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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)

#61

Post by lumost »

harimau777 wrote: post #58
ncallaway wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It can also be a rational response to a company that follows "management to rule". For example, I was once on a team where almost all of my time was spent coordinating with other teams and helping other developers instead of developing myself. When performance reviews rolled around I was told that none of that stuff mattered; only the number of tickets that I completed matter. So I switched my focus to completing tic…

This is super common in engineering organizations. Any shop with a standard performance review will have a "score card" where your contributions are summarized in a method that can be compared to others.

Being a great team player can't be quantified, and gets dropped.

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

#62

Post by lmm »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #10
daveguy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like that could good PM taking into account their team's capacity and prioritizing.

Unless mildchalupa was talking about the PM's personal workload!

Even then, understanding your own limits is a good thing.

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

#64

Post by JoeAltmaier »

digdugdirk wrote: post #63
calamari4065 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire industry of CAD

And yet I still want nothing more than to see Solidworks burn in the deepest depths of Dante's Inferno.

Wait - isn't the 9th circle of Dante's Hell a frozen wasteland?

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

#67

Post by hinkley »

debacle wrote: post #45

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 suppose…

I've worked at plenty of places where the dev team was wasting their time, doing the wrong thing. You know who we blamed?

Someone two, three levels above us in the org chart.

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

#68

Post by bgnn »

ok_dad wrote: post #56
rm445 wrote: post #32

Nothing in this article pertains to actual research - development has always included elements of design. Interesting article otherwise though. I've been in an organisation that was actively winding down the research side of R&D. Lots of chemists and physicists let go, or at least not replaced. Projects that had gone nowhere for years canned; people with no output for years canned. More focus on product roadmaps. Wha…

> people with no output for years canned Often I see this happen, and the result is the company loses out somehow. I think maybe metrics for “output” are wrong in many cases, and you’ve just canned someone who had a useful or even critical role you didn’t know about. A lot of people who are important to company operations are invisible!

output doesn't capture accumulated know-how. If you fire researchers you loose know-how, hence you loose potential.

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

#69

Post by hinkley »

rm445 wrote: post #32

Nothing in this article pertains to actual research - development has always included elements of design. Interesting article otherwise though. I've been in an organisation that was actively winding down the research side of R&D. Lots of chemists and physicists let go, or at least not replaced. Projects that had gone nowhere for years canned; people with no output for years canned. More focus on product roadmaps. Wha…

The opposite hasn't really worked out in Detroit, and I don't think it worked particularly well for Boeing either, but I still think organizing R&D under one human is a huge part of the problem. Too much 'efficiency' in research and effectiveness drops to zero. Lack of urgency or excessive urgency (read: burnout) will lead to team after team running out of fucks to give, and one day someone will look up and see nothing has been accomplished with the last several millions of dollars.

I believe having different people running 'competing' groups that report to the board instead of a tall narrow org chart with clear choke points may not fix the problem entirely, but it would slow down the cycle. Worst case you disband one of the orgs and create a new group to replace it, run by someone from one of the more efficient divisions, or new blood from outside.

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

#70

Post by bgnn »

Chip design software GUIs are known to be unintuitive and unfriendly. I'm using them daily and it's in the way all the time. So I don't know what changed after these but I'm not seeing it as a user.

Oh, also, when will we get version control support? It's 2023 an no chip design SW has this.

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