Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ha. "Outsourcing of blame"! Outsourcing of blame - as a Service. Where's my VC???
Accenture. You've invented Accenture.
What do they do, exactly?
It's about what broke, not who broke it
41–50 of 105 posts
Re: It's about what broke, not who broke it
#42I totally agree. Its usually the hallmark of a good team, if they have the "we are in this together" attitude.
Re: It's about what broke, not who broke it
#43What’s that old saying; “Fix the problem, not the blame”?
Re: It's about what broke, not who broke it
#44Agreed.
As a manager, take the blame, pass on the fame.
In a small minority of accidents people are to blame though, usually those who are not learning and repeat the same mistakes over and over again, often due to over confidence.
Often it's coworkers who urge for action, if none taken will lead to the best people leaving - no good developers want to work with people who don't want to learn and progress forward.
Re: It's about what broke, not who broke it
#45We have put a rule that made our system very strong over the years: We don’t care if you broke the site, just fix it quickly and more importantly write a test that will catch the same problem if it happens again. Every time someone breaks something, we get harder to break.
Sounds like your system is antifragile.
Re: It's about what broke, not who broke it
#46It makes sense for a logical perspective, but in practice that's not how it works.
In reality if something breaks, and you are stupid enough to mention it, then (a) you are considered an a-hole for blaming even if you didn't and (b) responsible for fixing it.
So your main job is somehow make your stuff work despite all the other stuff that doesn't work and all the other people that try to stop you, silently. The less you criticize the better. What you get in return is that if you fuck up, people will try to avoid blaming you as well. Also if you don't succeed at making anything happen you get a little arrogant smile from your manager and a mediocre feedback round. But otherwise nothing happens.
The only change to that pattern happens when you piss off your manager or your manager's manager. Then suddenly each and everyt activity you do will be scrutinized and if there's a problem it will be used against you. The best hope they have is that you go away by yourself.
Re: It's about what broke, not who broke it
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Accenture. You've invented Accenture.
What do they do, exactly?
Re: It's about what broke, not who broke it
#48It’s also about how it broke. And who broke it is sometimes the person who can say a lot if not most about that. Therefore i don’t recommend teaching to never talk about tge person who took an action that lead to a disaster, but rather encouraging a culture where admitting having taken a wrong step doesn’t lead to punishment, neither financial or social.
Who broke it is an important part of the analysis, helping the organization to learn from each other’s errors. Making it a taboo talking about it is missing a chance for development...
Re: It's about what broke, not who broke it
#49I found this to be the touchstone of spotting a dysfunctional enterprise. There it is all about the 'who', never about the fix. In those environments every new project is CYA from day 1. The disconnect between daily activities and the success of the company is so large, that all actions and projects are just about personal politics. A failure that can be blamed on the right target is often even a preferred outcome as eliminating a competitor for a promotion is even better than not having failed.
If you find yourself in such an environment, try to leave asap.
Re: It's about what broke, not who broke it
#50My manager at work especially has the reverse attitude where the person who broke it is more significant than what broke/how we fixed it/ how to avoid it in the future. I have seen people get taunted for a bug they caused two years ago, a bug which didn't affect any revenue or was pretty easy to fix. And of course it still gets pointed out during appraisals. Its a nightmare, because there's no room for experiment lef…
The importance of this person is the part where i agree.
But defining this person important is independent from the action of loading this person with guilt and financial, career relevant or social sanctions . That makes access to the important knowledge actually difficult, because no one will want to admit errors and share how they happened and what could have been done to prevent them...