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Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

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Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#281

Post by vharuck »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #18

Aren't all rules imaginary? > Every time someone in the management chain has axed the proposal with some variation of "this policy can not be changed because this is our policy and thus can not be changed", possibly with a "due to security reasons" thrown in there somewhere. That's circular, no doubt there. We've decided this rule must remain in place, because it's a rule . This decision-making process doesn't make a…

>Is the real point here that sometimes bad rules remain in place until some external event forces a change? Doesn't sound so profound.

The author's example shows the very glaring case focused on: a rule totally disconnected from security. He was told "no remote work for contractors." One would assume any reasons for this rule (valid or not) would also be reflected in reality. In this case, maybe only regular employees had filled the legal paperwork and passed whatever security checks.

But the rule disappeared in less than a day. So it only existed on paper and punishment. I doubt the security concerns disappeared or were fixed in less a day.

These kind of rules, when exposed, can have a big impact on how well people follow other rules. I should know: I started ignoring a bunch (and sometimes later learned the risks I pooh-poohed).

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#282

Post by VHRanger »

mcraiha wrote: post #272
VHRanger wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone ever do game development on Apple hardware? You're making iOS games?

Yes, iOS cross compile is a pain. And Unity is a bit more stable in Macs (YMMV).

Yeah this part is something that annoys me but lots of the Unity team is working on macbooks, even though it's only a relevant platform for iOS as far as the end user is concerned.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#283

Post by simonbarker87 »

jedimastert wrote: post #261
simonbarker87 wrote: post #3

This is why managers need a high level of emotional intelligence, the ability to empathize and quickly place themselves in the position of others. Without those three qualities management is ill equipped to handle these kinds of things sensibly. Sadly the above traits are more deemed leadership qualities rather than management qualities and so often missing in management. Leadership skills are far harder to teach tha…

> Sadly the above traits are more deemed leadership qualities rather than management qualities and so often missing in management. I just might be inexperienced in corp-land, but are management roles not leadership roles on a small scale?

Ideally yes but you don’t need to be a good leader to fulfil the roles of management. Good leaders are in the main better managers but the percentage of the population with that leadership instinct is rare enough that it can’t really be a prerequisite for management roles.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#285

Post by grogenaut »

rvense wrote: post #211
sfifs wrote: post #25

In BigCorps, if there's a stupid requirement, there's usually a reason for the stupid requirement to be there in the first place but getting to the reason might require un-peeling a few org layers to since the people enforcing the policy will not be the people who wrote the policy. A more productive use of time would be to understand the reason for the policy, document out why it doesn't apply to your case and then a…

About five years ago, a place I was working at was selecting a new laptop for all employees. Mine was up for replacement, so I was interested in what they were picking. They'd arrived at some god-awful Lenovo gamer model. It fit the performance and price point they'd decided they needed. I said I'd prefer to have something smaller with less Christmas lights. "Policy is everyone has to have the same laptop, and some p…

This is literally my job. Amazon calls it Dive Deep/Earn Trust. I get called in constantly to "Remove Blockers". Part of it is just understanding why the policy exists and then getting a policy modification. While it's definitely an art, it's not as hard as a lot of people think, but you can't be afraid to escalate.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#286

Post by heymijo »

Spooky23 wrote: post #171
sfifs wrote: post #25

In BigCorps, if there's a stupid requirement, there's usually a reason for the stupid requirement to be there in the first place but getting to the reason might require un-peeling a few org layers to since the people enforcing the policy will not be the people who wrote the policy. A more productive use of time would be to understand the reason for the policy, document out why it doesn't apply to your case and then a…

The other principle is separation of duties. Policy is made by people who aren't the practitioners so that the interests of the organization are ahead of the whim or convenience of the practitioner. People who served in the military usually get this concept, as it's more obvious that there is a long line of stupid actions on random soldiers' part that leads to a longer line of preventative rules. I'd also say that wh…

The big company was more vulnerable to systemic risk due to inflexibility, the small companies are more vulnerable to individual risks due to employee action or lack of controls.

This is incredibly well said and worth highlighting.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#287

Post by ardy42 »

whatshisface wrote: post #221
ardy42 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, a reason can convince people, while a policy can be avoided, worked around or ignored while creating zero feelings of guilt. Though, I'd imagine that, in many cases, adding reasons would turn a policy pamphlet into a textbook. This seems like one of those areas where there are unavoidable tradeoffs: * clear, concise, and rigid policies are easy to communicate and enforce, but frustrate people wit…

You could have one pamphlet with the policy, and a separate book with the reasoning, and instruct people to check the book when proposing a change or exception. Then all of the lazy compliant people could have their brevity, and the crackpots and geniuses would both get the explanatory text they needed.

> You could have one pamphlet with the policy, and a separate book with the reasoning, and instruct people to check the book when proposing a change or exception.

That's still a significant trade-off: putting together a book with the reasoning would be a lot more expensive than just creating the pamphlet. Your organization might not be able to afford the cost, period, or your boss may not agree to spend all that money just to make a minority of engineers happy in a few narrow cases. Then there's the question of how many people would actually consult the book of rationales; maybe it'd only be a handful.

I'm guessing most organizations tend to pursue a "minimum viable policy" tradeoff: spend as little effort as possible to create a policy that addresses a particular set of high-priority problems (since that is easily justifiable), and ignore more theoretical concerns like worker education and the personality preferences of certain kinds of individuals.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#288

Post by drchickensalad »

rgblambda wrote: post #109
tialaramex wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aren't all rules imaginary? No. The Laws of Football and the Laws of Australia are imaginary in the sense you mean, but the Law of Gravity isn't. Mother Nature's rules are different than ours, stubborn far beyond all reason and not recorded anywhere for our inspection. Video games are interesting because we make them, yet for the most part some of their rules are like Ma's rules not ours. Watching Mario Maker 2 tro…

> No. The Laws of Football and the Laws of Australia are imaginary in the sense you mean, but the Law of Gravity isn't. I'm not a scientist but should the law of gravity not be seen as a human understanding of what gravity is rather than the handed down from God definition of gravity? I get the point you're making though.

Yeah I think OP is referring to the reality and not the model we made to represent it

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#289

Post by whatshisface »

ardy42 wrote: post #287
whatshisface wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could have one pamphlet with the policy, and a separate book with the reasoning, and instruct people to check the book when proposing a change or exception. Then all of the lazy compliant people could have their brevity, and the crackpots and geniuses would both get the explanatory text they needed.

> You could have one pamphlet with the policy, and a separate book with the reasoning, and instruct people to check the book when proposing a change or exception. That's still a significant trade-off: putting together a book with the reasoning would be a lot more expensive than just creating the pamphlet. Your organization might not be able to afford the cost, period, or your boss may not agree to spend all that mone…

I'd explain why you're misconceiving the tradeoff, but we have a policy against omitting policy rationales, and that's that. ;)

>Then there's the question of how many people would actually consult the book of rationales; maybe it'd only be a handful.

Well, it's supposed to only be a handful: the handful of people who know more than the policymaker.

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