Ask HN: Critique my company • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Critique my company

#31

Post by swsieber » Fri, May 05, 2017, 3:48 PM UTC

Fix one of your known issues. Announce you're fixing one of your known issues because you're hoping to improve the company. Make sure that it actually improves stuff, not just checking a box (ie. don't use a ticket tracking solution that's actually worse than your google docs).

I think employees at that point would be more willing to offer up requests for improvement.

Maybe do your issue tracking first, and set aside some thing (story points if your agile, time per week/month, etc), visibly there for process/structure/tool improvement in the issue tracking.

Re: Ask HN: Critique my company

#32

Post by meterplech » Fri, May 05, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

I am not the founder of my company, but I ask the same thing of new hires (it's probably easier to give ideas to the non-founder). One thing that has worked well for me has been to say "One of my favorite things to hear from a new hire is what we could be doing better. You have the perspective of someone who has been elsewhere and have fresh eyes, and don't just accept things that aren't working. One example of something that isn't working is X. Another is Y. Besides those, can you think of other ways we can make the company better?"

That way you start by being self-critical, which makes people feel more open to complaining.

Btw, remember if you ask this... you have to follow through to _fix_ some of these problems or you can lose trust. Only ask if you really do want to hear feedback and action on some of them.

Re: Ask HN: Critique my company

#33

Post by IshKebab » Fri, May 05, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

dom0 wrote: post #12

aphextron wrote: post #10

Feedback needs to be anonymous or it will always be worthless. Few people have the courage to point out even blatant truths to their employer. Just set up an email that anyone can submit to anonymously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suggestion_box

Yeah a large company I worked for used to have one of those apparently. They said they got rid of it because they got too many suggestions.

Re: Ask HN: Critique my company

#34

Post by pvaldes » Fri, May 05, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

You probably need an independent critic that do not has nothing to lose in the process.

Re: Ask HN: Critique my company

#35

Post by SimbaOnSteroids » Fri, May 05, 2017, 3:57 PM UTC

jamestimmins wrote: post #17

aphextron wrote: post #10

Feedback needs to be anonymous or it will always be worthless. Few people have the courage to point out even blatant truths to their employer. Just set up an email that anyone can submit to anonymously.

I think this significantly undervalues the importance of developing a culture where things can be talked about in a frank and open manner. It may be rare, but is extraordinarily valuable, and if people are never given the chance to have uncomfortable conversations, then there's no possibility of it developing.

When anonymous feedback comes in and its taken and acted on positively the team may be more likely offer up non-anonymous suggestions, a foot in the door if you will. I may be totally off base though I don't have that type of real world experience.

Re: Ask HN: Critique my company

#36

Post by solipsism » Fri, May 05, 2017, 3:58 PM UTC

I agree with those suggesting you might want to look at your company culture. If, when you look around, you don't see a multitude of people working on improving every facet of your process, then you may have built a "heads down, don't rock the boat, worry about now screwing up my own job" kind of company. This mindset will pervade the management chain. And it will be a huge impediment to growth.

If in fact that's what you've got, you need a massive change. Promote based on demonstrated positive impact to the entire company. Encourage risk takers, discourage blame. The people you want working for you would never work at the kind of company I describe above.

Re: Ask HN: Critique my company

#37

Post by dugmartin » Fri, May 05, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

How about giving your new hires a few mostly blank pages with a letterhead of "My first two weeks WTF moments...". On day one give it to them and let them know you will take them out to dinner in two weeks to talk about what they write down. Let them know it is really valuable to you to have fresh sets of eyes on company processes and that there will be no negative repercussions. I'd then give them a few examples of what you would like to know.

Given all that I still think you won't get much feedback until you've done this a while and the current employees let the new hires know that there are no issues with them telling you that things are wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Critique my company

#38

Post by jstanley » Fri, May 05, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #18

hdhzy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good idea. I personally had given feedback every time I left a company and the reaction was always either no improvement to slight adversity. So naturally I stopped giving feedback. Maybe instead of simple feedback it would be worth to just task the developer with improving something that they will see as problematic (kind of 20% time but for improvement).

Rules #1: Never talk when you leave. Just leave. Whatever you say, it can only make it worse.

I tried to quit my job a few weeks ago. My boss suggested I could stay and work on something completely different, part of what I do in my free time, but getting paid for it.

Much happier now, it's worked out well for both of us.

Re: Ask HN: Critique my company

#39

Post by aphextron » Fri, May 05, 2017, 4:01 PM UTC

SimbaOnSteroids wrote: post #35

jamestimmins wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this significantly undervalues the importance of developing a culture where things can be talked about in a frank and open manner. It may be rare, but is extraordinarily valuable, and if people are never given the chance to have uncomfortable conversations, then there's no possibility of it developing.

When anonymous feedback comes in and its taken and acted on positively the team may be more likely offer up non-anonymous suggestions, a foot in the door if you will. I may be totally off base though I don't have that type of real world experience.

This is basically how I feel about it. If my employer acted positively on some anonymous feedback at a first, I feel like I'd be a lot more likely to feel open and willing to engage knowing there's good faith. Unfortunately this doesn't scale to larger companies, though. What the OP is describing is the classic problem of management.

Re: Ask HN: Critique my company

#40

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, May 05, 2017, 4:07 PM UTC

> Prior to starting the company I worked at six different companies and outside of the first one, my first real programming job, I would always have lots of ideas in the first few weeks about how things could be improved. Some of my ideas were bad because I just didn't understand what was going on well enough but I like to think that some of them had merit.

Did you go to one of the company founders with problems and solutions?

I would be very wary of such an ask unless I had a pre-existing relationship with the person asking the question. You also may have folks telling your new guys to STFU.