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"We know screwups are an essential part of making something good. That's why our goal is to screw up as fast as possible." The terror of being caught screwing

"We know screwups are an essential part of making something good. That's why our goal is to screw up as fast as possible." The terror of being caught screwing up destroys more creativity, drives more behaviour underground and fuels more petty politicking than just about any other corporate imperative I can think of.

arethuza 16y ago
I attended a talk last year at the Edinburgh Science Festival given by one of the Pixar guys - it was absolutely fascinating. Perhaps the most memorable part of the whole thing were the "outtakes" that get produced when their models don't quite work as expected. So even Pixar's mistakes are pretty entertaining.
nlawalker 16y ago
Amen to that. Insecurity destroys whole worlds full of ideas every day. "The Myth of the Genius Programmer" is one of my favorite presentations: http://code.google.com/events/io/2009/sessions/MythGeniusProgrammer.html http://code.google.com/events/io/2009/sessions/MythGeniusPro... From a "corporate" perspective, I think insecurity often stems from the mandate to produce output and not waste time, and no one wants to produce half-baked or poorly-thought-out output, so they throw their ideas in the trash. EDIT: Also, the importance of asking stupid questions. Stupid questions are the most important ones to ask, because everyone else was probably too afraid to ask them, resulting in gaps in thinking that you could drive a fleet of trucks through. For this reason, sometimes the most important person on a design team is the person who has the faintest idea of what's going on and asks questions about existing processes that everyone takes for granted - they ask seemingly nonsensical questions that challenge the thinking of everyone stuck in tunnel vision.
- RyanMcGreal 16y ago
  >EDIT: Also, the importance of asking stupid questions. The company I work for really, really loves acronyms; and different departments often have different names for the same thing. An important early lesson I learned from a manager was to stop during meetings and ask what an acronym means. One of my biggest surprises was discovering that different people had different ideas about what the acronym stood for, and many people - including the people using them - simply had no idea at all.
jacobolus 16y ago
Substitute “cultural” for “corporate”, and you’ve just described human society. :-)

arethuza 16y ago

I attended a talk last year at the Edinburgh Science Festival given by one of the Pixar guys - it was absolutely fascinating. Perhaps the most memorable part of the whole thing were the "outtakes" that get produced when their models don't quite work as expected. So even Pixar's mistakes are pretty entertaining.

nlawalker 16y ago

Amen to that. Insecurity destroys whole worlds full of ideas every day. "The Myth of the Genius Programmer" is one of my favorite presentations: http://code.google.com/events/io/2009/sessions/MythGeniusProgrammer.html http://code.google.com/events/io/2009/sessions/MythGeniusPro... From a "corporate" perspective, I think insecurity often stems from the mandate to produce output and not waste time, and no one wants to produce half-baked or poorly-thought-out output, so they throw their ideas in the trash. EDIT: Also, the importance of asking stupid questions. Stupid questions are the most important ones to ask, because everyone else was probably too afraid to ask them, resulting in gaps in thinking that you could drive a fleet of trucks through. For this reason, sometimes the most important person on a design team is the person who has the faintest idea of what's going on and asks questions about existing processes that everyone takes for granted - they ask seemingly nonsensical questions that challenge the thinking of everyone stuck in tunnel vision.

RyanMcGreal 16y ago
>EDIT: Also, the importance of asking stupid questions. The company I work for really, really loves acronyms; and different departments often have different names for the same thing. An important early lesson I learned from a manager was to stop during meetings and ask what an acronym means. One of my biggest surprises was discovering that different people had different ideas about what the acronym stood for, and many people - including the people using them - simply had no idea at all.

jacobolus 16y ago

Substitute “cultural” for “corporate”, and you’ve just described human society. :-)