and enjoying them.

+1 for the money, sex and progeny checklist
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