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How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

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Re: How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

#71

Post by kumarvvr »

wrs wrote: post #8

I have a shelf full of histories of British science and engineering during WW2, so I feel like I have some remote idea of what being an engineer in an actual “wartime mode” is like. Think about, e.g., working in the lab trying to improve radar to be able to stop the daily bombing raids. It’s hard to imagine “wartime mode” as being an appropriate metaphor for any US company, other than as a sort of fantasy role play.…

Please do share some good ones, I am very interested in these sorts of stories.

Re: How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

#72

Post by hitekker »

Speaking as an engineering manager, this is wish-fulfillment. According to his own LinkedIn, the author has never been a first-level engineering manager. His blog is accordingly heavy on cliches and mostly free of actual work experience.

Taken at face value, the article is a recipe for burning out first-level managers, while the building is burning down. It neglects to focus on stopping the fire, because the author would rather his reports hustle around the fire instead.

Re: How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

#73

Post by marcinzm »

Spivak wrote: post #7
lumost wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on average, everyone will follow the path of maximum reward/lowest risk. Management has a job to do, but is aware that they may lack any choice or path to success. They still have a job to do in e.g. allocating engineers work, managing performance, promotions, and morale... so they do it, meanwhile they may also be looking for the exit. As an IC, never believe a manager at face value - they will promote you if it's g…

Wild, I would literally never work for a company where I had this kind of relationship with my direct manager. My direct manager should be in my corner and on my side always. They will get me the highest pay, highest title, best perks, lowest amount of stress and work, most time off, best benefits they can and anything they ask me to do is in service of that. If I find out that my direct manager is the one gating a r…

> Wild, I would literally never work for a company where I had this kind of relationship with my direct manager. My direct manager should be in my corner and on my side always. They will get me the highest pay, highest title, best perks, lowest amount of stress and work, most time off, best benefits they can and anything they ask me to do is in service of that. If I find out that my direct manager is the one gating a raise or promotion from me I'll just quit.

Nothing is infinite and managers are both people and have their own constraints. In my experience, expecting otherwise will just select for either managers who work really hard but fail to get you much (due to lack of political skills), or those that are very good liars that say they're helping you but never do (and you never realize otherwise).

Re: How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

#74

Post by ShufflerL »

imetatroll wrote: post #34
dakiol wrote: post #23

It all feels like theatre. Been working in many companies in “war mode” and they all think that in order to become profitable (none of them were) you need to push the most “important” features out of the door asap, otherwise your competitors will eat you alive. It’s a lie. Executives and VPs and all those folks that earn 5x what a normal engineer earns, don’t really care about the company they work for. All they care…

Where do you work that you get to avoid agile, scrum, and war mode? I'm jealous. Then again I've always just been stuck working for startups my entire career. I have a family and desperately need something more stable.

Just sharing my own experience..I used to work for start-ups and now I am working for a seemingly boring, profitable company that is not venture funded. By boring I meant there is not alot of media news about them. They just bunker down and do the work. There's way less craziness - more focused, mature approach towards problems.

Re: How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

#75

Post by mgkimsal »

tbrownaw wrote: post #62
nrr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll push back in defense of Scrum, but it probably bears a little explanation because my conceptualization of that framework is very likely a lot different from yours. (As something of a bonus: I'll bring in the military given the whole "wartime" trope.) In particular, Scrum is only there to establish rituals that enable empiricism in decision making. A sprint is a reporting period to keep the team from spending too…

> I really dislike the term "Scrum Master." They're a team captain. Originally that term was supposed to be a temporary role that someone (rotated each time) would take on during a scrum meeting, and referred to them being charged with keeping the meeting on track.

and... it would keep everyone on their toes a bit more, vs just having a group of folks that nod and say 'yes', 'no' or '3 points' a few times at the same time every day.

Re: How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

#76

Post by biosprout »

hnbear wrote: post #45
wrs wrote: post #8

I have a shelf full of histories of British science and engineering during WW2, so I feel like I have some remote idea of what being an engineer in an actual “wartime mode” is like. Think about, e.g., working in the lab trying to improve radar to be able to stop the daily bombing raids. It’s hard to imagine “wartime mode” as being an appropriate metaphor for any US company, other than as a sort of fantasy role play.…

I had an ex-marine boss leading QA and Prod support. Every time someone would go nuts about incidents being the end of the world, especially our biz users, he'd just ask if anyone was at risk of getting shot. If not, focus up and solve the problem, but no need to run causing extra fuss and stress.

had a similar experience early in my career in finance. 35 year old associate (old for the role), ex green beret, always so level, even when dealing with a lunatic VP. asked him why he was cool as the other side of the pillow: "nobody is shooting at me"

Re: How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

#77

Post by hi_hi »

wrs wrote: post #50
willturman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those books about British science/engineering during WW2 sound interesting. Any recommendations?

I’m traveling so can’t look on the shelf, but off the top of my head I’d recommend The Wizard War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945 , R. V. Jones, 1978.

Amazing. I came here to specifically recommend another RV Jones book, the Most Secret War (https://www.amazon.com/Most-Secret-War-R-V-Jones/dp/01410428...). I wasn't aware of his other book, so very much looking forward to reading this.

I first read this book when I was starting out as a Dev some 20 years ago. It made a huge impression and is still relevant. Some things I remember off the top of my head.

- It was the first time I came across Occams Razor. This really helped me understand how to approach debugging issues and generally dealing with problems.

- It discusses the dangers of people who don't understand areas at a technical level being in charge of programs that depend on those technical things. Even more so when they have an inflated ego. Apparently Churchill was very good at seeing through this.

- If I'm remembering correctly, there was a section about a practical joke someone played on their apartment neighbour that involved swapping out their pet tortoise for gradually larger versions. I very recently read a Roald Dahl childrens book to my kid which had this exact story. Now I have no idea if this actually happened as RV Jones wrote, or if it was a well known story at the time that Roald Dahl also adapted.

- The dangers of making assumptions.

I'm sure there are more. It's a worthwhile and highly entertaining read regardless.

Re: How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

#78

Post by ern »

dakiol wrote: post #23

It all feels like theatre. Been working in many companies in “war mode” and they all think that in order to become profitable (none of them were) you need to push the most “important” features out of the door asap, otherwise your competitors will eat you alive. It’s a lie. Executives and VPs and all those folks that earn 5x what a normal engineer earns, don’t really care about the company they work for. All they care…

I really don't understand the hate for Agile. Adaptation, empiricism, iteration self-managed teams etc...what's not to like?

I'm currently involved with two programs run by project managers who probably haven't written code for 30 years (if ever), and it's a nightmare.

Re: How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

#79

Post by screye »

dakiol wrote: post #23

It all feels like theatre. Been working in many companies in “war mode” and they all think that in order to become profitable (none of them were) you need to push the most “important” features out of the door asap, otherwise your competitors will eat you alive. It’s a lie. Executives and VPs and all those folks that earn 5x what a normal engineer earns, don’t really care about the company they work for. All they care…

It's easy to validate the veracity of 'War mode'. If survival hinges on a critical deliverable, then the promised reward must be in line with the stakes.

You can't have an employer offering a 20% bonus for keeping them alive. It's an insultingly low payoff or the crisis was a lie.

There is definitely such a thing as wartime software engineering. But such moments offer a clear path to millions of dollars or generational glory. Otherwise, you're being fed koolaid.

Re: How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire

#80

Post by romanows »

thr0waway001 wrote: post #70
rqtwteye wrote: post #65

I think leading in "wartime" is way easier than leading in peacetime. When you are in full panic mode with a clear goal, a lot of decisions are very clear and easy to make. And everybody knows you can't scrutinize every little thing. You take a risk and see if it works out. In peacetime you have more time, goals are not that clear. So a lot of people suddenly have different opinions and they must somehow be negotiate…

Well said. Nobody is willing to take risks and change things up when things are going well. I've found myself warning the people I work with that we need to do things to stabilize the core of our software and infrastructure. When things are going well it's hard to get buy-in and the time to do any necessary, and sometimes radical changes. And you probably may say at this point: "well if things are going well why woul…

I just got back from watching the movie Casa Bonita Mi Amor, about the South Park guys buying a beloved Denver restaurant and refurbishing it. Costs ballooned from an estimated $6 million to $30+ million because it had been owned by a company that deferred maintenance for 30 years. Not sure if the business types would see this as a cautionary tale or as validation for coasting, though. The company that ran it into the ground probably extracted a ridiculous amount of profit...
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