Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

jsomers.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 177 posts

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#151

Post by TuringNYC »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #90
TuringNYC wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel both sorry for the parent and also relate to it. I have several sprints a year that get me so excited about work, that I will head to work after kids’ bedtimes to code — all night — because I can’t stop thinking about some solution. Sometimes I’m so excited I wouldn’t be able to sleep so might as well work.

Why do you do that for a company that would be throw you away if it made economic sense to do so? Why don't you find personal avenues in which to exert that creative energy for you, your family, or society?

In many ways, it is actually a very selfish decision on my part as an Engineer -- I'm doing it because i'm thrilled with my job, the product I work on (and launched) and cant stop thinking about some of the Engineering problems I encounter -- because they are so fascinating.

My current employer is shrewd in that they have aligned their interests to mine -- they have moved away most of the BS typical of engineering jobs. They have other people do the parts I don't enjoy doing, and they have given me wide latitude in Product and Product Engineering decisions. They have also given me wide latitude on task selection -- which tasks I take and which get assigned to others on my team (or others on other teams.) This isn't a constant state, it happens on several sprints a year.

On a side note, yes, I exert lots of creative energy in other domains. I'm on the board of a non-profit mentoring org, I'm an advisor to a nature conservancy organization, and I spend a huge amount of time with my family and children.

When I was single, I was part of a community food cooperative and several educational mentoring orgs. Now, the lions share of free time goes to children.

Side note -- if/when my employer turns into Initech and I'm filling out TPS Reports, you can be sure I'll be clocking out at 5pm.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#152

Post by ehnto »

erik_landerholm wrote: post #142
koonsolo wrote: post #101

40 year old here. Speed doesn't matter as much as WHAT you deliver. First of all, people do not know how much time something takes. And secondly, they will forget how much time it took, but not how well it was made. Responding fast to emails is just crazy. I lost count on how many urgent problems got resolved automatically. "Hey can you help me with this". 15 minutes later "Nevermind, found it". I'm in the "Slow is s…

This sounds like people who quote "slow in, fast out" in racing. Just like here it's not true. It's a "rule of thumb" for beginners. It has use in that context. The way to win a race is fast in, fast out, same with software. edit: I'm 42, if the matters.

The point is not to be fast but to be correct. In racing, smooth is fast because you didn't mess up and run off line or crash.

In software smooth is fast because you didn't have to bug squash and refactor. But even if it isn't faster, the grandparent comments point was that it doesn't matter as much as being correct anyway.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#153

Post by ThalesX »

mellosouls wrote: post #74
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I will gladly work for 2 - 3 months on hyper mode, giving away my mental and physical health for a feature that will actually provide business value and for which the business can make a good case for why it's needed yesterday. I feel sorry for you. As some who's been around the block a few times, I will never, EVER, give away my mental or physical health for someone's business. My health is more important than thei…

Yeah, that sentence leapt out at me too. Bizarre life priorities, and undermines otherwise sensible remarks.

I think I might have given the impression that I'm advocating for this kind of sprint as a regular occurrence when I'm actually advocating for very spaced out moments (the kind you can count on your hand in your entire career), well chosen and with the proper aftercare.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#154

Post by markbnj »

tejtm wrote: post #128
markbnj wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And secondly, they will forget how much time it took, but not how well it was made. Absolutely. Not saying speed is never an important metric, but virtually all complicated engineering and construction projects are difficult to schedule and exceed their time budgets. If the end result is worth it those birthing pains are quickly forgotten. But a poor output will never be forgotten.

Things do not exceed their time budgets, they take as long as they take. Time budgets are incorrectly predicted to be shorter so that, in advance, they appeal to profit oriented motivations.

> they take as long as they take

Sure, agreed, which is not to say that time budgets don't exist, and aren't exceeded :).

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#155

Post by ThalesX »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #92
ThalesX wrote: post #61

For me, after years producing software, I've set myself up to be able to say no. I disregard urgency when it exists for urgency's sake, coming out of business despair or a gut feeling. I will gladly work for 2 - 3 months on hyper mode, giving away my mental and physical health for a feature that will actually provide business value and for which the business can make a good case for why it's needed yesterday. Working…

ThalesX, your comment here is better than the linked article. Well said. Looking back over the years of software development I've been involved in (jeez, 27) and remembering the things that were developed with all haste, not one of them, not a single one, met with success. There were some that were developed quickly, usually to meet contractual deadlines, that were good and gave the customer what they needed, but eve…

Thank you for the kind words.

If I may add this, I believe two forces are particularly strong when leading us to deliver rushed solutions. One is this expectancy of the market to ever grow, faster, stronger, harder. All. The. Time. The second is stakeholder focus on the short term and using estimates as deadlines to 3rd parties.

These forces get translated by business people into the classic 9 women can give birth to a child in 1 month situation which we can actually deliver because most of them can actually get even more value from being able to sell maintenance.

Hey, as long as lives don't get lost from shoddy implementations all is well; oh wait...

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#156

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

ThalesX wrote: post #145
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I will gladly work for 2 - 3 months on hyper mode, giving away my mental and physical health for a feature that will actually provide business value and for which the business can make a good case for why it's needed yesterday. I feel sorry for you. As some who's been around the block a few times, I will never, EVER, give away my mental or physical health for someone's business. My health is more important than thei…

> I feel sorry for you. I'm doing O.K., thank you for the concern. > As some who's been around the block a few times, I will never, EVER, give away my mental or physical health for someone's business. > My health is more important than their quarterly targets. I wholeheartedly agree, however I believe there are some situations where such a choice is not so bad. If you're young, have no obligations, believe in what yo…

>however I believe there are some situations where such a choice is not so bad. If you're young, have no obligations, believe in what you do and will end up a lot better after the sprint

How will YOU end up better after the sprint if you're not working on your own product but on your company's? That will benefit your CEO and shareholders for sure but how does it benefit YOU exactly?

Keep in mind, you have one health in your life and when it's gone it's gone for good whereas there'll be plenty of world-changing unicorns where you can work yourself to exhaustion if that's what you wish. Nobody has ever regretted on their deathbed not having worked more for someone else.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#157

Post by joshlegs »

api wrote: post #110
koonsolo wrote: post #101

40 year old here. Speed doesn't matter as much as WHAT you deliver. First of all, people do not know how much time something takes. And secondly, they will forget how much time it took, but not how well it was made. Responding fast to emails is just crazy. I lost count on how many urgent problems got resolved automatically. "Hey can you help me with this". 15 minutes later "Nevermind, found it". I'm in the "Slow is s…

Another 40 year old here: I mostly agree and I've also found that thinking deeply about a problem for a long time before trying to build anything pays huge dividends. In particular I spend a long time thinking about how I can simplify the design to save implementation time, which means actually building it is faster. I also think a lot about UX and DX: simplifying installation, interface, maintenance, removing unnece…

36 yo here. I've found that it is incredibly easy to 'overthink' and therefore overengineer things, and I've seen a LOT of my coworkers fall into that trap. Analysis paralysis is real, and delivering something and then being able to iterate on it is a massive step in overcoming that. Way wayyyy too often I've seen people try to think of all the edge cases before starting work, and that's just not a viable approach to software development in today's world.

Also, disclaimer, I didnt actually read the article :o

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#158

Post by papln »

koonsolo wrote: post #101

40 year old here. Speed doesn't matter as much as WHAT you deliver. First of all, people do not know how much time something takes. And secondly, they will forget how much time it took, but not how well it was made. Responding fast to emails is just crazy. I lost count on how many urgent problems got resolved automatically. "Hey can you help me with this". 15 minutes later "Nevermind, found it". I'm in the "Slow is s…

> "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast"

"A stitch in time saves nine."

"Haste makes waste."

Speed helps you deliver more.

Delivering something after it is needed is useless. Chronically delivering things the day after requirements change due to the world turning, is uselees.

Musicians and other technical performers practice both slow&carefully and quickly, so that over time they can be more correct and more quick (as quick as the task can appreciate)

> That doesn’t mean be sloppy. But it does mean, push yourself to go faster than you think is healthy. That’s because the task will come to cost less in your mind; it’ll have a lower activation energy. So you’ll do it more. And as you do it more (as long as you’re doing it deliberately), you’ll get better. Eventually you’ll be both fast and good.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#159

Post by hinkley »

Meanwhile there are martial arts and other physical disciplines where you go slowly to make sure you train the muscles along the entire movement instead of going in jerks and starts (which is how you damage yourself).

Fast iteration isn't about doing things faster. It's about requesting feedback more frequently. Which often means doing less, not more, and then evaluating the effectiveness of that small amount of work. Then adjusting your plans.

In writing, doing an entire book before your editor can tell you you're accidentally stealing a storyline from another author is bad. His analogies seem to be equating to this sort of behavior but missing the cause.

Re: Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)

#160

Post by pdsouza »

I think we can all agree that we want to maximize the quality of our work, where quality is defined as how well our work satisfies our goal. Typically, the discussion is around speed vs. quality, but I think quality itself encompasses speed (time_to_market below):

quality = w_0 * time_to_market + w_1 * correctness + w_2 * performance + ...

The weights w_n vary across domains. As with most things, it's about finding the right balance.

Post reply on HN