3 ms·

In other words, would you agree that people that make right decision fastest are the smartest? What I mean is that making a good decision while taking a lot of

In other words, would you agree that people that make right decision fastest are the smartest? What I mean is that making a good decision while taking a lot of time is much easier than making the right decision without spending much time. In real life we often have to make suboptimal decisions merely because we cannot spend much time on each one.

lanstin 5y ago
Only in very simple solution spaces. In general the solution spaces are pretty big and taking a while to mull it over is worth while. Especially for novel problems. If the problem is similar to something you thought about previously or have already encountered them of course it can be responded to. Even the smartest chess grandmaster will play better with more time. And for hiring, I always prefer people that have a great answer in a day or so than an ok answer immediately which they are happy about.
- darkerside 5y ago
  Interesting. I find most people index too heavily on the other direction. There are diminishing returns on thinking at some point for to the inherent imprecision of making decisions in this world. You can make the best decision and things can still go wrong. Or you can have misunderstood the problem. Or you could be solving the wrong problem. For most ill defined problems, it's best to accept you may be wrong, but make the best quick decision you can, and be willing to reevaluate.
  - lanstin 5y ago
    I worked at a place where design was expected to take a free weeks for a new server project that would take say three months. From what I saw we produced software that was easy to maintain and easy to add new features too. But we rarely had to rip out and redo old features or old libraries. People were much more Likely to come up with the right layering of software to solve the problem, including the problem of high velocity changing produce specs. We also figured out the right place to put in some DSL templating engine or easy to edit configuration. Working there for years and watching the system scale over many orders of magnitude user traffic and feature growth left me with an appreciation for deep, clear thought, in the face of uncertainty.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>would you agree that people that make right decision fastest are the smartest? they are the smartest in that decision space, probably due to training in it and have made a lot of similar decisions in the past.

lanstin 5y ago

Only in very simple solution spaces. In general the solution spaces are pretty big and taking a while to mull it over is worth while. Especially for novel problems. If the problem is similar to something you thought about previously or have already encountered them of course it can be responded to. Even the smartest chess grandmaster will play better with more time. And for hiring, I always prefer people that have a great answer in a day or so than an ok answer immediately which they are happy about.

darkerside 5y ago
Interesting. I find most people index too heavily on the other direction. There are diminishing returns on thinking at some point for to the inherent imprecision of making decisions in this world. You can make the best decision and things can still go wrong. Or you can have misunderstood the problem. Or you could be solving the wrong problem. For most ill defined problems, it's best to accept you may be wrong, but make the best quick decision you can, and be willing to reevaluate.
- lanstin 5y ago
  I worked at a place where design was expected to take a free weeks for a new server project that would take say three months. From what I saw we produced software that was easy to maintain and easy to add new features too. But we rarely had to rip out and redo old features or old libraries. People were much more Likely to come up with the right layering of software to solve the problem, including the problem of high velocity changing produce specs. We also figured out the right place to put in some DSL templating engine or easy to edit configuration. Working there for years and watching the system scale over many orders of magnitude user traffic and feature growth left me with an appreciation for deep, clear thought, in the face of uncertainty.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>would you agree that people that make right decision fastest are the smartest? they are the smartest in that decision space, probably due to training in it and have made a lot of similar decisions in the past.