As a Dev this looks like such a wonderful approach to me, but how do you get the customer on board with this? How do you get a nervous customer that doesn't trust you yet to enthusiastically work with you figure out what they want?
Is management pressuring you to deliver unfinished code? (2020)
51–60 of 78 posts
Re: Is management pressuring you to deliver unfinished code? (2020)
#52One of the problems I have found is that we don't talk the same language when communicating with the business, we use terms like "Technical Debt", "Test Coverage", even "Minimal Viable Product". In my opinion the universal variable across all these is risk, and it's easy for all to grasp what we mean when we say the word "Risk". There is delivery risk, will be get this out in a timely fashion for the market. There is…
I don't disagree, but at my last company, I was always very explicit about these things in business terms. The real enemy I ran into was the SVPs desire to please the CEO who wanted to please the board who wanted to please the investment PR racket and make sure we could tell Gartner that X feature is ready by Y date to ensure we were included in their Magic Quadrant. The answer to the bosses had to be "yes it will be…
"How a plan becomes policy"
http://web.mnstate.edu/alm/humor/ThePlan.htm
This poem is my favorite description of this pattern, because it focuses on the the bad communication that creates the problem. Regardless of the intent of the people involved, gradually filtering out important information at each level as people try to please their superior guarantees a GIGO mess for the that the people at the top. As the poem says, "this ... is how shit happens",
Adopting something like the airline industry's "no-blame" culture that focuses on getting accurate reports by explicitly not focusing on blame might help avoid the natural tendency to eventually fall into this pattern.
Re: Is management pressuring you to deliver unfinished code? (2020)
#53Here's a question: why do you, as an engineer, care? You're just an employee, it is the upper management's role to make sure your company moves forward, maintains the trust of clients, has reliable enough solutions. If they decide to sacrifice quality for speed that's their problem/decision. Really. You were hired to provide technical solutions within specs, and if specs require fast completion more than quality then that's probably what you should deliver. Then watch it blow up, or maybe it will actually be good enough.
Re: Is management pressuring you to deliver unfinished code? (2020)
#54As Dilbert says: "Our boss can't judge the quality of our work, but he knows when it's late".
Dont take project management advice from Scott Adams. His judgement is seriously questionable. he is okay for a few laughs at the expense of old corporate culture but anything more serious is useless.
Re: Is management pressuring you to deliver unfinished code? (2020)
#55Here's a question: why do you, as an engineer, care? You're just an employee, it is the upper management's role to make sure your company moves forward, maintains the trust of clients, has reliable enough solutions. If they decide to sacrifice quality for speed that's their problem/decision. Really. You were hired to provide technical solutions within specs, and if specs require fast completion more than quality then…
True, but the "be good enough" will probably be updated on what "good enough" is after you deliver your first impossible project. It'll eventually catch up, but that's just how bad executives and bad companies manage.
Re: Is management pressuring you to deliver unfinished code? (2020)
#56Here's a question: why do you, as an engineer, care? You're just an employee, it is the upper management's role to make sure your company moves forward, maintains the trust of clients, has reliable enough solutions. If they decide to sacrifice quality for speed that's their problem/decision. Really. You were hired to provide technical solutions within specs, and if specs require fast completion more than quality then…
You care if you work in security, and ops but perhaps to a lesser extent.
Re: Is management pressuring you to deliver unfinished code? (2020)
#57Here's a question: why do you, as an engineer, care? You're just an employee, it is the upper management's role to make sure your company moves forward, maintains the trust of clients, has reliable enough solutions. If they decide to sacrifice quality for speed that's their problem/decision. Really. You were hired to provide technical solutions within specs, and if specs require fast completion more than quality then…
I'm honest about delivery dates, but I do deeply care about getting a project across the line on time. Not just because it gets me cooler, more demanding projects with larger compensation, also for its own sake. It's fun to win, especially when the timeline isn't arbitrary and you can pull it off.
Re: Is management pressuring you to deliver unfinished code? (2020)
#58I loved the build up in this article, but the solution left me wanting more. My org suffers from the disease of Date Driven Development, but just telling my boss to let us work until it is done simply means we will never ship because it will never be done.
Literally the list of new feature requests from product is a mile long. So where do you draw the line? And once you draw the line, how can you justify pushing off on everything else that needs to get done while you are hardening and making sure that what you have decided to ship is actually ready to go?
The problem statement resonates with me, but I’d love more help on the solution. What is a viable way to get out of date driven development? Please help!
Re: Is management pressuring you to deliver unfinished code? (2020)
#59Here's a question: why do you, as an engineer, care? You're just an employee, it is the upper management's role to make sure your company moves forward, maintains the trust of clients, has reliable enough solutions. If they decide to sacrifice quality for speed that's their problem/decision. Really. You were hired to provide technical solutions within specs, and if specs require fast completion more than quality then…
This _should_ be true, but isn't always, if you're at a company (or just have a manager) who will let the mess/blame fall onto your shoulders.
That being said, if you're at said company/have said manager, you should get a new job. I hear the market is hot.
Re: Is management pressuring you to deliver unfinished code? (2020)
#60Here's a question: why do you, as an engineer, care? You're just an employee, it is the upper management's role to make sure your company moves forward, maintains the trust of clients, has reliable enough solutions. If they decide to sacrifice quality for speed that's their problem/decision. Really. You were hired to provide technical solutions within specs, and if specs require fast completion more than quality then…