Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012)

#41

Post by peteradio » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #36

codesections wrote: post #28

> We must strive to understand that accidents don’t happen because people gamble and lose. The problem is that some accidents do happen because people gamble and lose – or rather, because people cut corners is ways that probably won't matter but sometimes really, really do. The best approach needs to balance both causes of error. I agree that most organizations tend to err too far in the "blame someone" direction – b…

As I understand it the key to the blameless and just culture is to keep going to the bottom of it: "You cut corners. You were incentivized to cut corners. Why? Why do those incentives exist? What can we do to remove those incentives in the future?" The core of the philosophy is assuming people come to work to do a good job, and when they don't do a good job, there are reasonable explanations that involve people makin…

And what happens when the finger starts pointing back towards business imposing terrible incentives?

Re: Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012)

#42

Post by C1sc0cat » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

leggomylibro wrote: post #29

I once worked somewhere that did blameless technical postmortems very well. Whenever something broke, we kept asking questions until we had uncovered what went wrong, and we constantly reminded each other that our failings were in the process, not the people. It worked great, and we ended up with much more robust systems than most other places I'd worked. Sadly, they didn't apply the same ideals to social faux pas. W…

Comedy duos still have a straight man today its literally the suggested completion in google.

Sounds like some one had done a diversity course and missed the point, to be kind. There are other less charitable conclusions that could be drawn.

Re: Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012)

#43

Post by C1sc0cat » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

Ididntdothis wrote: post #35

leggomylibro wrote: post #29

I once worked somewhere that did blameless technical postmortems very well. Whenever something broke, we kept asking questions until we had uncovered what went wrong, and we constantly reminded each other that our failings were in the process, not the people. It worked great, and we ended up with much more robust systems than most other places I'd worked. Sadly, they didn't apply the same ideals to social faux pas. W…

I often hear about this stuff but I have never seen it myself. Do people really ostracize others for saying a sentence they don’t like? I can see it if somebody constantly says stupid or offensive things but not for a few mistakes (are they even mistakes?).

Yes this isn't like using the "N in the wood pile" quote which is obviously offensive

Re: Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012)

#44

Post by williamdclt » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

joshuacc wrote: post #39

williamdclt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw an interesting talk by Alistair Cockburn (one of the Agile Manifesto guys), where he said he never once saw a succesful "agile transformation". Just too much resistance to change to have any chance to succeed. What did succeed, is to create what he called a "new building", meaning a new subcompany (sometimes literally in a new building) with a different (agile) culture, and only letting in people that are inter…

Happen to have a link to a video of this talk?

Sadly not, I was a question-answer format in a small group at the Paris Digital Lean Summit. It wasn't filmed

Re: Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012)

#45

Post by diegoperini » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

notyourday wrote: post #40

diegoperini wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the argument. (I didn't vote on your comment)

If it accepted that is not a person or persons whose mistakes create problems requiring postmortems meaning it was the collective that made mistakes then it should also be accepted that it is never a person or persons whose accomplishments propelled the company forward rather it is the collective. So everyone in the collective should get paid the amount of money for equal contributions to ups and downs, should not th…

On a scale from "individual" to "collective", both blame and success can be attributed to either extreme (or middle) on a case by case basis. I don't believe it can be possible to claim a universal generalization for all cases.

Re: Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012)

#46

Post by jonfw » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

peteradio wrote: post #41

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it the key to the blameless and just culture is to keep going to the bottom of it: "You cut corners. You were incentivized to cut corners. Why? Why do those incentives exist? What can we do to remove those incentives in the future?" The core of the philosophy is assuming people come to work to do a good job, and when they don't do a good job, there are reasonable explanations that involve people makin…

And what happens when the finger starts pointing back towards business imposing terrible incentives?

If you find a business incentive as a root cause, you blamelessly discuss ways you can change that incentive.

Re: Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012)

#47

Post by notyourday » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

diegoperini wrote: post #45

notyourday wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it accepted that is not a person or persons whose mistakes create problems requiring postmortems meaning it was the collective that made mistakes then it should also be accepted that it is never a person or persons whose accomplishments propelled the company forward rather it is the collective. So everyone in the collective should get paid the amount of money for equal contributions to ups and downs, should not th…

On a scale from "individual" to "collective", both blame and success can be attributed to either extreme (or middle) on a case by case basis. I don't believe it can be possible to claim a universal generalization for all cases.

Is there a single case where a company which practices blameless downside practices a collective upside?

Re: Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012)

#48

Post by wmeredith » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

kqr wrote: post #4

Only tangentially related but I have to get it out of my system anyway: I watched the latest season of the F1 documentary on Netflix, and what stood out beyond anything else to me was that every team pitted their own drivers against each other, had a "you win or you lose" mentality, screamed at people for messing up, and so on. All teams except one. One team iterated how they "win as a team and make mistakes as a tea…

The team in question is Mercedes for those who are curious.

Re: Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012)

#49

Post by the_af » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #38

the_af wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Straight man" still has that meaning today, just like "deadpan" and "foil". It's not a generational thing. It was probably a contextual thing; my guess is that nobody expected terms of comedy and theater at the workplace. But don't blame it on youth...

> my guess is that nobody expected terms of comedy and theater at the workplace That's a bit of a stretch, metaphors are the grease for the engine of the English language. In fact I've even heard this specific phrase many times before, recently . It's a metaphor in active use. The company was probably looking for a reason to get rid of him.

In fact I argued it's a metaphor in active use! But I also guessed metaphors taken out of context are likely to be misinterpreted. I know plenty of native English speakers who don't know what "straight man" means.

Re: Blameless post-mortems and a just culture (2012)

#50

Post by whatshisface » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

the_af wrote: post #49

whatshisface wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my guess is that nobody expected terms of comedy and theater at the workplace That's a bit of a stretch, metaphors are the grease for the engine of the English language. In fact I've even heard this specific phrase many times before, recently . It's a metaphor in active use. The company was probably looking for a reason to get rid of him.

In fact I argued it's a metaphor in active use! But I also guessed metaphors taken out of context are likely to be misinterpreted. I know plenty of native English speakers who don't know what "straight man" means.

But metaphors are always taken out of context. Nobody says it's time to bite the bullet with a bullet in their hand. Referring to a situation that is not presently happening in order to explain one that is is the definition of a metaphor.