How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#71

Post by cookiecaper » Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 12:51 PM UTC

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…

The post opposes excessive constraint. An example of that would be making your examples hard and fast, inviolable rules: there are movies that use text and books that use pictures and illustrations to great effect. The constraint may be "presentation should be primarily visual and auditory, and not require much reading". The over-constraint would be "presentation must be exclusively visual and auditory, and no text may be displayed on screen".

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#72

Post by benjvi » Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 12:53 PM UTC

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…

The thing we don't always recognize is, there are constraints either way. Part of the process or designing or solving any problem is to realize what the constraints are - you're unlikely to fulfill any constraints you're not sure about! By focusing on what the constraints should be from the start, you have a clear idea of what problem you're trying to solve

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#73

Post by mathattack » Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 1:17 PM UTC

Great article. I've come to believe that Ben Horowitz is the best management writer today. He comes from a technical place, and has learned the ways of management via the school of hard knocks. And every interesting project worth doing comes from the school of hard knocks.

I've seen this problem in organizations many times. When you do bottom-up organization design, the most persuasive people win. Then people start justifying promotions and pay based on the size of their teams. And those who were more disciplined in the process lose, because they could have done more with more people, just optimally.

The other perverse side effect of this is some people who are great with 4-5 people teams (good player-coaches) are disasters as the head of 30 person organizations. Their style doesn't scale, but they feel the need to grow because of the poor incentives.

This type of issue comes up in consulting quite a bit, where "Fees managed" can be the key metric rather than "Customer ROI" or "Customer Satisfaction."

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#74

Post by apples2apples » Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 1:53 PM UTC

Currently in a project situation with no budget and blue sky dreams. I can't say how much I love this article enough.

I think one of the unspoken insights here is: give your projects a budget.

I've been with two startups now that didn't do this and see them either think there is no budget or there is infinite budget. Ultimately both CEOs would say "Just come ask me" which means that you now have to pester the busiest person at the company to get a budget. It is effectively giving the project no budget.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#75

Post by apples2apples » Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 1:53 PM UTC

Currently in a project situation with no budget and blue sky dreams. I can't say how much I love this article enough.

I think one of the unspoken insights here is: give your projects a budget.

I've been with two startups now that didn't do this and see them either think there is no budget or there is infinite budget. Ultimately both CEOs would say "Just come ask me" which means that you now have to pester the busiest person at the company to get a budget. It is effectively giving the project no budget.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#76

Post by the_real_bto » Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 2:09 PM UTC

rodgerd wrote: post #18

the_real_bto wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure I follow. I see the constraint of the first system as the natural fear of failure that comes from doing something new. It is an implicit constraint. The second system is less constrained in my view than the first.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#77

Post by peterwwillis » Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #69

peterwwillis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 doub…

> 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. No you're not, you're being entirely consistent.…

On a literal basis it is racist because you invoke race. On a logical basis it is racist because you ignore context and treat the use of a word based on the color of the skin of the person using it. On a moral basis it is racist because one group getting offended is not any more or less valid than some other group getting offended.

Most importantly, the fact that the word is offensive to someone does not invalidate the racist double-standard. That's what context means: that the use of a word or phrase has multiple properties. On the one hand, use of the word by a white person is offensive. On the other hand, saying a white person can not use that word is racist. Both of these things are true at the same time.

You can attempt to gloss over these facts by saying "oh, historical use" or "oh, it's offensive" and many other reasons, but that does not remove the racism inherent to the double standard which is based on the color of the skin of the speaker. If the word was not offensive, it would still be a racist double standard.

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#78

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 3:02 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #77

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. No you're not, you're being entirely consistent.…

On a literal basis it is racist because you invoke race. On a logical basis it is racist because you ignore context and treat the use of a word based on the color of the skin of the person using it. On a moral basis it is racist because one group getting offended is not any more or less valid than some other group getting offended. Most importantly, the fact that the word is offensive to someone does not invalidate t…

To be clear you're drawing a comparison between a white person getting offended by not being allowed to use an offensive word, and a black person getting offended by a word which has strong connotations to literally generations of oppression including but not limited to being bought and sold as property?

Seriously?

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#79

Post by AndrewKemendo » Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 3:30 PM UTC

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.

> Lyrics are lyrics, and the ones he quoted in particular have no racial overtones.

Except they do, and it matters because they signal group membership. Especially as is concerned with this particular word, there is too much history to throw it around haphazardly.

>Lots of songs have the words "cunt" and "motherfucker"

Both of which have basically no social stigma beyond simply being vulgar

Re: How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process

#80

Post by walshemj » Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 3:34 PM UTC

Flimm wrote: post #63

rmason wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read a story once where someone said at a company wide meeting with the CEO, if you continue to refer to us as "headcount" then we're going to start calling you "overhead".

I don't understand what's wrong with the term "headcount".

its the dehumanising nature of HR jargon - probably makes it easier to right size the work force if you don't get to close to your "talent"