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Am at a Unicorn. Engineering is 20-30 engineers total. This person is definitely confusing Unicorn with some generic big engineering heavy company. Many compani

Am at a Unicorn. Engineering is 20-30 engineers total. This person is definitely confusing Unicorn with some generic big engineering heavy company. Many companies scale very differently. Some scale with large engineering efforts - mine doesn't. The change in number of engineers has barely moved in the last 2 years. That said - to the question about unicorns: You're always expendable. Same as any job - same politics - same nonsense. No matter how important they make you think you are to a products success - they'll fire you regardless. It's amazing how fake management will be about urgency. "This is the most critical business function! We must have people working on it!11!!1!1!" Fires key employee because they didn't like them - "critical business function" gets shoved into the backlog to never be seen again. People are fake and think they need to show urgency to get the most value out of their employees.

MattGaiser 6y ago
> "critical business function" gets shoved into the backlog to never be seen again. Never worked for a unicorn, but everything from big corp to startup to government. "Urgent" provokes no reaction from me anymore because of this.
- Fauntleroy 6y ago
  The only truly urgent thing I've seen is a product being down / a critical bug in production.
  - greenyoda 6y ago
    Anything that can cause your company to lose a lot of money can be truly urgent. For example, your biggest customer needs a new feature, and if they don't get it by the end of the quarter, they'll switch to your competitor. On the other hand, artificial deadlines that are invented by your company's management are usually not urgent.
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      How can a person working on features tell the difference between critical and non-critical features?
      - brianwawok 6y ago
        Go to lunch with the PM?
      - blaser-waffle 6y ago
        Ignore it and see how many calls you get
    - user5994461 6y ago
      A large company would never manage to switch to a competitor in one quarter. And they try any hard, it most likely means their getting a cashback under the table for the new contract, or other perk of the sort, the feature is just an excuse.
- trhway 6y ago
  >"Urgent" ,"Critically Important", etc. is the most recent whatever caught the attention of a typical S/E/VP with the attention span of a ferret long enough for him/her to be able to utter it in the words. If you're able to highly visibly jump and demonstrate activity during exact that moment - a great talent leading to advancements/promotions - there is no point to react as the next new "critical" directive/change of course/etc. is coming very soon. Of course if your manager is one of those aspiring "talented jumpers", he/she will try to make you jump with him/her - it is a real PITA to have such a manager who instead of filtering and protecting the team from would amplify all that stuff flowing down.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    I am shocked at how often I can just ignore an annoying email and have the issue go away...
    - bigiain 6y ago
      "Never put of until tomorrow anything you can get out of altogether"
  - ErikAugust 6y ago
    I wonder if there is a way to convert Harvard Business Review articles into top-of-the-backlog items automatically...
    - HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
      There's your Startup Idea!
      - MattGaiser 6y ago
        You jest, but an email to backlog service is something some managers might buy.
        6y ago
- joejerryronnie 6y ago
  When I was working at Stanford, a new colleague came rushing out of a meeting ready to start a big new initiative because our VP said something should get done. I had to explain that patience was important because no single person at the University could make a project happen, but hundreds of people at all levels of the org chart could stop a major initiative in it’s tracks if they felt threatened.
HenryBemis 6y ago
> show urgency I call this "artificial panic". That term came to mind when I joined a FMCG around Y2K, and on my first weeks I noticed people were running around stressed, like headless chicken. When I asked "what's on fire" and the answer was "nothing". https://dilbert.com/strip/2012-07-15 https://dilbert.com/strip/2012-07-15 The "Minimalists" say on their podcast that "most emergencies, aren't". When I see panic setting camp in a company's mentality, I make myself scarce for a while until things calm down. If I see that the artificial state of panic is a perpetual feeding machine, I try to dance around it. I've read my share of Dilbert to know to avoid these toxic environments. Sometimes you need to be a Wally to survive. https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-11-12 https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-11-12
- biddlesby 6y ago
  Reminds me of Douglas Adam's "Crisis Inducer" :)
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  Urgency is a matter of prioritisation. Ideally in a company there would be one single order backlog, showing the relative value of each project to everyone. However getting such an ordering would involve huge co-ordination across vastly differing internal companies / cultures and would drag up every buried political hand grenade of the company's lifetime. So instead you do what someone shouts loudly about. If the shouter is right more than 50/50 they are doing pretty well.
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  Correcting myself (for the record). The Minimalists say that "most CRISES, aren't" (apologies for the caps). I used the word emergencies, which is inaccurate quote.
all_usernames 6y ago
Hmm, sounds like you've got some dyfunctional managers. I've never personally witnessed management faking urgency on a project just to get productivity on it. Management is generally charged with making sure ICs know what the priorities are as set by Product. It's possible that Product changes its mind often, confusing everyone. But if Product, Management, and ICs are confused about what your "critical business functions" are, I think you've got some systemic leadership problems.
- pm90 6y ago
  Systemic leadership problems are more common than you think. Most larger corporations have orgs within them with very different cultures. It’s not hard to know why: the effective managers listen to their developers and shield them from the shit that comes from above. A healthy tree is nurtured under the protection offered by these managers; their reports never know what kind of shitstorms they were protected from. But these kinds of managers are rare albeit very effective.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rswail 6y ago
  I love how you distinguish between "ICs" "Management" and "Product". When you say "Product" do you mean Marketing? Sales? Production? Manufacturing? Do they have "ICs" as well as their own "Management"? The whole point of "Agile" was supposed to break down these divisions. Management is "generally charged" with getting the greatest productivity they can out of their resources. How that productivity is measured may be by "the priorities as set by Product", but that doesn't take into account ROI, sunk costs, COGS, Cap/Opex etc etc.
  - all_usernames 6y ago
    You are not[1] correct. Product Owner is a well-defined Agile manifesto role. [1] https://manifesto.co.uk/scrum-roles-product-owner/ https://manifesto.co.uk/scrum-roles-product-owner/

MattGaiser 6y ago

> "critical business function" gets shoved into the backlog to never be seen again. Never worked for a unicorn, but everything from big corp to startup to government. "Urgent" provokes no reaction from me anymore because of this.

Fauntleroy 6y ago
The only truly urgent thing I've seen is a product being down / a critical bug in production.
- greenyoda 6y ago
  Anything that can cause your company to lose a lot of money can be truly urgent. For example, your biggest customer needs a new feature, and if they don't get it by the end of the quarter, they'll switch to your competitor. On the other hand, artificial deadlines that are invented by your company's management are usually not urgent.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    How can a person working on features tell the difference between critical and non-critical features?
    - brianwawok 6y ago
      Go to lunch with the PM?
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      Ignore it and see how many calls you get
  - user5994461 6y ago
    A large company would never manage to switch to a competitor in one quarter. And they try any hard, it most likely means their getting a cashback under the table for the new contract, or other perk of the sort, the feature is just an excuse.
trhway 6y ago
>"Urgent" ,"Critically Important", etc. is the most recent whatever caught the attention of a typical S/E/VP with the attention span of a ferret long enough for him/her to be able to utter it in the words. If you're able to highly visibly jump and demonstrate activity during exact that moment - a great talent leading to advancements/promotions - there is no point to react as the next new "critical" directive/change of course/etc. is coming very soon. Of course if your manager is one of those aspiring "talented jumpers", he/she will try to make you jump with him/her - it is a real PITA to have such a manager who instead of filtering and protecting the team from would amplify all that stuff flowing down.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  I am shocked at how often I can just ignore an annoying email and have the issue go away...
  - bigiain 6y ago
    "Never put of until tomorrow anything you can get out of altogether"
- ErikAugust 6y ago
  I wonder if there is a way to convert Harvard Business Review articles into top-of-the-backlog items automatically...
  - HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
    There's your Startup Idea!
    - MattGaiser 6y ago
      You jest, but an email to backlog service is something some managers might buy.
      - 6y ago
joejerryronnie 6y ago
When I was working at Stanford, a new colleague came rushing out of a meeting ready to start a big new initiative because our VP said something should get done. I had to explain that patience was important because no single person at the University could make a project happen, but hundreds of people at all levels of the org chart could stop a major initiative in it’s tracks if they felt threatened.

HenryBemis 6y ago

> show urgency I call this "artificial panic". That term came to mind when I joined a FMCG around Y2K, and on my first weeks I noticed people were running around stressed, like headless chicken. When I asked "what's on fire" and the answer was "nothing". https://dilbert.com/strip/2012-07-15 https://dilbert.com/strip/2012-07-15 The "Minimalists" say on their podcast that "most emergencies, aren't". When I see panic setting camp in a company's mentality, I make myself scarce for a while until things calm down. If I see that the artificial state of panic is a perpetual feeding machine, I try to dance around it. I've read my share of Dilbert to know to avoid these toxic environments. Sometimes you need to be a Wally to survive. https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-11-12 https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-11-12

biddlesby 6y ago
Reminds me of Douglas Adam's "Crisis Inducer" :)
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
Urgency is a matter of prioritisation. Ideally in a company there would be one single order backlog, showing the relative value of each project to everyone. However getting such an ordering would involve huge co-ordination across vastly differing internal companies / cultures and would drag up every buried political hand grenade of the company's lifetime. So instead you do what someone shouts loudly about. If the shouter is right more than 50/50 they are doing pretty well.
HenryBemis 6y ago
Correcting myself (for the record). The Minimalists say that "most CRISES, aren't" (apologies for the caps). I used the word emergencies, which is inaccurate quote.

all_usernames 6y ago

Hmm, sounds like you've got some dyfunctional managers. I've never personally witnessed management faking urgency on a project just to get productivity on it. Management is generally charged with making sure ICs know what the priorities are as set by Product. It's possible that Product changes its mind often, confusing everyone. But if Product, Management, and ICs are confused about what your "critical business functions" are, I think you've got some systemic leadership problems.

pm90 6y ago
Systemic leadership problems are more common than you think. Most larger corporations have orgs within them with very different cultures. It’s not hard to know why: the effective managers listen to their developers and shield them from the shit that comes from above. A healthy tree is nurtured under the protection offered by these managers; their reports never know what kind of shitstorms they were protected from. But these kinds of managers are rare albeit very effective.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rswail 6y ago
I love how you distinguish between "ICs" "Management" and "Product". When you say "Product" do you mean Marketing? Sales? Production? Manufacturing? Do they have "ICs" as well as their own "Management"? The whole point of "Agile" was supposed to break down these divisions. Management is "generally charged" with getting the greatest productivity they can out of their resources. How that productivity is measured may be by "the priorities as set by Product", but that doesn't take into account ROI, sunk costs, COGS, Cap/Opex etc etc.
- all_usernames 6y ago
  You are not[1] correct. Product Owner is a well-defined Agile manifesto role. [1] https://manifesto.co.uk/scrum-roles-product-owner/ https://manifesto.co.uk/scrum-roles-product-owner/