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Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

ashley.rolfmore.com

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Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#71

Post by ferngodfather »

anilakar wrote: post #40
onion2k wrote: post #17

You assume what they say is the same as what they are thinking The converse is also true. People saying something assume that people listening are understanding and thinking about the same thing. This is why it's important to write things down in details and as-unambiguous-as-you-can forms. If you're in a meeting and someone puts up a slide deck with a 6 word bullet point that 'explains' what they want, that is a sig…

What I say: This is not ready for production. What management hears: We can sell this to the customer for acceptance testing.

What I say: I want a pay rise.

What management hears: We want more pizza parties.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#72

Post by tomaskafka »

digi59404 wrote: post #54

Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic. Let me add a couple to this list. 1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept. 2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to y…

"When in actuality, they should be listening to the use case, looking for the pain, and finding a way to solve the pain points."

You have now described the value of product design (no matter if the person doing this is labeled PM, UX, Product design, or whatever)

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#73

Post by close04 »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #66
digi59404 wrote: post #54

Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic. Let me add a couple to this list. 1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept. 2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to y…

> No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept. Not sure it's ever good to assume this beforehand though. Most things are negotiable, if you know how to negotiate right.

More than that, sometimes one side doesn’t want to accept something because everything they know about it says it’s wrong. Then they’re faced with evidence and reason prevails.

I usually have very strong opinions but try to hold on to them very loosely. It happened that I was convinced with evidence that I am right and refused to accept any alternative until new evidence slapped me in the face. At that point knowledge and discussion made me accept something I had previously thought preposterous, sometimes to the point of outright dismissing any conversation, this is how preposterous the proposition sounded at first sight.

What I want to say is that if you don’t know your audience, if you don’t know for sure your attempts are fruitless, it’s always worth a shot to use your knowledge in a discussion and let the other party digest that and see if it that moves the needle.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#74

Post by WalterBright »

digi59404 wrote: post #54

Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic. Let me add a couple to this list. 1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept. 2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to y…

I don't worry about such things, because I have never been in error yet.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#75

Post by fragmede »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #15
colechristensen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've missed the point and agreed with the GP. Too much time is spent attempting to communicate and as such, communication isn't actually happening. (i.e. we all spend way too much time in useless meetings where nothing happens and few people are any more informed than they were before)

> Too much time is spent attempting to communicate and as such, communication isn't actually happening. This is where I think we have a different definition of communication. > (i.e. we all spend way too much time in useless meetings where nothing happens and few people are any more informed than they were before) Hence my clarification of: Most meetings are not about communication. They are usually prescriptive in f…

That's certainly one way of looking at daily stand-up. The other way is that humans aren't perfectly spherical communicators so sometimes daily stand-up really does manage to bring up blockers for the manager to actually resolve.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#76

Post by b3lvedere »

digi59404 wrote: post #54

Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic. Let me add a couple to this list. 1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept. 2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to y…

"To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state."

If you can guarantuee me this will not be abused in every situation ever and/or come back to haunt me, i will gladly always give up as much time as i can to actually listen. :)

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#77

Post by rrgok »

I have better a idea, since everybody need an engineer to build the damn thing, how about we teach non engineer people to talk to engineer people. Why is it always our burden to learn and improve. UX problem, blame the engineer. Comunication problem, blame the engineer. Documentation problem, blame the engineer.

I'm so sick of it. Comunication is a tango. If you - who need the product and are ready to pay for it - don't take your damn time to effectively articulate what are your needs then you should go to school again and learn it.

By the way, since you all non-engineer people are so good at communicating, why are you not communicating effectively your needs?

Bring on the down votes.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#78

Post by b3lvedere »

6P58r3MXJSLi wrote: post #68
digi59404 wrote: post #54

Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic. Let me add a couple to this list. 1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept. 2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to y…

> To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state if it's not two ways, stop trying, stand up and leave.

What a privilige it must be to be able to have a job where you can stand up and leave when your psyche can't handle it. Ever done tech support for ten hours a day? :)

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#79

Post by sjamaan »

faangguyindia wrote: post #46
ethan_smith wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of the exact thing the article is about though. They're not "failing to understand" costs - they just have different context. Your job is to help them make informed tradeoffs, not to expect them to already know what things cost before asking.

it's not possible to make everyone understand nuclear physics, there is certain threshold of cognitive skills/motivation required for that.

The people involved in commissioning and funding nuclear power plants don't understand nuclear physics either.

The customer doesn't need to understand how the solution works, as long as they can understand that it would solve their problem (in the case of the power plant: producing "clean" energy) and any potential drawbacks or limitations (in the case of the power plant: the waste byproduct).

The point here is that as a "tech person", it's your job to help the customer understand the cost of what they're asking, and come up with a satisfactory solution based on your understanding of their needs.

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