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What you've got is in fact a people problem

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Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#91

Post by JR1427 »

geraldhh wrote: post #83
hinkley wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anything has hurt me as much emotionally in my career as working at a really great place as my first job, setting my expectations for the next ten years of my career to be anything like that, and then get curb stomped over and over again by mediocrity that thought it was objectivity or responsibility. Trying to mold people who did not want to be molded resulted in a lot of Pyrrhic victories.

i too remember my first company very fondly and wonder if there is some cognitive bias at play

I'm still at my first company after switching career in to development.

It's nice here, and the people including management are great.

But I feel I should probably move on for the sake of my career progression, but I'm scared to leave and find myself somewhere worse.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#92

Post by madeofpalk »

hinkley wrote: post #63
dang wrote: post #28

Jerry Weinberg's classic Secrets of Consulting has tons of hard-won wisdom about this kind of thing. " No matter how it looks at first, it's always a people problem ." - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... He posted once to HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1825352 - but start here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1813443 ) Edit: There's also Gerald M. Weinberg has died - http…

Unless it's a DNS problem.

Unless the DNS problem was actually a people problem!

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#94

Post by madeofpalk »

joeig wrote: post #62
ilaksh wrote: post #8

My suspicion is that a lot of this comes down to budget pressure causing management to constantly discourage efforts by technical teams to invest time in the quality of their systems rather than push out more features. Then the same problems start popping up and the manager loses faith in their team. The times they said "no" to infrastructure development and working down technical debt may not even enter their mind.…

I think it helps to speak the same „language“ as the manager. Add price tags to the infrastructure development or technical debt. This may add an important perspective to the discussion for both sides.

As developers you should be doing this anyway to understand why you want to do something. Gut feeling for "it's just better" doesn't get you far - no wonder you can't get anyone else on board.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#95

Post by scrapcode »

cebert wrote: post #2

> Talk to your ICs, and — taking care to make sure they understand that you want honest feedback and that they are safe to offer it — ask them what problems your organization has. Can you reasonably expect for there to be a true “safe space” in a professional setting? It’s always good to be candid and transparent, but I’d never assume I’m in a complete safe space no matter which organization I am in.

The problem is that generally for the IC the risk to the physiological, safety, and security isn't worth the reward of what they would gain by opening up to management even if it were genuine.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#96

Post by nine_zeros »

PeterisP wrote: post #58
nine_zeros wrote: post #20

> your ICs won’t have the full picture. They really may not understand why certain priorities are set the way they are. You’ll need to take that as feedback for improving internal comms rather than “fixing” the perceived problem, and you certainly don’t want to make empty promises. One time, my manager gave me negative ratings out of nowhere. In his review, he wrote that I rolled a feature a few days late. I chatted…

The interesting thing is that actually honestly communicating "I just need everyone to finish everything within the quarter - by the exact date - regardless of any company-wide freezes or red tape - because I get scored on it by my boss" can easily work; that's a clear measurable goal that gives others clear guidelines on the actual priorities and what can be cut if necessary (e.g. quality or features) and what can't…

> "I just need everyone to finish everything within the quarter - by the exact date - regardless of any company-wide freezes or red tape - because I get scored on it by my boss" can easily work; that's a clear measurable goal that gives others clear guidelines on the actual priorities

This only works if they actually communicate it before projects start. Which they did not. Which is the whole point of the original article - "internal comms" is the issue. Just being honest and timely is sometimes enough but management doesn't think they can do that.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#97

Post by marcosdumay »

antihipocrat wrote: post #79
BeetleB wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The consultant is being paid by management. S/he is beholden to them. Quite the opposite. One of the reasons people go into consulting (and I don't mean working for a consulting company), is precisely because they're not beholden to them. They have much more freedom to set the terms than employees do. If a company wants them to reveal the individual, they'll be happy to give them the middle finger and let them know…

Most large companies hire large consulting firms, whose lack of morals is a selling point.

Oh, consultants from large consulting firms are a completely different thing. People upthread are not talking about those at all.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#100

Post by mlrtime »

indrora wrote: post #87
dang wrote: post #28

Jerry Weinberg's classic Secrets of Consulting has tons of hard-won wisdom about this kind of thing. " No matter how it looks at first, it's always a people problem ." - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... He posted once to HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1825352 - but start here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1813443 ) Edit: There's also Gerald M. Weinberg has died - http…

I miss Gerry Weinberg. Used to get lunch with him regularly He credits a man named Sherbie for the three rules. That man was my grandfather. The best advice Gerry gave me was when I was in a tough spot in college. “Expectations are fickle things that we work ourselves up over. Reevaluate them regularly, they have expiration dates long before they begin to smell funny.”

That's a long way of saying what I often tell people.

"Disappointment is when expectations don't match reality"

Meaning, that depending on the situation simply reevaluating your expectations can lead to satisfaction.

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