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Kanban – The Secret Engineer Killer

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Re: Kanban – The Secret Engineer Killer

#21

Post by fleitz »

bdehaaff wrote: post #15
fleitz wrote: post #11

Like 'fad diets' most of the reasons that kanban fails is because the organization was sick to begin with and kanban would have helped if not for the structure of the organization in the first place. Fad diets mostly fail because people go back to eating the same shitty way they did before, just as when a team adopts kanban marketing and product go back to the same stupid way of doing things they did before. The sad…

I agree with your thoughts around dysfunction as it relates to fad diets and poor habits. I also think that many engineers think they know best, but in a well functioning org PM actually knows the customers and market and has a collaborative relationship with engineering. Do you think that PM has no role or that in most cases they just don't do it well?

It's easy for product and marketing to convince engineers by demonstrating results. Usually they come up with some stupid idea, engineers waste time building it, and then it fails. But instead of letting it die, they add yet more sub-features to their stupid fucking feature no one wants.

Re: Kanban – The Secret Engineer Killer

#22

Post by bdehaaff »

bhattisatish wrote: post #17
bdehaaff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your thoughts around dysfunction as it relates to fad diets and poor habits. I also think that many engineers think they know best, but in a well functioning org PM actually knows the customers and market and has a collaborative relationship with engineering. Do you think that PM has no role or that in most cases they just don't do it well?

On the contrary in the Kanban process, PM is the pivotal role. They control the que, the cadence of feature releases, etc ... Without an effective PM, the whole thing will fall as a pack of cards.

True. But PM needs to pick its head up and think more broadly. A "one in one out" queue is contrary to delivering winning product.

Re: Kanban – The Secret Engineer Killer

#23

Post by bdehaaff »

fleitz wrote: post #21
bdehaaff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your thoughts around dysfunction as it relates to fad diets and poor habits. I also think that many engineers think they know best, but in a well functioning org PM actually knows the customers and market and has a collaborative relationship with engineering. Do you think that PM has no role or that in most cases they just don't do it well?

It's easy for product and marketing to convince engineers by demonstrating results. Usually they come up with some stupid idea, engineers waste time building it, and then it fails. But instead of letting it die, they add yet more sub-features to their stupid fucking feature no one wants.

This is a sure sign of a broken PM group (and product dev team in general). Great teams are made of equal parts PM, Eng, Design and a group of folks who can actually position and sell a product.

Re: Kanban – The Secret Engineer Killer

#24

Post by bhattisatish »

bdehaaff wrote: post #16
seivan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The sad part is that in the vast majority of organization engineering actually knows more about the product than product or marketing." This so much.

They might know more about the product but in a functioning org if they know more about the customers or market -- something is terribly wrong (unless it is software for engineers). Agree?

I don't really agree with this view point that engineering should know less then PM. In a good team, Engineering knows what features are there, why are they there and what sales / customers are hankering for, and also how they where implemented. Sales is generally aware of what is more valuable to a given customer Marketing has an overall idea of how the market is behaving. PM is the crucible where all these information comes in and they need to define how product will be built. But please note, each subteam should have a strong idea of the market. If not, then people are not effectively communicating. Lack of communication is a sure sign of dysfunctional team, which results in each teams working on their pet projects, but no one knows when what will come out of the whole process.

Re: Kanban – The Secret Engineer Killer

#25

Post by bdehaaff »

arkades wrote: post #8

What the heck do kanban have to do with project management? Speaking -as- a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (still can't type that with a straight face) in the healthcare sector, I can't even imagine how someone would set out using a kanban to run a company. That's just so wildly divorced from what it is or what it's for that that article made no sense to me.

This is somewhat the point. Engineering managers have started to reach for Kanban -- and it does not fit.

Re: Kanban – The Secret Engineer Killer

#26

Post by fleitz »

bdehaaff wrote: post #23
fleitz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy for product and marketing to convince engineers by demonstrating results. Usually they come up with some stupid idea, engineers waste time building it, and then it fails. But instead of letting it die, they add yet more sub-features to their stupid fucking feature no one wants.

This is a sure sign of a broken PM group (and product dev team in general). Great teams are made of equal parts PM, Eng, Design and a group of folks who can actually position and sell a product.

For sure, which is the fundamental reason why kanban doesn't work.

If you have good teams basically all you need is a thin layer of process that prevents total chaos, kanban is a good fit for that, but most teams implement kanban in a cargo cult manner.

I've worked on sales driven teams where I fundamentally trusted the sales guy because when he said if you make feature X I can sell it for $Y dollars and we made bank doing that.

Conversely I've worked on teams where everyone was trying to avoid being fired and would only make decisions that were defensible, eg. company X is doing Y so lets do Y, resulting in the usual follow the leader failure.

Re: Kanban – The Secret Engineer Killer

#28

Post by [deleted] »

bhattisatish wrote: post #17
bdehaaff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your thoughts around dysfunction as it relates to fad diets and poor habits. I also think that many engineers think they know best, but in a well functioning org PM actually knows the customers and market and has a collaborative relationship with engineering. Do you think that PM has no role or that in most cases they just don't do it well?

On the contrary in the Kanban process, PM is the pivotal role. They control the que, the cadence of feature releases, etc ... Without an effective PM, the whole thing will fall as a pack of cards.

[deleted]

Re: Kanban – The Secret Engineer Killer

#29

Post by bdehaaff »

jacques_chester wrote: post #20
bdehaaff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I am not an expert in this area (diet success data) and was simply trying to use an analogy. I guess I will leave it as is. I am not sure what else to do -- it seems that leaving it with no reference would be worse.

Well at least you can join the noble ranks of folk whose writing was tangentially nitpicked in the very first HN comment.

Happens every time. I have learned to expect it. It does make me spend a little more time though thinking through the counter arguments that are likely to be fired like spears.

Re: Kanban – The Secret Engineer Killer

#30

Post by bhattisatish »

bdehaaff wrote: post #22
bhattisatish wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary in the Kanban process, PM is the pivotal role. They control the que, the cadence of feature releases, etc ... Without an effective PM, the whole thing will fall as a pack of cards.

True. But PM needs to pick its head up and think more broadly. A "one in one out" queue is contrary to delivering winning product.

As I have said below (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6119175) You need to delink engineering releases from marketing releases. Where is it written that when the engineering releases a feature you need to make a marketing push? When you have a collection of features ready which as a whole makes sense for marketing, then you make a marketing release with all the related PR, hype cycle, etc ...
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