[dead]
The Religion of Speed
51–60 of 166 posts
Re: The Religion of Speed
#52You can fail a project not because you were technically wrong about anything, but because you burned your customer out by taking 6 months instead of 6 weeks to find a viable solution to their problem. Speed is a feature from the perspective of your customers. There is economic value associated with it. Consider your state of mind when you call the HVAC tech to fix your broken condensing on an August afternoon in Texa…
I like this argument, but I don't think the article argues against taking urgency into consideration. Do you have anecdotes about companies or people that actually ignore urgency?
I've experienced enough business-critical incidents (or requests) where people across all seniority are just randomly trying stuff, making a mess, without taking time to coordinate, understand the problem, and solve it. It almost always resulted in more overall time and bigger blast radius than if we did it not out of panick.
OTOH my "slow" (I still did things fast, just not purely for the sake of looking fast) and steady approach always took me less time overall to find a proper fix. I also became known as the person who could always find the best possible fix when there's an incident/time constraint, but I also thought that was systematically bad instead of fixing the culture/process.
It's still faster to take a minute (and deep breath), understand the whole problem (incl. urgency and how that affects your solutions), and then solve it. It doesn't mean you can't keep your customers in the loop and assuage their concerns.
Re: The Religion of Speed
#53The longer I spend in my career the more obvious this is to me. Unfortunately younger colleagues don't always have the maturity to have also realised this, which can be a problem if they end up above me in the management chain!
I try to kickstart reflection on this by saying things like "Some of the biggest impact I've had has been the code I chose not to write."
Re: The Religion of Speed
#54You can fail a project not because you were technically wrong about anything, but because you burned your customer out by taking 6 months instead of 6 weeks to find a viable solution to their problem. Speed is a feature from the perspective of your customers. There is economic value associated with it. Consider your state of mind when you call the HVAC tech to fix your broken condensing on an August afternoon in Texa…
Don't confuse urgency for FOMO.
> There is definitely a point where you are going too fast, but the customer will almost certainly let you know when this happens.
Usually by stopping doing business with you forever.
Re: The Religion of Speed
#55This article highlight a huge problem which permeates every aspect of society.
The entire education system is built around the assumption that speed = merit. Any time a person has to sit a test under time constraints, the most significant factor being measured is thinking speed. Not reliability, not creativity; just speed.
I have similar thoughts about 'short term thinking'; this is another religion which has quietly taken over nearly every aspect of the modern human experience.
Re: The Religion of Speed
#56Re: The Religion of Speed
#57You can fail a project not because you were technically wrong about anything, but because you burned your customer out by taking 6 months instead of 6 weeks to find a viable solution to their problem. Speed is a feature from the perspective of your customers. There is economic value associated with it. Consider your state of mind when you call the HVAC tech to fix your broken condensing on an August afternoon in Texa…
Of course! The article agrees with you > Real speed exists. Real speed is what happens when the work is understood, the constraints are clear, the people involved know what they’re doing, and the decisions have been made cleanly enough that execution can happen without constant re-litigation. I think the article is arguing against speed preventing the kind of planning and alignment that makes smooth delivery possible…
Depends on the organisation as I've seen the opposite (excessive planning without taking action) too. I'm on the speed side of things nowadays because I was usually wrong when I thought that the "work is understood and the constraints are clear".
Re: The Religion of Speed
#58There's decision speed and execution speed. You want to sometimes slow down decision speed and get this right. But then develop fast once the target is selected. Chopping wood - you don't slow down the axe swing - but you better be careful where you aim.
Re: The Religion of Speed
#59I really love the ideas here. I also wonder if this kind of workplace is a myth. Maybe every business really is a disaster if you look close enough. Or maybe it does happen, once in a while, where a company really hits their stride, but it’s essentially random when they do. Or, maybe I’ve just been working in disasters too long and I’m cynical, hard to say.
> I also wonder if this kind of workplace is a myth.
It’s not.
Re: The Religion of Speed
#60The religion of speed is the religion of VC investment backing, because VCs have set time horizons for delivering returns to their own investors. You can only get their interest if you can make them believe you can deliver 10x growth on their schedule . Committing to that schedule — and really believing in that commitment — is what turns someone into the sort of person who sets arbitrary project timelines that disreg…
These timelines are not arbitrary. They are dictated by the cost of money (for the VC). They have little to do with the target market situation, and totally don't care about technical considerations. They only care if your profits, or at least revenue, or at least market share grows fast enough. If it does not, they write off their losses and liquidate the company. This is the fear that dictates the damned speed™: ei…
The rocket equation of a turtle egg..