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I don't know if I agree with the word "design". In my experience most managers aren't trying to design a way to force people to work for free (though that may b
by irrational 6y ago
I don't know if I agree with the word "design". In my experience most managers aren't trying to design a way to force people to work for free (though that may be the unintended result). Most managers seem to fly by the seat of their pants and make up deadlines based on what will make the client/stakeholders happy and not as some sort of malicious design.
- Clubber 6y ago"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" -Hanlon's razor
- liability 6y agoAdvanced malicious actors often feign incompetence when caught, to take advantage of the naive and forgiving.
- quickthrower2 6y agoThis is a basic part of the human OS. It’s a skill that can be seen from 4 years of age. It’s the other way around: We learn not to do this.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoMaybe one should assume the people who say the hanlon razor saying are advanced malicious actors.
- Clubber 6y agoI've worked on both sides of that relationship. Believe me, most managers don't think about the details of building software and are just flying by the seat of their pants trying not to look dumb and get fired.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago> Most managers seem to fly by the seat of their pants and make up deadlines based on what will make the client/stakeholders happy and not as some sort of malicious design. So developers must suffer because managers routinely make promises they can't keep?
- iamkroot 6y agoMore like the managers make promises they don't understand.
- matheusmoreira 6y agoIsn't understanding the capabilities of the people they manage the job of the manager? I always thought that was the whole point. If they don't know this, then maybe they shouldn't be making any promises at all.
- watwut 6y agoMaking correct estimate on how much time feature will take is something different then just understanding the capabilities of the people. Even developers themselves are often unable to produce good estimates. In fact, most developers tend to systematically underestimate how much time they will need for this or that task. I have seen management to even add padding to estimate and it is still not enough in the end.
- thelean12 6y agoIsn't that up to the developers to provide reasonable estimates? I regularly tell the higher ups estimates that are 3x what I actually think because I know I suck at estimates. If the problem is that your manager isn't listening to your estimates, then find a new manager. Plenty of fish in the sea.
- matheusmoreira 6y agoCan software development jobs actually be reliably estimated though? It's not like other jobs where you can statistically analyze the performance of workers and estimate how long they take to perform tasks. There are too many factors at work here, no doubt there's going to be high variance from developer to developer, from project to project, from team to team, from feature to feature. The work isn't an uniform task like brick laying.