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Collaboration sucks

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Re: Collaboration sucks

#31

Post by mcdow »

mrkaye97 wrote: post #25
mcdow wrote: post #5

I’ve used both approaches and I can’t disagree more. Writing code first might feel faster but it isn’t. It’s great for surface level issues but just muddies the waters for any consequential feature. Measure(communicate) twice, cut(build) once.

IMO this is very dependent on the risk of cutting once, so to speak. I'd imagine that at PostHog, the idea is there's little risk of cutting many times - iterating - and more damage is done by the measuring taking far too long.

This is true but there is another cost. If you carelessly write you can end up with a system which is a mountain of bandaid fixes; an incoherent and unmaintainable mess.

Re: Collaboration sucks

#32

Post by tombert »

I feel like collaboration can work great with a group of exactly two people. It's not terribly hard for two people to partition work and actively help each other. With two people working on a project, both people can realistically understand most of the codebase, and can competently review each other's pull requests.

I feel collaboration suffers from combinatorial complexity though, and I feel any number bigger than two ends up doing more harm than good. Once you have more than two people, the codebase starts becoming more segmented, it becomes really difficult to agree on decisions, and the project becomes a lot harder than it needs to be.

If I ever get into management, I think I will try and keep this in mind and try and design projects around two-people teams.

Re: Collaboration sucks

#34

Post by agildehaus »

kingforaday wrote: post #7
ssalmon74 wrote: post #2

Gravitational Pull" is the solution! Instead of the "Collaboration Sucks" approach, we need to apply Gravitational Pull. For every key project, the Driver defines three essential stakeholders (e.g., Tech Lead, Business Owner, Target User) who form the "Quantum Sync Circle." Everyone else is noise. This prevents endless discussions and focuses accountability right where it belongs.

If this takes off, I think you've coined a new term there with "Quantum Sync Circle."

The Conjoined Triangles of Success

Re: Collaboration sucks

#35

Post by throwaway7783 »

>>Prefer to give feedback after something has shipped (but before the next iteration) rather than reviewing it before it ships. Front-loading your feedback can turn it into a quasi-approval process.

Don't confuse this with "Don't test and don't do code reviews"

Re: Collaboration sucks

#36

Post by tombert »

throwaway713 wrote: post #8

> Every time you see collaboration happening, speak up and destroy it. Say “there are too many people involved. X, you are the driver, you decide.” (This is a great way to make friends btw). Corollary for managers: Do not say "it's your call", then once the decision has been made (and you skipped all the meetings pertaining to that decision), comment about how you would have done it differently and then retroactively…

One of many reasons I left Apple. My manager's manager would say stuff like this all the time, and then when I actually made my PR he would basically have me redesign stuff from scratch. It made me dread working on projects because I knew that no matter what I did I would be forced to rewrite it from scratch anyway.

Re: Collaboration sucks

#38

Post by CGMthrowaway »

>Prefer to give feedback after something has shipped (but before the next iteration) rather than reviewing it before it ships. Front-loading your feedback can turn it into a quasi-approval process.

This works for software dev. Would be more difficult in anything else, where you're not constantly updating an existing product on a weekly basis.

Re: Collaboration sucks

#39

Post by foobarbecue »

I don't think this is good advice for building, programming, or operating spacecraft.

Edit to add detail: a spacecraft tends to have lot of subsystems that need to work together well, each requires a specialist lead, and there's a high return on investment for things like improving efficiency, sharing resources between subsystems, etc. leading to reduced power, data, and mass requirements. They tend to be bespoke and high value so it's critical that detail knowledge is spread among multiple people, edge cases are carefully considered, and lessons learned get learned by everybody. Collaboration is key in that kind of endeavour. If you're slapping together a CRUD app that can't hurt anyone, sure, go hog wild.

Re: Collaboration sucks

#40

Post by jstummbillig »

throwaway713 wrote: post #8

> Every time you see collaboration happening, speak up and destroy it. Say “there are too many people involved. X, you are the driver, you decide.” (This is a great way to make friends btw). Corollary for managers: Do not say "it's your call", then once the decision has been made (and you skipped all the meetings pertaining to that decision), comment about how you would have done it differently and then retroactively…

> This is a great way to lose employees.

A great way, you say. Taking notes!

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