4 ms·

Instead of a "no shaming" culture, I'd like to find a culture of "don't fuck up". "No shaming" and "no assholes" just leads to people cheerily and politely fuck

Instead of a "no shaming" culture, I'd like to find a culture of "don't fuck up". "No shaming" and "no assholes" just leads to people cheerily and politely fucking up.

Animats 10y ago
You want NASA in the Apollo era. Read "Failure is not an option".[1] [1] http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Not-Option-Mission-Control/dp/0783891369 http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Not-Option-Mission-Control/dp/...
dang 10y ago
Don't the two go together? Shame drives people to cover up their mistakes. That produces more fuckups. There's an old improv game where someone suddenly points to you and you have to continue their story without missing a beat and without doing a bunch of other arbitrary things. It's designed to be impossible. But if—or rather when—you fuck up, the rule is that everybody applauds, praises you, and gives you hugs. It's disorienting at first, but then you can feel yourself acquiring entirely new patterns in response to mistakes.
tbrownaw 10y ago
The thing is, trying to demand absolute perfection results in the inevitable imperfections getting hidden. If you want them to get fixed, there can't be any incentive to hide them. Which is where "no shaming" rules come from.
rauljara 10y ago
In my experience, a no shaming culture is one where mistakes get fixed instead of hidden, and everyone can learn from them. Fwiw, I work for trading firm, which trades 10+ billion dollars daily and mistakes can be incredibly costly. I would argue the lack of shame associated with admitting mistakes is vital to our level of code quality. I have yet to meet the developer who does not make mistakes. I have met a few arrogant enough that they'd never admit to them.
rhizome 10y ago
Ah, "don't fuck up," I wonder why nobody's thought of that before. It sounds like maybe you don't like your coworkers these days?
jschwartzi 10y ago
I would rather know about something early so that I can fix it. If your entire business culture is one of berating people for making mistakes and introducing bugs, I can guarantee you that there are some really good latent ones that will bite you in the ass some day. God help you if peoples' lives actually depend on the code you write.
- AceyMan 10y ago
  I'm won't be the first HN'er to note that the business of aviation has evolved a culture much like the ideal being discussed. You can see it when you read NTSB AARs, TSBs, even the regs (FARs) themselves. Even the language is chosen so as to avoid shame. When blame is ascribed it's explicit and for the purpose of explication of root causes, but, more generally, the tone of the narrative is always, "we've critiqued _the process_ and here's how we see to improve it." People are only seen as participants in the process and aren't targeted for blame or shame. The amazing safety statistics of commercial flight speak to the efficacy of this philosophy; software project management would do well to adopt much of these strategies, I'd argue.
lsh 10y ago
Upvoted, because I don't see a culture of working hard to not fuck up and shaming being mutually exclusive. Shaming is a poisonous behaviour but so is the belief we're capable of perfection. So also is the idea that we should be tolerant of those who constantly fuck up. Fuck those who can't/won't improve. If we put the infrastructure and attitudes in place that assumes that we will definitely fuck up, that sub-optimal solutions and people will be introduced, then fucking up becomes less common, communication isn't inhibited by shaming/bulling attitudes and, god forbid, we can raise our individual and collective standards and become more attuned to stink and how best to amortize it. Everything can be automated, even quality checks.
ljw1001 10y ago
There is no such thing as culture of "DO fuck up", only cultures where avoiding mistakes is secondary to other goals like hitting the schedule date.
insanejudge 10y ago
There's a huge difference between a "no shaming" culture and a "don't be ashamed" culture. It's critical for people to be able to be open and transparent about their mistakes and the process leading to them without fear of being put through the ringer for it, but that's not mutually exclusive from an environment where the type of appropriate embarrassment/remorse necessary (usually in the form of a thorough postmortem) to truly learn from one's errors is expected.

Instead of a "no shaming" culture, I'd like to find a culture of "don't fuck up". "No shaming" and "no assholes" just leads to people cheerily and politely fucking up.

Animats 10y ago

You want NASA in the Apollo era. Read "Failure is not an option".[1] [1] http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Not-Option-Mission-Control/dp/0783891369 http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Not-Option-Mission-Control/dp/...

dang 10y ago

Don't the two go together? Shame drives people to cover up their mistakes. That produces more fuckups. There's an old improv game where someone suddenly points to you and you have to continue their story without missing a beat and without doing a bunch of other arbitrary things. It's designed to be impossible. But if—or rather when—you fuck up, the rule is that everybody applauds, praises you, and gives you hugs. It's disorienting at first, but then you can feel yourself acquiring entirely new patterns in response to mistakes.

tbrownaw 10y ago

The thing is, trying to demand absolute perfection results in the inevitable imperfections getting hidden. If you want them to get fixed, there can't be any incentive to hide them. Which is where "no shaming" rules come from.

rauljara 10y ago

In my experience, a no shaming culture is one where mistakes get fixed instead of hidden, and everyone can learn from them. Fwiw, I work for trading firm, which trades 10+ billion dollars daily and mistakes can be incredibly costly. I would argue the lack of shame associated with admitting mistakes is vital to our level of code quality. I have yet to meet the developer who does not make mistakes. I have met a few arrogant enough that they'd never admit to them.

rhizome 10y ago

Ah, "don't fuck up," I wonder why nobody's thought of that before. It sounds like maybe you don't like your coworkers these days?

jschwartzi 10y ago

I would rather know about something early so that I can fix it. If your entire business culture is one of berating people for making mistakes and introducing bugs, I can guarantee you that there are some really good latent ones that will bite you in the ass some day. God help you if peoples' lives actually depend on the code you write.

AceyMan 10y ago
I'm won't be the first HN'er to note that the business of aviation has evolved a culture much like the ideal being discussed. You can see it when you read NTSB AARs, TSBs, even the regs (FARs) themselves. Even the language is chosen so as to avoid shame. When blame is ascribed it's explicit and for the purpose of explication of root causes, but, more generally, the tone of the narrative is always, "we've critiqued _the process_ and here's how we see to improve it." People are only seen as participants in the process and aren't targeted for blame or shame. The amazing safety statistics of commercial flight speak to the efficacy of this philosophy; software project management would do well to adopt much of these strategies, I'd argue.

lsh 10y ago

Upvoted, because I don't see a culture of working hard to not fuck up and shaming being mutually exclusive. Shaming is a poisonous behaviour but so is the belief we're capable of perfection. So also is the idea that we should be tolerant of those who constantly fuck up. Fuck those who can't/won't improve. If we put the infrastructure and attitudes in place that assumes that we will definitely fuck up, that sub-optimal solutions and people will be introduced, then fucking up becomes less common, communication isn't inhibited by shaming/bulling attitudes and, god forbid, we can raise our individual and collective standards and become more attuned to stink and how best to amortize it. Everything can be automated, even quality checks.

ljw1001 10y ago

There is no such thing as culture of "DO fuck up", only cultures where avoiding mistakes is secondary to other goals like hitting the schedule date.

insanejudge 10y ago

There's a huge difference between a "no shaming" culture and a "don't be ashamed" culture. It's critical for people to be able to be open and transparent about their mistakes and the process leading to them without fear of being put through the ringer for it, but that's not mutually exclusive from an environment where the type of appropriate embarrassment/remorse necessary (usually in the form of a thorough postmortem) to truly learn from one's errors is expected.