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Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

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Re: Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

#91

Post by tristor »

llamaLord wrote: post #68
Aurornis wrote: post #13

This is the most common failure mode I’ve experienced: > A critical piece of avoiding endless debate is to know who makes the final decision and how it gets made. Consensus-seeking leads to endless debate. Every rapidly growing company I’ve worked for has reached a point where we have product managers and program managers and engineers and engineering managers and stakeholders and suddenly nobody can even identify wh…

As a PM, I believe what you're describing is the torrent of people who used to work as "project managers" and "business analysts" who've transitioned into Product for the higher pay, without appreciating any of the differences between the roles. IMO, the fundamental role of a PM is to make the decisions nobody else wants to (and own the consequences of them). If my team is making progress and decisions are being made…

Hard agree with this take. Also, a good PM should be technical enough to really understand not just how customers use the product but how the product works. you should be able to be the designated person to answer a question from customers when nobody else knows the answer. In my role as a PM, I'm usually the person the buck stops with for Sales, Support, Solutions Engineering, et al. You can't do that if you don't actually know how anything works, which I see way too much with other PMs in this industry.

Re: Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

#92

Post by Rayhem »

starbugs wrote: post #51
atomicfiredoll wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think consensus-building is necessarily bad on it's own. Depending on the environment, when people don't feel like they have an opportunity contribute, it can potentially lead to other issues. To your point, I think a lack of leadership can kill a consensus-building process. Whoever is coordinating needs the authority and will to end the discussion when the time is right (among other things.) Otherwise, it re…

> I don't think consensus-building is necessarily bad on it's own. Making decisions based on consensus is just often not the right choice in this context. If used for the wrong type of decision, it will lead to a "design by committee" type of process and result, driving a lot of people mad along the way. A better way to make decisions in a software project is to consult with stakeholders (if necessary), identify the…

> A better way to make decisions in a software project is to consult with stakeholders (if necessary), identify the appropriate decision maker based on competence and then let that person make a decision.

Holy shit. This is one of the most profound things I've read about management in a long, long time.

Re: Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

#93

Post by iancmceachern »

If the right decision isn't obvious to everyone in the room, including the least experienced person in the room, you don't have enough data to make the decision. You should break, get thr data, and regroup when you have the data to make thr proper decisions.

Data driven decisions.

Re: Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

#94

Post by beryilma »

My approach as the senior software engineer (but not the manager) of my team is to not debate everything, but to point out everything that I think is wrong, can be improved, or should be designed differently.

But then, I leave the developers and/or the manager to make their own decision and shoot themselves in the foot if they happen to make the wrong decisions.

This approach takes more time, but I think it improves the sense of ownership of developers and their maturity over time.

Re: Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

#95

Post by flanked-evergl »

Aurornis wrote: post #13

This is the most common failure mode I’ve experienced: > A critical piece of avoiding endless debate is to know who makes the final decision and how it gets made. Consensus-seeking leads to endless debate. Every rapidly growing company I’ve worked for has reached a point where we have product managers and program managers and engineers and engineering managers and stakeholders and suddenly nobody can even identify wh…

> I’ve worked with some product managers who produced prodigious amounts of meetings and slide decks and Figma charts and process documents and Notion pages and after meeting summary e-mails but can never actually conclude what we should build.

Spot on. If I could have all the years wasted through this back, I would be a young man again. In my experience, these are product managers that have never actually been involved in building anything.

Re: Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

#96

Post by trashtester »

agentultra wrote: post #84

I didn't really vibe with this dichotomy but I did get the sense that both of them seem like a symptom I have seen often: Too many chefs, not enough cooks In general this happens when companies over-value management. If you find each "team" of 3-7 software developers have at least 3 "managers" on the team (in addition to the visual designer and other folks in productive roles): you've got too many chefs. Decisions ha…

> Too many chefs, not enough cooks

As long as the chefs also do cooking, having chefs is not a big deal. The problem is the people who do not produce anything but keep themselves busy doing stuff that ends up wasting everyone's time.

Re: Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

#97

Post by calderwoodra »

iancmceachern wrote: post #93

If the right decision isn't obvious to everyone in the room, including the least experienced person in the room, you don't have enough data to make the decision. You should break, get thr data, and regroup when you have the data to make thr proper decisions. Data driven decisions.

I'd love to ask anyone who's worked on present day Instagram/Facebook what the long term effects of data driven decision making is. My understanding is that it's been a toss up.

I think PG has a tweet a while back like "some decisions are so bad, no one in their right mind would agree to this if there wasn't data to back it up". More of less saying, you can find data to support any decision, so why even be data driven?

EDIT: Found the tweet, which pg responded to but didn't actually create: https://x.com/dadiomov/status/1553474933010755584?s=20

Re: Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

#98

Post by ProfHiggs »

Some of the disparity described seems to relate to the size of the organization/team and where value is placed. Many say that as an organization grows, it takes more people to get the same work done that a small team can, a la entrepreneurial spirit. The effect in my experience comes from a few distinctions with the greatest being a team wholly bought into the mission, and equal participation. The later doesn't imply equal say, but, rather, the opportunity for all to be involved or informed of every aspect of the project and not rely on roles or expertise to carry the day. I've sent engineers along with product managers into the field to gather requirements; each has a different perspective, and through mutual respect, come to understand that their collective feedback builds a better product. It also means deferring to a third party authority, such as the 'customer' rather than one's ego. Again, the mindset of the individuals in the team is very important, often more so than their assignment skill level. Of course a strong leader needs to act as coach and commander, helping the team move forward and making the tough decisions when momentum is waning.

Re: Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

#99

Post by swader999 »

starbugs wrote: post #83
DeathArrow wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we're better with benevolent dictators.

> So we're better with benevolent dictators. Making a decision based on input from relevant coworkers while being competent in the domain you are making the decision in isn't exactly dictatorship?

This and, especially if the decision maker made it to their level based on merrit.

Re: Balancing engineering cultures: Debate everything vs. just tell me what to build

#100

Post by swader999 »

nomel wrote: post #9
roenxi wrote: post #4

Culturally it is best to train developers to just do something, then provide non-judgemental feedback when what they do isn't what you want. Maybe schedule in some rework time to try again. That way, developers move quickly and sooner or later start building useful things. "Just tell me what to build" is a dangerous attitude to foster. It pushes more work into the management layer which is already a bottleneck for ma…

> Culturally it is best to train developers to just do something, then provide non-judgemental feedback when what they do isn't what you want. My preferred method of development is tell me what you think you want, then be available for the stream of questions I'll be asking you to make sure what you need is accomplished. I've found that it's almost always a bad idea, for everyone involved, to implement what someone s…

A lot of the replies to this are dancing around just ask them "Why" they want what they want. Then the "what is built" can be creatively explored and even negotiated as long as it solves the why.
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