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When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)

madned.substack.com

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Re: When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)

#41

Post by voakbasda »

ablob wrote: post #39
bdcravens wrote: post #36

The missing letter in R&D is E (experimentation). You have to validate assumptions and ideas and bridge the gap.

I haven't seen any research be done with out experimentation so far.

You can do research without experimentation, but then you can't call it science.

Re: When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)

#42

Post by mad_ned »

avg_dev wrote: post #15

i enjoyed the read and was quite surprised that there was a happy ending. i didn't think that would be possible. probably that speaks to my own personal experience more than anything. not really relevant, but anyone know where mad ned is at these days? haven't seen any new posts of his in a while, and i enjoyed a bunch of them.

I'm still alive. But I've retired or at least taken an extended hiatus from my writing hobby, which in retrospect was probably a pandemic coping mechanism more than a lot of things lol.

I only came here because my in box is blowing up due to the traffic hacker news is driving to my site, and so then I see that this article is like #3 today. Not bad considering I don't really remember writing it!

Re: When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)

#44

Post by eska »

dartos wrote: post #19
jfim wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively one can just use grid paper and some scissors. I bet you learned a lot writing that program as a kid though!

Sometimes a computer is just more accessible than paper.

I remember being laughed at when I cut out coffee filters with a certain angle in order to plan how I would position motion capturing cameras to cover the room optimally. My manager liked the pragmatism though

Re: When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)

#45

Post by debacle »

In my experience, this was likely entirely driven by one person, my guess would be two levels above the author in the org chart. It's sometimes frighteningly easy to convince business leaders that the dev teams are wasting a ton of time, doing the wrong thing, etc. It's even easier when that direction is coming from a consultant (might not be in this case, but I've seen it happen a few times).

Someone who was supposed to be advocating for their team (maybe the author's boss) wasn't, or was being out-advocated by others, and that led to breakdowns. As a manager, I keep a lot of KPIs and do a lot of postmortems (lean), because you need to be able to counter the gut feeling of "development should be faster."

Re: When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)

#46

Post by jagged-chisel »

williamcotton wrote: post #23
dartos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes a computer is just more accessible than paper.

How so?

Now, where is that pad of paper? Bah, the pencil is broken — who took the sharpener??

My computer goes with me everywhere and is ready as soon as I open the lid. Unless I forgot to charge it.

Re: When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)

#47

Post by oaiey »

I think most bigger organizations have left and right to the RD product manager, architect, program managers and UX groups. The head of that is the real head of RD. The real question is whether you want interdisciplinary teams. And the answer to that is more often than not: no. Why: because the illusion of control by management.

Re: When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)

#48

Post by BobaFloutist »

dimask wrote: post #43
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #28

2021: When programmers still sourced images for their blog from Getty Images rather than just generating whatever they needed.

Generating = using generative models trained on Getty Images and the like.

Getty-rating?

Re: When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)

#49

Post by smokel »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #46
williamcotton wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

Now, where is that pad of paper? Bah, the pencil is broken — who took the sharpener?? My computer goes with me everywhere and is ready as soon as I open the lid. Unless I forgot to charge it.

The Atari 400 would be connected to a separate CRT monitor.

Re: When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)

#50

Post by kuchenbecker »

ncallaway wrote: post #25
lumost wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more likely to kill the parent organization than enact change. This may not be a problem for the individuals in an organization if they have reasoned that 1. Personal Growth is limited, or further upward movement is undesirable. 2. They intend to be with the organization a finite remaining time, or would welcome an early exit A proper strike can be differentiated from a lazy workforce, self-sabotaging work canno…

Work to rule can be differentiated from a lazy workforce if it’s done well. Typically, work to rule is used to highlight specific bad rules, regulations, or enforcement practices at a company. Say a company expects employees to do non-rule “glue” work to keep the company functioning. But, randomly and capriciously the company punishes workers for doing this “non-rule” work. A union can then announce that they will on…

I often advise teammates to follow destructive rules by management to force management to overrule or cancel rules. The employee has cover for following the rules vs breaking rules set by management to meet goals set by management.
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