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How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

bhorowitz.com

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Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#11

Post by debt »

GFischer wrote: post #10
debt wrote: post #8

Budgeting is particularly interesting in a situation where you receive funding. It seems it would be much easier to budget in a bootstrap situation, where growth is likely happening a bit more slowly. You're slowly adding a person(engineer, marketer, salesperson, etc.) here and there as you go along(as needed), buying more servers, etc. I would assume budgeting is a bit different in a situation where you receive a ma…

I thought you had to show investors what you were planning to do with the money before getting it? Of course the actual budgeting will be different, but at least have a broad outline.

I would assume so. But if the idea or company fails or the planned trajectory falls short, how would the company know it was the budgeting process at fault versus some other factor?

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#12

Post by zachrose »

virmundi wrote: post #4
jobu wrote: post #2

"If you quadruple your engineering headcount in a year, you will likely have less absolute throughput than if you doubled headcount. As an added bonus, you will burn way more cash." This is a great point (although I hate the term "headcount"). It takes time to get engineers up to speed in any organization, and it usually cuts into the productive time of current engineers.

A mentor of mine, David Kathan, said something more colorful, "Of course, you can have a baby in a month if you use 9 women". People should read Mythical Man Month more.

And yet it's true!*

*On average.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#13

Post by the_real_bto »

virmundi wrote: post #4
jobu wrote: post #2

"If you quadruple your engineering headcount in a year, you will likely have less absolute throughput than if you doubled headcount. As an added bonus, you will burn way more cash." This is a great point (although I hate the term "headcount"). It takes time to get engineers up to speed in any organization, and it usually cuts into the productive time of current engineers.

A mentor of mine, David Kathan, said something more colorful, "Of course, you can have a baby in a month if you use 9 women". People should read Mythical Man Month more.

Fred Brooks has some gems. I'm especially fond of the Second System Effect [0]

[0] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SecondSystemEffect

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#14

Post by AndrewKemendo »

Interesting article for sure and I think it highlights exactly how you get unwanted bloat and how to prevent it. Budgeting has always been a dark art, especially for creative work, and adding smart constraints on the front end are some ways to reign things in - however I think this largely applies to the companies who can say the following: "we had plenty of cash in the bank." I know for us our budgeting process is, what is on fire and can our limited amount of cash put it out?

Changing gears though, I have to say that I was immediately turned off by Ben quoting a rap lyric at the beginning of his article. Not because I don't like rap, I do, but because of the lyric he chose.

I think this one is particularly egregious given that the quote includes the term "nigga" - even though it was of course self censored - which I don't think is particularly appropriate coming from a white man.

Not really a big thing, and it doesn't impact the overall message (which is why I think it only hurts things) but it may strike others wrong too.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#15

Post by trefn »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #14

Interesting article for sure and I think it highlights exactly how you get unwanted bloat and how to prevent it. Budgeting has always been a dark art, especially for creative work, and adding smart constraints on the front end are some ways to reign things in - however I think this largely applies to the companies who can say the following: "we had plenty of cash in the bank." I know for us our budgeting process is,…

http://www.bhorowitz.com/the_legend_of_the_blind_mc

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#16

Post by chrisweekly »

nostrademons wrote: post #7

"As a technologist, you know that the worst thing that you can do is over-constrain the problem before you start. You'll kill creativity and prevent yourself from getting a truly great outcome." As an engineer, I love hearing firm constraints from the beginning. The constraints are what breed elegance; there is no such thing as an elegant solution when there is no shape to the problem. It's nice if the constraints ar…

"constraints are what breed elegance" This; 1000x this.

I think this is also the reason so many really old-school video games are still not just playable, but can actually (arguably, of course) be even more fun than most of the current-gen eye candy. I'm thinking of Pac-man, Joust, and their ilk. Talk about embracing constraints.

EMBRACE CONSTRAINTS!

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#18

Post by rodgerd »

the_real_bto wrote: post #13
virmundi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mentor of mine, David Kathan, said something more colorful, "Of course, you can have a baby in a month if you use 9 women". People should read Mythical Man Month more.

Fred Brooks has some gems. I'm especially fond of the Second System Effect [0] [0] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SecondSystemEffect

Which is a refutation of the idea in the essat that the best engineering happens when there are no constraints.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#19

Post by kbouck »

nostrademons wrote: post #7

"As a technologist, you know that the worst thing that you can do is over-constrain the problem before you start. You'll kill creativity and prevent yourself from getting a truly great outcome." As an engineer, I love hearing firm constraints from the beginning. The constraints are what breed elegance; there is no such thing as an elegant solution when there is no shape to the problem. It's nice if the constraints ar…

To borrow from another field, there's a great 1969 interview with Charles Eames [1] (famed furniture designer) in which he discusses design, and constraints as being a necessary component of design. A pleasure to read.

Excerpts:

Interviewer: Does the creation of Design admit constraint?

Eames: Design depends largely on constraints.

Interviewer: What constraints?

Eames: The sum of all constraints. Here is one of the few effective keys to the design problem: the ability of the designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible, his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints. The constraints of price, size, strength, balance, time and so forth. Each problem has its own peculiar list.

Interviewer: Does Design obey laws?

Eames: Aren’t constraints enough?

[1] http://blog.designersrevolt.com/post/52143068880/the-definit...

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#20

Post by coldcode »

I saw where it was going right at the start, I've seen it a lot in various startups I've worked with. Growing a company past certain sizes often winds up failing due to unbridled optimism. Reason goes out the window as growth seems it will never end; people buy into it and want to expand their role for when it hits the big time. The end is often a mess. Eventually either sanity prevails or it goes bust.
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