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Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

cutle.fish

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Re: Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

#31

Post by jrockway »

thomas wrote: post #9

In this framing, a factory is supposed to be bad? Aren’t factories efficient and the best way of producing things at scale?

Factories are fine, but if you walk into a factory you're going to be finding a lot of people working on the factory itself. Process tweaks, new machines, maintenance, etc.

In the software "feature factory", people have mostly forgotten about that, usually because someone does it "in their spare time". I guarantee you that no factory worker lubricates the machines off the clock. I am not sure why we should treat software any differently.

Re: Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

#32

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

tuanis wrote: post #13
rubyfan wrote: post #4

Much of this describes some of my past experience at a Fortune 100. That company is now undergoing much discussion at a senior level about agile delivery. Senior executives are walking around talking about tribes and chapters and have no idea what that really means or of the day to day work of teams. It’s unfortunate what will come out of it in the end is some people doing stuff now that will have new titles and mayb…

I actually feel like agile development can invite some of this behavior, because the focus is on shipping instead of value. Not saying agile is bad, just feels like a separate problem.

In principle agile is supposed to be guided by higher level processes accounting for this kind of strategic problem. In practice, yeah, I do sometimes see agile teams get away with writing "objective: ship my features, KR: 5 features are shipped".

Re: Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

#33

Post by lazyjones »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #18
davzie wrote: post #10

I don't actually understand what's bad about this, maybe someone who is in a company like this can explain why it's a negative? I am working with a company that is moving more towards this approach and I'm really enjoying it. Isn't this essentially what Basecamp's Shape Up method advocates for? Not everyone feels they need to be building something that changes the world I suppose. Each to their own.

The problem is that, if you're churning out features without thinking critically about why, your work might not even change the company. I've seen engineers, teams, even entire departments spend multiple quarters being a net drain on the company. But they never noticed, because they kept consistently defining release targets and hitting them.

> churning out features without thinking critically about why, your work might not even change the company

Isn't this just speculation? Why would anyone build features without any thoughts about their benefit?

In practice you never know how a feature is going to work out and benefit or harm the company, you just have to try it. Not trying is a sure way to lose to bolder competition.

Re: Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

#34

Post by lazyjones »

scribu wrote: post #7
ttoinou wrote: post #5

What's wrong with feature factory ? If you're delivering something good for clients.. No measurement / Success theater / core metrics This takes time and mental space. That you could better use to... crank a new feature! :)

> If you're delivering something good for clients... That's the crux of it, isn't it? How do you know that what you're delivering is any good?

> How do you know that what you're delivering is any good?

How do you know it isn't? You need to implement it and see whether it's good or not.

Re: Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

#35

Post by funfunfunction »

Feature addiction is exacerbated by VC. Without real consequences to a poorly planned product roadmap due to the years of runway afforded by massive funding rounds, entire orgs fall into the “one more feature” cycle and never focus enough on measuring success in terms of real dollars. No one knows what went wrong when all the money is gone and devs/designers/PMs rinse and repeat at a new well-funded startup.

Re: Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

#36

Post by lr4444lr »

Sigh... At some point, most healthy adults who are not living in terrible circumstances come to the mature realization and compromise that their job is largely to produce value for someone else, not to be the primary source of personal fulfillment, and they come to understand that there is dignity in being productive, if not creative. Be creative on your own time. Lead a civic group. Be a good parent. Volunteer at a charity. If your main gripe at work is that you're on the value-adding side of a company, which is what feature dev is in software, you have it pretty good in this world. Change jobs if you must, but the realities of companies, especially as they gain traction, rarely means the grass is ever greener. If this is unsatisfactory still, start your own company. I just don't understand the problem here.

Re: Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

#37

Post by lifeisstillgood »

lr4444lr wrote: post #36

Sigh... At some point, most healthy adults who are not living in terrible circumstances come to the mature realization and compromise that their job is largely to produce value for someone else, not to be the primary source of personal fulfillment, and they come to understand that there is dignity in being productive, if not creative. Be creative on your own time. Lead a civic group. Be a good parent. Volunteer at a…

True. But imagine if you are also a shareholder in such a company - would you not want them to fix it?

Re: Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

#38

Post by ryandrake »

I'm surprised by so many negative comments here (actually, I'm not). This great piece summed up a lot of awful aspects about commercial software development that I've also observed over the past 20 years, but have been unable to organize together and articulate as single problem.

People are asking why this is bad. One way to think about why the Feature Factory is bad is that it's mostly open loop: You "launch" feature after feature at the customer, but there's no real feedback coming in to understand whether what you're doing is worthwhile, to understand what to improve or fix, or to drive future decisions. The only feedback that gets measured are things like revenue and sales, and the only thing leadership sees as driving revenue is the constant spew of features--because that's all you're doing. The insights that you get from revenue are very generic: "Money is coming in--keep doing what you're doing" or "We're losing money. Do something different!". The insights you get from salespeople are even worse: "We'll land this sweet-ass deal (and I'll get my bonus) if only you churn out otherwise un-needed features X, Y, and Z!"

I guess this is fine if you're an agency or consulting shop that just does one-off projects and then moves on to the next client. On the other hand, if you're writing software for actual people to use, trying to be the best in class at one thing, or building a platform to last decades instead of months, then your product will suffer if all you do is bolt half-baked features onto it over and over.

Re: Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

#39

Post by PragmaticPulp »

I suggest re-reading this article in the negative: Assume that your team implemented every single one of these bullet points perfectly, for every feature in every sprint. Now imagine that each of those bullet points is a recurring meeting invite on your calendar. Now imagine how happy you'd be spending all of that time in meetings or reading process-related e-mails so your company could satisfy the criteria of not being a feature factory. Does a feature factory sound so bad now?

I thought this article was great when it first came out, but I've since changed my mind. I've seen too many engineers, especially junior engineers, become overly cynical about their jobs after reading too much into this one article.

1) With 12 different "signs" of a feature factory, it begins to read like a horoscope: Almost everyone reading it can find something to identify with. Multiply this across every different project or initiative at a company, and everyone can think of multiple times their job has resembled the descriptions in this article. Does anyone actually read this article and walk away thinking their company has never once resembled the vague signs in the article?

2) It begins with an implied assumption that working in a feature factory is a bad thing. Combine that with the horoscope-like 12 possible indicators of a feature factory, and the reader will always conclude that their workplace is the bad thing.

3) It sets unrealistically high standards. The alternative to a "feature factory" is defined in the negative in this article. Can you think of any company that would score a perfect 12/12 on every bullet point in this article across every team in every department? The process overhead would be significant, and it would very easily translate to a lot of meetings, e-mails, and overhead.

The kernel of truth within the article is still very valid. Teams should absolutely take the points into consideration and apply them judiciously, where it matters. However, it's a mistake to use this article as a checklist by which to judge your company's process. Real work is always a bit messy, communication is never perfect, and just because you don't see these things with your own two eyes doesn't mean they aren't happening somewhere in the company.

As a product manager, suggestions are always welcome and I'm happy to discuss reasoning for decision making, but I also don't burden the entire team with every detail of every step of the way.

Re: Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)

#40

Post by lifeisstillgood »

At a certain company size, there simply is not the level of control (ODA loops) to know what product to make or features to add - it is a fairly good survival strategy to have multiple teams duplicating huge amounts of work simply because a few will deliver the right thing.

The internal politics of most organisations has a similar feel - lots of duplication looks like competing camps and frequently is, but the duplications is partly survival strategy (what if those others don't deliver) and partly evolution (one team will deliver something that actually fits the market.)

Boy there are better ways to arrange it, but this seems to be a local maxima that's easy to reach.

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