5 ms·

After having spent 10 years in the US nuclear navy, i am surprised at how many things are obvious in that organization that no one else seemingly has any idea a

After having spent 10 years in the US nuclear navy, i am surprised at how many things are obvious in that organization that no one else seemingly has any idea about: "When I came to Washington before World War II to head the electrical section of the Bureau of Ships, I found that one man was in charge of design, another of production, a third handled maintenance, while a fourth dealt with fiscal matters. The entire bureau operated that way. It didn’t make sense to me. Design problems showed up in production, production errors showed up in maintenance, and financial matters reached into all areas. I changed the system. I made one man responsible for his entire area of equipment—for design, production, maintenance, and contracting. If anything went wrong, I knew exactly at whom to point. I run my present organization on the same principle." -Admiral Rickover, creator of the US Nuclear Navy the hang-up button in between the audio- and video- mute buttons results from the lack of responsibility described above. any single person would agree this is wrong, therefor no single person is in charge.

ryandrake 6y ago
I've always liked Apple's DRI[1] concept. You have a single responsible person who is the final decision maker about the [product | feature | initiative]. No more dodging tough calls and diffusing the responsibility over a project across 5 different PMs, 3 designers, 4 tech leads, and 2 executive sponsors, so that really nobody is responsible for anything. The buck stops at a single, known decision maker. Most company cultures can't quite manage to do this, as everyone seems to have to have this weird fractional "ownership" of some part of the product. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/10/02/how-well-does-apples-directly-responsible-individual-dri-model-work-in-practice/?sh=764e2b7f194c https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/10/02/how-well-does-...
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  In addition to what you said, you need these DRIs to actually care. And they need a good mechanism for feedback since they’re not going to know what’s broken if everyone is afraid of harshly criticizing or even cancelling the entire product. You need Steve Jobs at the top. What happens with DRIs today at Apple is complacency sets in since no one is complaining, feedback (demo days with Steve) is getting weaker and less threatening. And, shitty ideas get democratized and perpetuated since no one is there to put an end to it.
pdeffebach 6y ago
Is the Navy really a good example of command structures that promote effective UI? According to Propublica, part of the reason for the Fitzgerald crash was bad interface design. https://features.propublica.org/navy-uss-mccain-crash/navy-installed-touch-screen-steering-ten-sailors-paid-with-their-lives/ https://features.propublica.org/navy-uss-mccain-crash/navy-i...
- kryogen1c 6y ago
  > Is the Navy really a good example good question. In the US, the nuclear navy is basically a separate organization. they are still in the military chain of command, but the nuclear portions are all separately: managed, manufactured, repaired, operated, trained, audited etc.
- dralley 6y ago
  It probably depends on how "sexy" the UI in question is meant to be. I've read that on submarines, every pipe that leads to the outside ocean has a primary control valve in one place, each with a physical handle that is turned sideways when the valve is closed. Thus, it is immediately apparent by looking at the valve array whether any valve that potentially opens to the ocean is properly shut before deep-depth dives.

ryandrake 6y ago

I've always liked Apple's DRI[1] concept. You have a single responsible person who is the final decision maker about the [product | feature | initiative]. No more dodging tough calls and diffusing the responsibility over a project across 5 different PMs, 3 designers, 4 tech leads, and 2 executive sponsors, so that really nobody is responsible for anything. The buck stops at a single, known decision maker. Most company cultures can't quite manage to do this, as everyone seems to have to have this weird fractional "ownership" of some part of the product. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/10/02/how-well-does-apples-directly-responsible-individual-dri-model-work-in-practice/?sh=764e2b7f194c https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/10/02/how-well-does-...

systemvoltage 6y ago
In addition to what you said, you need these DRIs to actually care. And they need a good mechanism for feedback since they’re not going to know what’s broken if everyone is afraid of harshly criticizing or even cancelling the entire product. You need Steve Jobs at the top. What happens with DRIs today at Apple is complacency sets in since no one is complaining, feedback (demo days with Steve) is getting weaker and less threatening. And, shitty ideas get democratized and perpetuated since no one is there to put an end to it.

pdeffebach 6y ago

Is the Navy really a good example of command structures that promote effective UI? According to Propublica, part of the reason for the Fitzgerald crash was bad interface design. https://features.propublica.org/navy-uss-mccain-crash/navy-installed-touch-screen-steering-ten-sailors-paid-with-their-lives/ https://features.propublica.org/navy-uss-mccain-crash/navy-i...

kryogen1c 6y ago
> Is the Navy really a good example good question. In the US, the nuclear navy is basically a separate organization. they are still in the military chain of command, but the nuclear portions are all separately: managed, manufactured, repaired, operated, trained, audited etc.
dralley 6y ago
It probably depends on how "sexy" the UI in question is meant to be. I've read that on submarines, every pipe that leads to the outside ocean has a primary control valve in one place, each with a physical handle that is turned sideways when the valve is closed. Thus, it is immediately apparent by looking at the valve array whether any valve that potentially opens to the ocean is properly shut before deep-depth dives.