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The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

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Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#11

Post by hedora »

jasonlotito wrote: post #3

This is from part 2, but wow... > Do not use mushy words like ... ownership, If you think ownership is just mushy words, you've never given someone ownership. Giving someone ownership isn't just mush. It's real, and can have real impact. Of course, this also literally means giving them some actual, real, legal ownership in that project and it's results. This is especially hypocritical when paired with an "actual exam…

The stuff you quoted as “mush” can be continuously quantified as part of normal ongoing business.

Legal ownership can’t be quantified in that way. You’d need to go to court and have a judge decide who really owns the product and liability, and then evaluate that person / entity’s job performance.

To use an aviation analogy, you’re proposing replacing randomly spot checking of assemblies for properly tightened bolts, etc., with the legal shell game that Boeing currently uses.

The spot checks would have been less expensive upfront, and also alerted them to their current issues 5-10 years earlier. At that point it would have been trivial to fix.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#13

Post by Jerrrry »

xyzelement wrote: post #4
jasonlotito wrote: post #3

This is from part 2, but wow... > Do not use mushy words like ... ownership, If you think ownership is just mushy words, you've never given someone ownership. Giving someone ownership isn't just mush. It's real, and can have real impact. Of course, this also literally means giving them some actual, real, legal ownership in that project and it's results. This is especially hypocritical when paired with an "actual exam…

I disagree with you. I spent most of my career in a great company that is privately owned (famous billionaire.) The company pays extremely well but does not provide any sort of "legal ownership" as you describe. Still, I felt massive ownership of stuff I've .. well .. "owned" and I benefited financially and emotionally from it. I am no longer at the company but I have pride in what I've built there and the fact that…

>>I told him that I used to be in [z] and had built systems X and Y - and he was like "you're the guy?! I use those things every day, they are game changing in our industry." That felt very good.

It is taken a bit for granted, developers' massive ability to impact the workflow, and thus morale, for a significant amount of people; for better or for worse.

Knowing my 15 minute coffee HTML exercise can save 500+ people 10+ minutes daily, with a near instant feedback loop, was about as resolved as I could had been.

It plays into the need to be needed, the inverse of the fear of being replaced, the most basic innate thought in our psyche's.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#14

Post by clintonc »

This reads as a cynical description by someone who identifies as a "skilled pragmatist" (as I do, incidentally), but it doesn't seem to have a useful point of view. For example, "playing the system" and "making waves" have other names -- "driving initiatives" and "cross-team collaboration". They seem like "mushy" phrases because they are not well-defined sets of tasks like "deliver feature A" can become.

Are skilled pragmatists undervalued? Maybe, but this article doesn't do an good job of making me believe that.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#15

Post by sneak »

luisgvv wrote: post #7

I began as a junior dev and climbed up the ranks til the point where I became the SME in some areas of the product. Got laid off because sales goals were not met while they retained people which I think were incompetent in their work. Even some guys which I think were better and more critical to the projects were dumped. I'm not climbing that ladder by being proactive and "pragmatic" again... Call me a paycheck steal…

To assume all organizations reward or value expertise the same way is to cap your maximum lifetime earnings, methinks.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#16

Post by hinkley »

I don’t think I can agree that 75% of the workforce falls into one quadrant. Particularly this one.

If I’m very lucky the semi space contains 60% of my coworkers, if I’m unlucky (or arrive after the writing is on the wall) it’s more like 1/3.

I suspect part of the confusion is that there are some people with enough political acumen to appear like frustrated agents of change without actually having the drive or skill to do so. If you create opportunities for these people to show up, you may be shocked to find them making excuses for why they still can’t.

And truthfully the industry is not full of untapped brilliant people. It isn’t even “full” of brilliant people period. maybe 1/4 of the human population could be counted as very smart, and we get a disproportionate share of them for sure, but it’s definitely not more than half.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#17

Post by dakiol »

luisgvv wrote: post #7

I began as a junior dev and climbed up the ranks til the point where I became the SME in some areas of the product. Got laid off because sales goals were not met while they retained people which I think were incompetent in their work. Even some guys which I think were better and more critical to the projects were dumped. I'm not climbing that ladder by being proactive and "pragmatic" again... Call me a paycheck steal…

> Just give me some JIRA ticket and let me read books while I get my job done in 1-2 hours a day.

Aren't we all (normal and decent people) doing this already?

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#19

Post by jabroni_salad »

To me, pragmatism is set of knives by which I decide what to leave on the cutting room floor. The biggest one I have is that there are only so many hours in a day but more issues on the board than can fit into it. The second one is that my time billable, and anything that doesnt count towards my utilization is de facto not valued by the company.

The overrunning theme seems to be 'how do we get more from a pragmatist' but my response is you can look at my todo list and rearrange it whenever you want. I am happy with my work, the metrics are on target, the feedback I get from clients is great and they ask for me on their future projects. Only one person is unahppy and its the guy who squints at spreadsheets all day. I think he is the one who is wrong.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#20

Post by netbioserror »

Interesting model. Reminds me of all the methods of breaking down game players (e.g. honers vs. innovators, Jimmys vs. Timmys, etc.). I'm very lucky to work at a small shop that can't afford the other three sectors; there are too few of us, each of us needs to impactfully improve our part of the product stack. In fact, we each basically have full ownership of our part of the product stack. Yes, I know, bus factor. But when we're a team of 7 with a fair number of software components all connected together, each one needs a clear vision. Also luckily, we do team interviews; it's fairly easy for us to suss out BS and identify matching competent people who fit the pragmatist mold.
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