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The no excuses culture

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Re: The no excuses culture

#81

Post by RandomOpinion »

Animats wrote: post #67

That's the Curtis LeMay approach to management.[1] He was famously into management by fear. We see this problem in software, especially in DevOps and "agile" shops, because the process is so forgiving of delay. In a manufacturing plant, no product comes out until all the component parts are ready. So there's a "no excuses" culture about running out of parts, or having an assembly line station down unexpectedly. Softw…

> He was famously into management by fear.

The article you linked to says precisely the opposite and is more in line with the blog post. LeMay made it clear that results were expected and got them.

Re: The no excuses culture

#82

Post by Mz »

derefr wrote: post #77
Mz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a parent, or a military officer, or a corporate executive, usually isn't blamed for what amounts to "enemy action"—where something intentionally malicious out-thinks every preparation you've made and goes ahead and ruins your day anyway. Parents, for example, aren't blamed for what their children do when they've been told to do that thing by another authority figure. Executives aren't blamed for rival companies'…

> Other adults being assholes and fucking up my kid is not an acceptable justification for letting my kids get fucked up. To be clear, I wasn't talking about things that have negative impacts on your child , but rather things that society blames your child for, and then redirects that blame to you. An example: if your 10-year-old child just grabs a loaded gun off a table and shoots someone, whether this ends up deeme…

My original example of a kid breaking something and the law coming after the parent was chosen in hopes of not getting into this kind of conversation. It was chosen as something that should be obviously true and not arguable.

I try really hard to be careful about talking about parenting because I am aware that I was fortunate to be in a position to insist on no excuses. I was able to be a full time mom, in part because my ex was career military, and also my parents were very big on the idea that kids need a full time care taker, so they helped make it possible for me to put my kids first.

But I am talented at certain kinds of insights and one of my rules was that if my kid did not like someone, they were not left with them. So, I did feel responsible for making sure they were generally not left in the care of some dumbass nutcase who might hand them a gun. Nothing as extreme as you describe ever happened, because I was incredibly vigilant about details like vetting folks whom I left my kids with.

So, your example really does not work for me and I imagine we are not going to see eye to eye on this point.

Re: The no excuses culture

#83

Post by watwut »

SerLava wrote: post #65
watwut wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that successs had nothing to do with excuses and a lot more to do with "my groups inside of marketing had become dumping grounds for projects from both inside and outside of marketing – with everything being “priority one.” [...] We quickly put in a capacity/priority planning process." I bet a hat that it was primary the prioritization and planning process that did the trick.

Yeah, he rallied around the "no excuses" mantra because it felt good. And sure enough, halfway down the page he says the department dramatically reduced the amount of work intake. Gee. It seems like most of the excuses could be boiled down to "Well, you told me to complete a project, but then later you told me not to complete it, so I didn't."

That is another thing. The maximum total amount of work I can do is incompatible with making sure I always do everything on time. E.g. when I see deadlines as super important, I am more risk averse in terms of how much I attempt. I will spend less time helping colleges if my deadline may be in danger. I will refuse unplanned urgent tasks. I may finish on time but with lower quality and will leave myself buffers in planning. That may be good thing if promised deadline is really important.

If the total output is more important, I will do what is the most effective action now. E.g. instead of spending time pressing on third parties to give me information, I will work on what I have information for now and leave them proceed at their own pace. Again, that may be good thing if deadline is less important then effectivity.

Re: The no excuses culture

#84

Post by mindcrime »

watwut wrote: post #56
williamdclt wrote: post #35

I'm surprised that nobody here realize that this marketing team has reinvented part of agile and lean managment? Making devs accountable but not holding responsible, group solving problems and Andon, prioritizing tasks, a bit about handling external dependencies, kind of sprints, visibility, staying on budget... They're obviously not following Scrum in Action at the letter, but I really saw a striking resemblance wit…

I would not say so. In agile, individual developer does not have personal responsibility for anything. In this system, individual person had own task and was accountable for that task completion. It also sounds like they were working independently and wouldn't get help unless they asked for it. "I will fire you if deadline is suddenly not met and no one else is there find out before if you don't say so" is on the opp…

In agile, individual developer does not have personal responsibility for anything.

Where in the world do you get this idea? For one, there is no such thing as "agile", in the sense of a prescriptive methodology that would make such a declaration. There are just individual methodologies that claim varying levels of adherence to the Agile Manifesto[1]. And even then, the popular "Agile" methodologies like Scrum, XP, etc. never say that no one has personal responsibility for anything. Some say that teams are self-organizing and that you succeed or fail as a team, but I think everybody understands that that later part doesn't mean you can just come in and stare at the walls all day with no consequences.

we check up on you every four hours

If someone is "checking up on you every four hours" it's almost 100% certain that whatever process you're using has absolutely nothing to do with "agile".

Re: The no excuses culture

#85

Post by paulddraper »

analog31 wrote: post #24

I've always been struck by an odd irony in academia: People tend to have left-wing political beliefs, but maintain an organizational culture that is decidedly authoritarian. Perhaps this is necessary: I can't think of how else to manage a classroom than to have hard deadlines for things like homework assignments. Even in college, by definition, the work is finished when the semester ends. I'm personally guilty of mis…

Not all organizations should be run the same way.

I would prefer my government to offer more liberty, than, say my employer.

Re: The no excuses culture

#87

Post by derefr »

Mz wrote: post #82
derefr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other adults being assholes and fucking up my kid is not an acceptable justification for letting my kids get fucked up. To be clear, I wasn't talking about things that have negative impacts on your child , but rather things that society blames your child for, and then redirects that blame to you. An example: if your 10-year-old child just grabs a loaded gun off a table and shoots someone, whether this ends up deeme…

My original example of a kid breaking something and the law coming after the parent was chosen in hopes of not getting into this kind of conversation. It was chosen as something that should be obviously true and not arguable. I try really hard to be careful about talking about parenting because I am aware that I was fortunate to be in a position to insist on no excuses. I was able to be a full time mom, in part becau…

I was trying to intentionally create an example that avoided any case where "vigilance" would have made a difference, but I guess I wasn't clear.

I don't know the age of your children, but speaking of them in a general sense (i.e. they'll still be "your child" until they're 18), I presume they will at some point go to a store on their own, take public transit, etc.? That is, they will be out in public without you, if just for a few minutes, and an adult will be able to just wander up to them and coerce them. Homeschooling doesn't do much to stop this; only bubble-boy paranoia can (and even then...)

But really, even then, people can still break into your home. (Or, as I said, hit your house with their car.) You'd have to live in a bunker.

Re: The no excuses culture

#88

Post by sprafa »

tzakrajs wrote: post #44

Sounds to me like the real problem is that Steve Blank does not have a system to get enough context from individual contributors to know that a project is slipping well before the deadline. This is a management problem being cast as a individual contributor problem (we need to fire those lazy, incompetent employees who don't ask for help when they should /s), what a bizarre inversion of reasoning. Edit: Management sh…

Thank god someone got it. Toyota Production system talks about exactly the same thing. It's the manager's job to make sure everything is running on time.

Re: The no excuses culture

#89

Post by valuearb »

kristianc wrote: post #19

This is a piece of positioning. It's not so much Blank giving any serious solution to the solution of 'no accountability' as him saying 'look at how tough and uncompromising I am.' He literally says he thinks 'creating a culture' is the same as 'I hung a sign on the door.' Well no. A lot of management thinking (5 Whys etc) has gone into breaking down problems into micro-blockers. If your graphic designer is constantl…

If your VP is unwilling to pitch in to help team members they aren't much of a leader. If they can't do design work their job is to find someone who can help.

Re: The no excuses culture

#90

Post by vacri »

mindcrime wrote: post #84
watwut wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not say so. In agile, individual developer does not have personal responsibility for anything. In this system, individual person had own task and was accountable for that task completion. It also sounds like they were working independently and wouldn't get help unless they asked for it. "I will fire you if deadline is suddenly not met and no one else is there find out before if you don't say so" is on the opp…

In agile, individual developer does not have personal responsibility for anything. Where in the world do you get this idea? For one, there is no such thing as "agile", in the sense of a prescriptive methodology that would make such a declaration. There are just individual methodologies that claim varying levels of adherence to the Agile Manifesto[1]. And even then, the popular "Agile" methodologies like Scrum, XP, et…

Are you sure? Daily standups = checking up on you every 8 hours, and then you have tons of checkups in-between. Retros, sprint planning, ticket management. Agile methodology is designed for a tech lead to know what each member of the team is doing.

Agile methodology is not "here's a large task, I don't want to hear from you again until it's completed".

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