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Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

ashley.rolfmore.com

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Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#21

Post by colechristensen »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #15
colechristensen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've missed the point and agreed with the GP. Too much time is spent attempting to communicate and as such, communication isn't actually happening. (i.e. we all spend way too much time in useless meetings where nothing happens and few people are any more informed than they were before)

> Too much time is spent attempting to communicate and as such, communication isn't actually happening. This is where I think we have a different definition of communication. > (i.e. we all spend way too much time in useless meetings where nothing happens and few people are any more informed than they were before) Hence my clarification of: Most meetings are not about communication. They are usually prescriptive in f…

Standard philosophical problem, you're disagreeing about the definition of a word instead of the content of the message.

Step back and think if a dispute over the usage of the word is necessary or helpful in this context.

Amusingly this is where a lot of communication goes to die, loss of the big picture and discussion of how to use particular words.

Clearly you agree with OP about how time is wasted but you're insisting on using different language to express the same idea.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#22

Post by atomicnumber3 »

twelfthnight wrote: post #8
heyalexhsu wrote: post #5

Or maybe we're spending too much time on communicating. If too much time is allocated then its hard to stay focused and there's always the next time that can be used to clarify. Cut all the unnecessary meetings and only allocate the minimum viable time to communicate. Then everyone will be listening.

I’ve been in so many meetings where the outcome is to plan another meeting, and include even more folks. Whichever team brings the most folks steers the decision in their favor, and thus manages hire more unnecessary employees for political will (which then increases the need for even more meetings). The way out is creating a singular vision (eg leadership) and assigning teams goals they can work independently on tow…

Critical issue is that it expects leaders to actually lead. Common yet fatal flaw in many plans.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#23

Post by hyfgfh »

Get ready for the not reading, between people asking for AI and the slop everyone is writing Today communication will only get worst.

Talking to a 'yes and autocomplete' that will agree with everything you say and praise it as a "Great idea!" will make everything terrible

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#24

Post by colechristensen »

c0balt wrote: post #12
colechristensen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've missed the point and agreed with the GP. Too much time is spent attempting to communicate and as such, communication isn't actually happening. (i.e. we all spend way too much time in useless meetings where nothing happens and few people are any more informed than they were before)

Maybe this is just my interpretation but OP effectively argued "too many ineffective meetings, we should have less unnecessary meetings and a clearer, independent direction". The commenter above argued that the problem was slightly different, it's not too many meetings for communication but too many that are not achieving effective communication. A meeting in itself does not create communication (of information and e…

Y'all are saying the same thing over and over with slightly different words proposing that the different way of saying it has a meaningful impact on the message. It doesn't.

>"too many ineffective meetings, we should have less unnecessary meetings and a clearer, independent direction".

>it's not too many meetings for communication but too many that are not achieving effective communication

^^ there's no meaningful distinction between those two, discussions that devolve into such things suck all potential value out of a thread.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#25

Post by yogigan »

The point about "specialism effect" is underrated.

I've caught myself frustrated at users for not understanding something I've spent years internalizing. The problem is: they've spent those same years internalizing something else entirely. Their knowledge isn't absent, it's just elsewhere.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#29

Post by raincole »

apsurd wrote: post #11

Agree with the problem but this list reads like a vent. Communicating effectively is the central problem of all humanity! This vent criticizes developers for not knowing how to listen. that's why it comes off condescending. The root problem is that people don't know what they don't know. The best communicators are translators. People listen because the message becomes self evident in their understanding. It's hardly…

Yeah. It's just some random self-help piece. But slightly worse, as at least self-help books would provide some examples.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#30

Post by mavamaarten »

fragmede wrote: post #19
faangguyindia wrote: post #18

Most of the problem is that talking to non technical people is frustrating, they often start like 1. Can u add X 2. Can u change Y Without understanding cost of doing all this. Yes, i can do all and everything you ask for, but each action has a cost, which you fail to understand. We cannot do everything if we need to launch a reliable product.

That cost has now gone way down, with AI doing that code thing. Love it or hate it, that is the reality.

Has it, though? There's still features that bring large user value and require 10 lines of code, and features that bring a small user value and require AI to burn tokens on huge refactors and babying to make sure it doesn't break anything.
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