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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

#31

Post by teyc »

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…

This also neatly ties in with the Mythical Man Month. You cannot increase the headcount to in the hope that you can accelerate. There is a great deal of domain knowledge that is locked up, and initially - growing involves having a person who is wearing multiple hats to give up one of their hats.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#32

Post by georgemcbay »

carbocation wrote: post #25
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 gave us Facebook instead of Myspace. Constraints gave us Twitter. Constraints gave us Snapchat. Social networks have thrived on obvious constraints. When looking for a startup idea, sometimes I try to reimagine a popular tool or service with additional constraints.

I agree and would add that constraints gave us Star Wars: A New Hope instead of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

Which is to say that creatively working within hard constraints being a good thing is a universal creative rule, not specific to tech or social networks at all.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#33

Post by Thrymr »

meowface wrote: post #24
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,…

This attitude baffles me. He's quoting lyrics. Lyrics are lyrics, and the ones he quoted in particular have no racial overtones. And even if they did, who cares? Lots of songs have the words "cunt" and "motherfucker", but quoting those lyrics does not mean you are intending to insult a woman or accuse someone of having an Oedipus complex.

> Lots of songs have the words "cunt" and "motherfucker", but quoting those lyrics does not mean you are intending to insult a woman or accuse someone of having an Oedipus complex.

And yet many people (women and men) will find them insulting and offensive nevertheless, regardless of what you say your intent is.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#34

Post by voltagex_ »

mturmon wrote: post #28
trefn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.bhorowitz.com/the_legend_of_the_blind_mc

Thanks for that. Context is everything with these explosive words.

You may also like The Tanning of America, Horowitz is interviewed in parts and it's a really interesting documentary, but none of that story is mentioned in it

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#35

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> "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.

Sure, but note that these two points aren't in conflict. As someone building solutions, of course you want as firm a definition of the problem as possible, and constraints are part of that. But its still a critical failure to over-constrain the problem at the start (or any other time) -- constraints are essentially just a different way of phrasing requirements, and overconstraining a problem is exactly specifying superfluous requirements. Extra, unneeded constraints make the ultimate solution worse, because they mean you are solving the wrong problem -- and a more complicated problem than the one you actually needed to solve.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#36

Post by Avshalom »

dragonwriter wrote: post #35
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…

> "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. Sure, but note that these two points aren't in conflict. As someone building solutions, of course you want as firm a definition of the problem as possibl…

>But its still a critical failure to over-constrain

Well yes tautologies are tautological and all, but the point is that GP and the people agree with it suspect that their definition of "over-constrain" happens way way past where the article's author does.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#37

Post by peterwwillis »

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,…

> 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.

I think it's fine that you don't like the word 'nigga'. If you don't like hearing something, it's your prerogative to tell people that so they'll stop saying it.

But realize that by giving white people a double standard in terms of how they can express themselves, you're being racist against white people, and for black people, furthering the racial and cultural divide. Rationalizing treating people differently based on the color of their skin isn't any less racist just because you're on the populist, politically-correct side.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#38

Post by rhizome »

curun1r wrote: post #6

One part of his conclusion struck me as wrong: > As a technologist, you know that the worst thing that you can do is over-constrain the problem before you start. From what I've read on this subject, this is not the worst thing you can do. The absolute worst thing you can do from a creativity standpoint is be completely unconstrained. That "blue sky" thinking leads to a lack of focus that prevents you from coming up w…

I can't help but read between the lines on that quote: "As a businessperson, you know that deciding a direction is hard. Foist your half-baked ideas off on the technologists, and blame any shortcomings on over-constraint, on their failure to accomodate all possible pivots."

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#39

Post by grayclhn »

jeffdavis wrote: post #9
curun1r wrote: post #6

One part of his conclusion struck me as wrong: > As a technologist, you know that the worst thing that you can do is over-constrain the problem before you start. From what I've read on this subject, this is not the worst thing you can do. The absolute worst thing you can do from a creativity standpoint is be completely unconstrained. That "blue sky" thinking leads to a lack of focus that prevents you from coming up w…

I always think about it from an artistic standpoint. Art forms are almost defined by their constraints: movies can't use text, literature can't use pictures, ice sculpting can't use clay, mosaics can't use paint. Of course, art is also about breaking out of those constraints and creating new mediums. But that seems more about finding a new set of constraints rather than eliminating them entirely. Decide to break free…

Add to that: people who can successfully "break out of those constraints" are pretty rare. Most painters will get better results on the canvas than the mountainside.
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