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Anxiety in product development

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Re: Anxiety in product development

#31

Post by cambalache »

hateful wrote: post #25
neutronicus wrote: post #18

I think the serenity prayer, sans unnecessary theological content, is relevant here. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the ones I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. For a lot of software products, there is no winning in the long run. You've got good product-market fit and customer loyalty, but your code base is a huge mess and the hard technical problems are so…

I've always loved that (also, sans theological content). It's good advice for anyone. It's strong statement because in one sentence it can give someone something that a lot of people may not have - self awareness in the face of anxiety.

I love it too, but let's be honest, the devil is in the details, I think most people agonize because they dont really know if their problem can or cannot be solved with more action from them. I for sure accept the things I really know I cannot change, and work in those I clearly know are under my control. The anxiety comes from those things I am lost in the sense I dont know if I should push more or I should give up.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#32

Post by thorin »

nautilus12 wrote: post #22

Its a little known secret that managers deliberately promote anxiety driven development because it keeps workers at "peak productivity". A couple of the major things i've seen companies do in the past over and over again to myself and to others I worked with: 1. Ambiguous or no deadlines, frequent check ins, "crunches" when their deliberately poor planning doens't work, keeping an air of uncertainty around everything…

1. They don't keep an air of uncertainty on purpose most of the time, generally it's because a lot of businesses are uncertain and a lot of the time product/project managers don't have a good idea of what's going on!

2. Again this could be incompetence rather than cunning

3. Most great bosses and a lot of rubbish ones aren't great with positive feedback. Have you read Steve Job's biographies or Shoe Dog? Not much praise there. One guy I really respected once told me I wasn't a great programmer, but I got the job done and that was probably the nicest thing he said about anyone...I was pretty happy with that!

I agree with all of your points, but maybe not your reasoning behind them.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#33

Post by jmhnilbog »

fidrelity wrote: post #21
jmhnilbog wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Anxiety can also be expressed as a realization that what's being worked on is useless, adds negative value, or just personally unfulfilling or unimportant. Cops firing teargas at peaceful protesters a few blocks away has cause me a good deal of that flavor of anxiety, which I don't think is necessarily a negative outcome. Do you have any insights along those lines?

Although I have never been in a situation like yours, for me personally A Guide to Rational Living ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22673.A_New_Guide_to_Rat... ) and meditation with the Waking up app helped tremendously.

Do you think instances of anxiety are inherently irrational or unhealthy? I know of the effect of sustained stress on people, but I was trying to bring to light potential positive effects of anxiety bringing clarity or insight into ways to relive that same anxiety. It seemed like your post was something born out of such a thing.

I've encountered so many younger people in tech, making $200K+ in places that support lifestyles that need less than a quarter of that for comfort, who complain about their jobs and the golden handcuffs that keep them there. They seem to be locked in much stranger and fantastical anxieties than those I understand.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#34

Post by codr7 »

I've spent around 34 years writing code so far. My last project was an online order system for a lunch restaurant. To get an idea what kind of problems they're dealing with, I started by working two weeks in the restaurant.

To my surprise I found that I actually enjoy delivering food more than writing code. As long as the customers get the food they ordered delivered in time, everyone is happy. And once I'm done, I'm done. No more lying awake at night going back and forth over some design decision and worrying about consequences from choices already made.

It's not as mentally stimulating, and I earn way less money, but I'm finding it harder and harder to find the motivation to go back to writing code.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#35

Post by dboreham »

pogorniy wrote: post #11
openfuture wrote: post #5

Funny, to see this pop up finally. I've been talking (with my friends) about how all development is 'fear driven development' for quite a while now. Of course I don't mean just software development, but the way it manifests in software is instructive. The different fear responses range from formal methods to FOMO but in general we latch onto something as a source of comfort. Conway's law expanded to how you communica…

> development is 'fear driven development' for quite a while now. Do you have examples of fear-driven and non-fear development approaches? And what flavors of "non-fear" development are possible?

Consider the moive "Silence of the Lambs": Lecter was able to get his cell neighbor to swallow his own tongue just through his powers of persuasion.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#36

Post by Tade0 »

It highlighted how it can surface in atypical symptoms such as anger.

This caught my attention, because out of all the men and women I know who experience anxiety, this was the most typical way the former expressed it.

Who is the benchmark for how anxiety is expressed?

Re: Anxiety in product development

#38

Post by jmhnilbog »

codr7 wrote: post #34

I've spent around 34 years writing code so far. My last project was an online order system for a lunch restaurant. To get an idea what kind of problems they're dealing with, I started by working two weeks in the restaurant. To my surprise I found that I actually enjoy delivering food more than writing code. As long as the customers get the food they ordered delivered in time, everyone is happy. And once I'm done, I'm…

Good for you! You can always go back if you get the itch. Most tech changes too quickly to catch up with only at the cosmetic level anyway. For evidence, see any of the cycles of coders in new stacks rediscovering patterns from two stacks ago "for the first time".

Re: Anxiety in product development

#39

Post by wsantas »

jmhnilbog wrote: post #33
fidrelity wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I have never been in a situation like yours, for me personally A Guide to Rational Living ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22673.A_New_Guide_to_Rat... ) and meditation with the Waking up app helped tremendously.

Do you think instances of anxiety are inherently irrational or unhealthy? I know of the effect of sustained stress on people, but I was trying to bring to light potential positive effects of anxiety bringing clarity or insight into ways to relive that same anxiety. It seemed like your post was something born out of such a thing. I've encountered so many younger people in tech, making $200K+ in places that support lif…

I have a theory that the massive amount of data at our finger tips an inability to control social media lack of self care (or read awareness) has cause an inability to focus and a hyper active brain.

This habitual scroll, scroll, feed, feed, dopamine, dopamine cause the brain to be over active and thoughts hard to control. People get heightened without even being aware. Never-mind if you dont carefully curate your feed.

But that's just something Im mulling over lately.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#40

Post by danielbarla »

neutronicus wrote: post #18

I think the serenity prayer, sans unnecessary theological content, is relevant here. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the ones I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. For a lot of software products, there is no winning in the long run. You've got good product-market fit and customer loyalty, but your code base is a huge mess and the hard technical problems are so…

I also appreciate this quote, because it sets up a mature way of looking at things, categorising, and dealing with them.

However, I'm less of a fan of the opening words; it's not so much that this should be magically granted on to us with a wishing wand, it's something we need to consciously work on, from within. Somehow that slogging, gritty aspect is less represented.

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