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The Rise of the New Groupthink

nytimes.com

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Re: The Rise of the New Groupthink

#81

Post by joemoon »

SiVal wrote: post #78
sunir wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that is an extreme and cartoonish conclusion to draw from so little information. How do you know that is the experience the children have? The sister comment from another teacher brings facts to the table that explain the intent of the exercise, which is limited in scope and aimed for a specific purpose. Good or bad it is a game to attempt to teach kids it is ok to admit they don't know and to ask for help…

I have enough information to tell that children in this case are forbidden to ask their question unless everyone in the group has the same question, because that information was explicitly given. This is not the same rule as one which allows an individual child to freely ask the teacher whatever he likes, whether his groupmates want to ask or not, if he still feels like asking after trying his peers first. The former…

I agree that it sounds like a bad idea, but you're just having a knee-jerk reaction. You don't have enough information to make that judgement. How do you know this wasn't a well crafted exercise designed to teach certain elements of social interaction? I guarantee you a good teacher could use a situation like this as a tool to teach the class something valuable.

Hell, it could be an exercise to teach students the dangers of group think. It would be intellectually dishonest of the author to frame the situation in the way that she did, but we have no idea of the context. Did the author watch the whole class and speak with the teach afterward, or did she just observe the class for a few minutes?

Without more context you just don't have enough information to make such a damning judgement.

Re: The Rise of the New Groupthink

#82

Post by HalibetLector »

DuncanIdaho wrote: post #58

What I find gross is that the article somehow considers cubicles as a "private" solution. This modern management cargo cult has reached really gross levels of absurdity. If open plan is a cacophony of voices amidst which a person is to find focus and deep thinking, then cubicles are the same cacophony without the peripheral vision part. I find teamwork, collaboration and such bullshit words just a mask for true motiv…

I don't know about other people, but cubicles instill in me a sense of paranoia I don't get in an open office plan. It actively raises my stress level and makes it harder to focus knowing anybody can show up behind me at any time and I can't see them coming.

Re: The Rise of the New Groupthink

#83

Post by joezydeco »

gruseom wrote: post #33
joezydeco wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we have whiteboards. They're just across the room on the outer walls where I can't reach them easily. We also went cheap and bought melamine bathroom panels that are impossible to erase.

[whiteboard] melamine bathroom panels that are impossible to erase I had this exact problem. Citrus cleanser in a spray bottle solved it perfectly.

Thanks for the tip!

Re: The Rise of the New Groupthink

#84

Post by godDLL »

MartinCron wrote: post #32
ijreilly wrote: post #17

My current company, a startup, has an even split of developers, half under 30 and half over 45. I'm one of the old guys. The development environment and approach, mostly set up by the young guys, is pretty modern -- lots of open source tools, hosting on launchpad, test-driven development, code reviews, all developers in one big open space, everyone does everything (as opposed to developers doing development, testers…

I am most productive when I have a problem to solve and I can immerse myself in it for hours every day, days at a time, without interruption. That's what's most productive for you, but it might not be what's best for the organization as a whole.

Would you care to giv an example of how that works? I'm having a hard time visualizing such a scenario (unless your department's job is to stall).

Re: The Rise of the New Groupthink

#85

Post by lhnz »

dextorious wrote: post #71
lhnz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we have 50 programmers working in complete isolation then we will have 50 different programs. Collaboration becomes key to scaling the craft. Since most programs can be broken down into a set of components I believe it should be relatively easy to parallellize the workload.

"""Since most programs can be broken down into a set of components I believe it should be relatively easy to parallellize the workload.""" The "easy" part of your phrase, is the one key misconception that project managers have since the beginning of software engineering. The mythical man-month and peopleware anyone?

You are probably correct, I haven't read those books yet! But, I was not explaining myself fully either way.

While I think the individual parts could be considered easy, the interaction of these and their integration I would consider a hard, complex problem with the potential to bottleneck all of the work.

The reason being: it's very difficult to parallelize integrative work because by its very nature, functionally it suggests dependency and coupling, and socially requires efficient communication.

Re: The Rise of the New Groupthink

#86

Post by MartinCron »

godDLL wrote: post #84
MartinCron wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am most productive when I have a problem to solve and I can immerse myself in it for hours every day, days at a time, without interruption. That's what's most productive for you, but it might not be what's best for the organization as a whole.

Would you care to giv an example of how that works? I'm having a hard time visualizing such a scenario (unless your department's job is to stall).

Simple example. It may disrupt my flow to help my colleagues solve problems, but it may save them hours of time if I say "oh, I already did that here..."
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