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Anxiety in product development

andreschweighofer.com

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Re: Anxiety in product development

#21

Post by fidrelity »

jmhnilbog wrote: post #15
fidrelity wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I think you have a point here. Anxiety can certainly stem from the point you mentioned. But I also think anxiety from other sources can affect your development negatively.

Agreed. Anxiety can also be expressed as a realization that what's being worked on is useless, adds negative value, or just personally unfulfilling or unimportant. Cops firing teargas at peaceful protesters a few blocks away has cause me a good deal of that flavor of anxiety, which I don't think is necessarily a negative outcome. Do you have any insights along those lines?

Although I have never been in a situation like yours, for me personally A Guide to Rational Living (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22673.A_New_Guide_to_Rat...) and meditation with the Waking up app helped tremendously.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#22

Post by nautilus12 »

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.

2. Giving the same tasks to multiple groups and deliberately pitting them against one another in a kind of unhealthy competition. Constant fear of obsoletion.

3. Little or no positive feedback, only give feedback when things are wrong. Deliberately vague about future career prospects or growth, holding the carrot out but with no promise to deliver.

The problem is that each of these are tied into natural "sources" of anxiety that are likely to happen with or without the company actively promoting it, but the company promoting it can make people work even more frantically. The problem is they don't realize people produce their "best" work when they have creative freedom from anxiety.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#24

Post by carapace »

> Awareness is the first step

Literally. This is another reason why meditation is important.

Anxiety is always accompanied by patterns of muscle tension. It can be relieved by mechanical relaxation of the tissues. Relaxation is achieved by awareness, which is fostered by meditation.

A calm, clear mind flows from a calm and relaxed body.

- - - -

In my career I've observed that business is a kind of theater for people's ego trips to play out within, and the form and methods of a business reflect the karma, if you will, of the people running it. It's one of those things that sounds trivial once you type it out.

Anyhow, it reminds me of Conway's Law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

Re: Anxiety in product development

#25

Post by hateful »

neutronicus wrote: post #18

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 always loved that (also, sans theological content). It's good advice for anyone. It's strong statement because in one sentence it can give someone something that a lot of people may not have - self awareness in the face of anxiety.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#26

Post by bdefore »

albntomat0 wrote: post #7
david_draco wrote: post #6

The intersection of people understanding both Catch-22 and Permit A 38 is probably pretty small.

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

Re: Anxiety in product development

#29

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

sjg007 wrote: post #20
openfuture wrote: post #5

Funny, to see this pop up finally. I've been talking (with my friends) about how all development is 'fear driven development' for quite a while now. Of course I don't mean just software development, but the way it manifests in software is instructive. The different fear responses range from formal methods to FOMO but in general we latch onto something as a source of comfort. Conway's law expanded to how you communica…

> Conway's law expanded to how you communicate with yourself. Can you please clarify?

Not OP, but I’ll give it a go:

Conway's law is an adage stating that organizations design systems that mirror their own communication structure.

In a sense, your own self is an organisation whereby we communicate with ourselves in fearful and anxious ways, so the systems we build can only be a reflection of that fear and anxiety.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#30

Post by chooseaname »

gtm1260 wrote: post #12

As a new developer, I think I fall into this trap a lot! I always don't want to touch other people's methods or introduce bugs, so I only make tiny, tiny little changes before thoroughly testing everything. It really slows me down.

Good! You should be slow. Slow and deliberate. Break stuff (not in production!) and watch how it breaks. Learn from your mistakes. Right now you're laying the foundation of your confidence as a developer. That confidence is built upon your failures and your successes. Have fun newbie!
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