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There's only so much you can do yourself, take into your own hands, look at from the other perspective, mingle around a problem until at long last you'll end up

There's only so much you can do yourself, take into your own hands, look at from the other perspective, mingle around a problem until at long last you'll end up where you started again: Forces out of your control. And it's (or should be) OK to blame them, you've done your homework. But then someone comes along and says "You've been going at this the wrong way! Think positive! Think like a 'player'!". And as you roll your eyes, people label you passive-aggressive. People like that are probably a minority, but they most certainly exist, too.

lostcolony 7y ago
So there's a difference between blame, and discussing failure. "The project was not delivered on time because requirements gathering took so long. Here's how we think we can help Product define them more efficiently in the future" is different than "It's Product's fault". Both are laying blame on Product. One is suggesting a solution and sharing ownership of it; the other is only seeking to point fingers. I would argue at no place should blame be okay. Because that creates a toxic culture; people begin to be less open and transparent about failure, are less likely to take responsibility, more likely to pre-emptively finger point to try to shift blame, etc, and it becomes political. The fact that you feel you are blameless is irrelevant if they can spin it so that it sounds like you are to blame (and trust me, speaking as a dev, the other departments are going to have way more time and experience in playing politics).
- klingonopera 7y ago
  I agree with you on most counts, but you're viewing it from my position of not yet having (attempted) to see it from different angles and tackling issues (i.e. yet to do homework). One should definitely do what you suggest and attempt to be constructive and productive (i.e. do the homework). But if management shoots everything down and they expect you to build a house out of match-sticks and that thing falls apart at the slightest gust of wind, are you to blame or management for not giving you better building materials? (i.e. homework done, nothing left to do) I'm advocating for a realistic view of things: Sometimes, oneself is to blame, sometimes it's something else, and sometimes it's forces out of our control, but there is always something at fault, if something goes wrong, hence there is always something to blame in failure. But seeing oneself to be blamed at all times leads to burn-out. EDIT: I'm aware you could also take a bunch of match-sticks, grind them to a pulp, and create some type of wood-like cement from it, and then build a house from that, and that might work. So let's say, they just give you five boxes with 20 matches each and it has to be at least 25 square-meters. Some might now argue, that you could go and start trading this until you end up with a house, there's the story of a guy who started trading a pen for something else on eBay, and ended up with a house. So management now insists this has to be done by the day-after-tomorrow. Etc. The question is: When and where do you stop telling yourself you haven't thought of the right solution and instead insist that management is absurd?
  - lostcolony 7y ago
    I would argue that that's a different issue. That's not about blame; that's about management refusing to alter their expectations to meet reality, despite you being open, transparent, and respectful about the state of it on the ground. If they are unable to do so, and respond accordingly, it's a good sign you should quit. That's different than blame though. Yes, when things go wrong they go wrong due to a reason, but I'm simply highlighting the difference between highlighting what went wrong with a "here are some suggestions on how to solve it", and highlighting it just to place blame. If the culture is focused on placing blame, to where you feel the need to do it, too, just defensively, GTFO ASAP. There is no way to win. I've seen once technical people who gained a majority of their experience in that kind of organization, and they were a liability everywhere they went.

lostcolony 7y ago

So there's a difference between blame, and discussing failure. "The project was not delivered on time because requirements gathering took so long. Here's how we think we can help Product define them more efficiently in the future" is different than "It's Product's fault". Both are laying blame on Product. One is suggesting a solution and sharing ownership of it; the other is only seeking to point fingers. I would argue at no place should blame be okay. Because that creates a toxic culture; people begin to be less open and transparent about failure, are less likely to take responsibility, more likely to pre-emptively finger point to try to shift blame, etc, and it becomes political. The fact that you feel you are blameless is irrelevant if they can spin it so that it sounds like you are to blame (and trust me, speaking as a dev, the other departments are going to have way more time and experience in playing politics).

klingonopera 7y ago
I agree with you on most counts, but you're viewing it from my position of not yet having (attempted) to see it from different angles and tackling issues (i.e. yet to do homework). One should definitely do what you suggest and attempt to be constructive and productive (i.e. do the homework). But if management shoots everything down and they expect you to build a house out of match-sticks and that thing falls apart at the slightest gust of wind, are you to blame or management for not giving you better building materials? (i.e. homework done, nothing left to do) I'm advocating for a realistic view of things: Sometimes, oneself is to blame, sometimes it's something else, and sometimes it's forces out of our control, but there is always something at fault, if something goes wrong, hence there is always something to blame in failure. But seeing oneself to be blamed at all times leads to burn-out. EDIT: I'm aware you could also take a bunch of match-sticks, grind them to a pulp, and create some type of wood-like cement from it, and then build a house from that, and that might work. So let's say, they just give you five boxes with 20 matches each and it has to be at least 25 square-meters. Some might now argue, that you could go and start trading this until you end up with a house, there's the story of a guy who started trading a pen for something else on eBay, and ended up with a house. So management now insists this has to be done by the day-after-tomorrow. Etc. The question is: When and where do you stop telling yourself you haven't thought of the right solution and instead insist that management is absurd?
- lostcolony 7y ago
  I would argue that that's a different issue. That's not about blame; that's about management refusing to alter their expectations to meet reality, despite you being open, transparent, and respectful about the state of it on the ground. If they are unable to do so, and respond accordingly, it's a good sign you should quit. That's different than blame though. Yes, when things go wrong they go wrong due to a reason, but I'm simply highlighting the difference between highlighting what went wrong with a "here are some suggestions on how to solve it", and highlighting it just to place blame. If the culture is focused on placing blame, to where you feel the need to do it, too, just defensively, GTFO ASAP. There is no way to win. I've seen once technical people who gained a majority of their experience in that kind of organization, and they were a liability everywhere they went.