Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role

tucker.wales

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 76 posts

Re: Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role

#11

Post by edoceo »

I had a role, we got a new CTO. This man could not stop wiggling things. Almost from day one. Not just small things but larger things too (let's migrate to a new issue tracker/wiki thing (back when Redmine was popular)). Flipping staff to new focus (eg: moved a help-desk staff to top NetAdmin, replacing Cisco Certified guy, which caused some havoc during an audit). What a mess, just had to put his fingerprint on everything!

Another time we got bought, merged into a new company, their CTO was our new CTO. In one of the initial meetings said "things won't change much" and, naturally, we didn't believe. She moved slow on all the things, methodical. Spent some time with each component team. It was months before we started making changes to better mesh with the new company. Very little chaos. Still admire that management style.

Re: Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role

#12

Post by hinkley »

throw8484949ii wrote: post #7
emil-lp wrote: post #6

Cannot cite Chesterton's fence too often. In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the…

> a fence or gate erected across a road. Except in many cases it is your responsibility to ask. If something has indefined legal status, and no documentation, it is a major red flag. Very often corruption, drug or people trafficking or other shady stuff. If you want gate in middle of the public road, show the paperwork! Or I will call authorities!

How you ask the question matters just as much as whether you should ask it. Impressionable ears are everywhere and asking 'is there icecream in the house?' means that everyone is about to get a bowl or be upset.

Re: Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role

#13

Post by hinkley »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #9
throw8484949ii wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a fence or gate erected across a road. Except in many cases it is your responsibility to ask. If something has indefined legal status, and no documentation, it is a major red flag. Very often corruption, drug or people trafficking or other shady stuff. If you want gate in middle of the public road, show the paperwork! Or I will call authorities!

Yes, Chesterton clearly hadn’t started working at a job where he was responsible for the security or accuracy of a process. “Then Marge calculates the late penalties by hand and enters them into the system? It’s fine, she … has a method?Really?”

Chesterton was talking about politics (public policy). And 'responsible for security or accuracy' well, have you heard of politics? If you haven't, don't look it up, it will just depress you.

Re: Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role

#14

Post by NoItsDanger »

emil-lp wrote: post #6

Cannot cite Chesterton's fence too often. In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the…

I’ve always liked Chesterton’s Fire.

Maybe there’s a reason you’re on fire. Until you can say for sure, I will not put it out.

I will just be here roasting these marshmallows on your burning flesh. :)

Re: Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role

#15

Post by antisthenes »

This is why I like to build analysis tools first.

Making the ultimate visibility tool isn't just helpful to me as a newcomer. It may be useful to many veterans and people who haven't had the time to make this tool for themselves.

But I'm also somewhat biased towards laziness/observation.

Re: Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role

#16

Post by hinkley »

Nobody talks about SEI anymore but their Capability Maturity Model informed and/or aligned with how I approach new-to-me projects whether that 'new role' is internal or a new employer.

CMM says that an engineering team whose processes aren't written down is level 0, and writing them down, even if they are batshit, gets you to level 1. Which leads to a fun bit of catharsis with the older employees where they get to say things like, "and then a miracle occurs".

Also writing things down gives someone else a peek into what's going on in your head and they can correct bad assumptions you have before they get cemented and take more effort to dig out of your thought processes.

So I always start with fixing the documentation, the runbooks, the CI process. It's a deliverable you can engage in without breaking production, it demonstrates mastery, it fixes a pain point that the more professionally mature members of the team care about, which gets you brownie points with the right sort of people. And it makes it easier to onboard the next person, or pick back up a project that has been on the back burner for several quarters.

TODOs emerge from the documentation or get explained away as unnecessary or wontfix. By the time you're touching something you have a better idea of why things are like they are, so you make up for 'lost' time.

Re: Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role

#17

Post by sillysaurusx »

jgable wrote: post #5

OT: This is the first time in a while that I’ve seen the phrase “load-bearing” used in a natural way. :-)

Is it natural? It immediately made me suspect AI, if for no other reason than every human is avoiding it now so they’re not confused with AI.

Props to the author if they simply don’t care though.

Re: Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role

#19

Post by gwerbin »

NoItsDanger wrote: post #14
emil-lp wrote: post #6

Cannot cite Chesterton's fence too often. In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the…

I’ve always liked Chesterton’s Fire. Maybe there’s a reason you’re on fire. Until you can say for sure, I will not put it out. I will just be here roasting these marshmallows on your burning flesh. :)

What a ridiculous misrepresentation of the principle. In fact isn't that a good illustration of the principle? The fence is just sitting there, maybe it's annoying or slows you down but it isn't actually an acute problem or an emergency. All the more reason to not just rip it out without taking the time to understand why it's there.

Re: Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role

#20

Post by pm90 »

Solid article. Its worth calling out one thing thats maybe not emphasized enough though: while your contributions may start small make sure to publicize them appropriately. No need to cross post to every channel, but do post about it somewhere or socialize it somehow. Take a lot of time to craft a thoughtful and easy to read message.

Reputations are hard to earn and easy to destroy. Trust building at any new institution takes a lot of time and effort and can seem annoying. But just doing solid work and communicating about it consistently will make sure that like minded people notice you, vouch for you and then give you more opportunities.

Post reply on HN