111–120 of 162 posts
The author's blog is incredibly good. I'm binging some articles right now :)
Thanks! If you have anything you particularly like or dislike please let me know. I'd really appreciate any feedback.
I read this a few weeks ago and some things there made a lot of sense, but I still can't envision the whole development process with Risk First being a protagonist.
Me and my team are in the process of delivering a new infrastructure provisioning system that will bring 9 figures worth of equipment online this year. For the most part we're on time modulo the usual bobbles that come from a year-long project this size.
My upper management regularly says We're in a new safe space and there's room to fail, we're trying to be more like Silicon Valley, etc. My new manager told me in our last 1:1 'If you don't take your application stack you're delivering and turn it into a service in the next 60 days, I'll eliminate your job by year end.'
So we're right back to Go Big or Go Home pressure that the company has always exerted on people despite lip service to the idea we've shed our bad old ways. At least it feels that way to me. Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I should look for another job. LOL.
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Well, you're probably training them to be autonomous just like I'm training my dogs to use the dog door. They're still uncomfortable doing so because they're used to me letting them out, but every so often I let them do their own thing and they eventually find their way out. Soon it will become habit and they won't depend on me so much anymore.
Serious question I've had about dog doors: How does a dog door prevent rodents and other riffraff from coming in?
That being said, I grew up in an area completely surrounded by trees and every animal imaginable (squirrels, rabbits, coyotes, raccoons, opossums, deer, etc). We had a dog door (a simple plastic flap) to our barn. I saw raccoons and squirrels with nests literally 10ft from the dog door. Nothing ever came inside. The barn even had food (dog food, plus a fridge and cupboards with snacks). It was even heated during the winter. Nothing came in. I don't know the reasoning, but that little piece of plastic kept everything out.
I think the serenity prayer, sans unnecessary theological content, is relevant here. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the ones I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. For a lot of software products, there is no winning in the long run. You've got good product-market fit and customer loyalty, but your code base is a huge mess and the hard technical problems are so…
I've spent a lot of my career working to correct projects that have been in a terrible state and had the privilege to mentor and help pull people out of bad situations.
One of the big things I try to do is to get people to think about what they care about and how much they care. Good people do a lot of harm to themselves by caring about the wrong things: they want to be the hero in their story, but forget that six months from now nobody will remember the sacrifices they made.
One part of this is to accept the amount of work that needs to be done is only impacted in a small way by the work you've done today. If you work 8 hours or 16 hours there's still going to be too much work tomorrow.
Working longer hours generally does nothing than hide structural issues. By encouraging teams to cut their workload from 60+ hour weeks to 40, you are forcing these issues into the open.
For those that are ever in a bad situation I'm happy to listen (my contact details are in my profile), sometimes you just need somebody with an external perspective.
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Don’t be afraid of the theological content. It’s a good prayer. God believes in you even if you don’t believe in him.
Sad that you get downvoted just because your views aren't "a la mode". I'm not religious any more but I see no need to be anti-religious
Edit: I can't downvote
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For those, like me, wondering what Permit A 38 is: https://asterix.fandom.com/wiki/The_Place_That_Sends_You_Mad I wasn't familiar with it before, but might start using it, as it's unfortunately relevant at work.
I discovered that the full animated film (in English) can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOhRhq6Pr6g
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I find that emotional compartmentalization is a critical skill. A couple years ago, I faced a very tough time in my life. My business was collapsing, my family's finances were in jeopardy, and there was a serious health issue going on. The emotional stress was incapacitating. I couldn't sleep, let alone focus enough to fix my problems. It was the downward spiral nightmare scenario. If I didn't have dependents (wife +…
It's pretty useful for most day-to-day things, but (1) who you are can absolutely be changed by external circumstances - see TBIs and other long-lasting traumas, and (2) there are medical illnesses where you can be mostly robbed of your ideas - which by this mantra leaves you powerless to change your world. I'm not saying that to take away anything from the well-being brought by this interesting personal prayer, beca…
Its a little known secret that managers deliberately promote anxiety driven development because it keeps workers at "peak productivity". A couple of the major things i've seen companies do in the past over and over again to myself and to others I worked with: 1. Ambiguous or no deadlines, frequent check ins, "crunches" when their deliberately poor planning doens't work, keeping an air of uncertainty around everything…
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I find that emotional compartmentalization is a critical skill. A couple years ago, I faced a very tough time in my life. My business was collapsing, my family's finances were in jeopardy, and there was a serious health issue going on. The emotional stress was incapacitating. I couldn't sleep, let alone focus enough to fix my problems. It was the downward spiral nightmare scenario. If I didn't have dependents (wife +…
It's pretty useful for most day-to-day things, but (1) who you are can absolutely be changed by external circumstances - see TBIs and other long-lasting traumas, and (2) there are medical illnesses where you can be mostly robbed of your ideas - which by this mantra leaves you powerless to change your world. I'm not saying that to take away anything from the well-being brought by this interesting personal prayer, beca…
But nothing of all that totally helped; I still had this sadness and anxiety and lack/absence of self confidence.
Then many years later turns out I have an illness, hypothyreosis, that causes this. And medication (levothyroxine) made all this go away, and I'm a different person nowadays.
> who you are can absolutely be changed by [...] circumstances [...] illnesses
That's very correct. I've been two different personalities — one sad, anxious, withdrawn, another happy and social. It's weird what hormone levels can do to the brain and who one ... who one is? one's personality.
Anyway, if someone has depression and anxiety feelings, and meditation and self help books won't make that go away — then, a blood sample test, it's just 5 minutes. (Well, plus bus / subway / something to the health clinic.)
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Thanks! If you have anything you particularly like or dislike please let me know. I'd really appreciate any feedback.
I'd like to make a fan request: what do you think of this? https://riskfirst.org/ I read this a few weeks ago and some things there made a lot of sense, but I still can't envision the whole development process with Risk First being a protagonist.
I think what it really is about is managing uncertainty and talking about risks is one of many tools for that.