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> A couple weeks later I happened to talk to a VP up his chain of command, and mentioned this to him, and he chuckled and said "oh yeah that's by design, I'd ra

> A couple weeks later I happened to talk to a VP up his chain of command, and mentioned this to him, and he chuckled and said "oh yeah that's by design, I'd rather have internal competition than external, it's worth the cost". Was a good reminder for me to avoid large companies. Rather than just outright dismissing what he said without any justification, did you consider that he actually had evidence/experience that it indeed did reduce the cost? In terms of risk in particular, having two teams work on the same product significantly reduces the chance of not having a viable product by the deadline. Assuming e.g. a 50% chance of failure, having two teams reduces this chance to 25%.

muro 5y ago
Agree on sometimes having good reasons. Not just time to market, but also different approach. As long as in the end only the better one is shipped and the "losing" team is managed well through the decision, it could be a win.
- WJW 5y ago
  There can be good reasons for redundancy, like you mentioned. I think that not even telling different teams about the others working on the same thing goes a bit far though. Eventually people will find out anyway and then they will feel like management has lied to them. The fallout of that situation will probably more than erase the benefits from having multiple teams.
  - muro 5y ago
    Agreed, how the redundancy is managed and clear reasons for it (time to market, risky bets etc) are key.
kqr 5y ago
> Assuming e.g. a 50% chance of failure, having two teams reduces this chance to 25%. ...if failure is independent, sure. Not only is independence generally a dangerous assumption, but in particular when it comes to software engineering, it's been shown that problems are not independent. I don't have the reference at hand, but if I did, I could show you that completely separate teams tend to make the same mistakes.
- toxik 5y ago
  And at twice the cost, if not more!
- simonh 5y ago
  This makes sense. Both teams must work with the same organisational rules, the same infrastructure, the same 'enterprise' technology strategy, often the same geographic constraints, the same marketing organisation, the same customer preconceptions about the company, etc, etc.
  - laurent92 5y ago
    Nono it doesn’t make sense. What are the chances that both 50% failure chances of both teams overlap on 49% of each other? Bad luck! but it is rarely random: Start at the wrong time of the economic cycle for example. Also what are the chances each team poaches resources that the other needs? Then you increase failure rate to 75%…
- stefanfisk 5y ago
  and if the product's market only allows for say 2-3 dominant actors, the lack of focus might even mean that you lowered your chances of success quite a bit. just look at Google's multitude of misc chat and meeting solutions.
  - laurent92 5y ago
    To their credit, Google avoided the problem of chat products competing against each other by shutting them down.
wildmanx 5y ago
That's the cold number's game. But that excludes a lot of factors which the original article is about. The moment you have internal competition, you build conflicts and distrust. The fallout on both teams may be much worse, in the long run. Maybe you get this one project out the door, one team wins, the other one loses. Great. And then what? Half the other team quits since they didn't get that bonus and feel betrayed by management. The other half stays, but resents both management and the "winning" team. Now you reshuffle, and those guys have to work with each other. Start the game anew, with a new project? Great, now people know what's up and will play their cards accordingly. Infighting is guaranteed. That's a terrible way to manage teams. Short-term gain? Maybe. Long-term destruction? Basically guaranteed. The "without any justification" part of your answer dismisses that that's exactly what the original article is about that we are discussing here. That alone is justification and it matches many people's experience. I'm personally experiencing the exact opposite these days. I'm thriving on my company not doing this nonsense and we are doing fantastic!
- logicchains 5y ago
  >The fallout on both teams may be much worse, in the long run. The key thing is that nobody's presented any evidence, just some anecdotes. Clearly there are places that have internal competition and have done quite well, like Amazon (compared to e.g. GCP), or many trading firms.
  - wildmanx 5y ago
    I so far haven't heard an anecdote from somebody claiming "I experienced internal competition and it was sooo great!". It's anecdotes from people having experienced anxiety, toxicity and overall bad work climate leading them to either quit or seriously consider it themselves or hearing it from their colleagues. And it's other anecdotes saying "some companies have done quite well". I personally have experienced it and I won't go back. And I have also personally experienced the opposite and now I'm having a blast without this nonsense. But sure, let's just say "nobody has evidence, maybe it's great, maybe it's not".
  - ganafagol 5y ago
dm3 5y ago
I'd think sharing the plan of building two versions of the same thing and tasking the teams to come up with two distinct implementation strategies would provide a better outcome. This way there's still competition, but of a friendly kind. The risk is further diminished by communication of lessons learned and not having to step on the same rake multiple times.
TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
That's not how risk management works, and it's also not how costs work. You're (more or less) doubling costs, but the biggest risk factors may be outside the control of both teams. The opportunity cost is the productivity of an entire team of developers who might well be better employed doing something useful. Plus all the bad feeling when one team "loses." It's irrational sports cult management - competition good, cooperation bad.
- logicchains 5y ago
  >That's not how risk management works, and it's also not how costs work. It's how it works in a lot of successful trading firms; Jump Tower and Citadel for instance have competing internal teams. Reduces the risk to the firm because if one team's approach fails, chances are another will still be doing okay.
  - YokoZar 5y ago
    Trading firms are not knowledge organizations. They compete in zero-sum games. The realm is completely different from building something of value.
blntechie 5y ago
It destroys at least one team’s morale and increases attrition directly. If a company cares only about results and has a good supply line of employees like for FAANG companies have, it might work. But for most companies, it would only lead to implosion.

muro 5y ago

Agree on sometimes having good reasons. Not just time to market, but also different approach. As long as in the end only the better one is shipped and the "losing" team is managed well through the decision, it could be a win.

WJW 5y ago
There can be good reasons for redundancy, like you mentioned. I think that not even telling different teams about the others working on the same thing goes a bit far though. Eventually people will find out anyway and then they will feel like management has lied to them. The fallout of that situation will probably more than erase the benefits from having multiple teams.
- muro 5y ago
  Agreed, how the redundancy is managed and clear reasons for it (time to market, risky bets etc) are key.

kqr 5y ago

> Assuming e.g. a 50% chance of failure, having two teams reduces this chance to 25%. ...if failure is independent, sure. Not only is independence generally a dangerous assumption, but in particular when it comes to software engineering, it's been shown that problems are not independent. I don't have the reference at hand, but if I did, I could show you that completely separate teams tend to make the same mistakes.

toxik 5y ago
And at twice the cost, if not more!
simonh 5y ago
This makes sense. Both teams must work with the same organisational rules, the same infrastructure, the same 'enterprise' technology strategy, often the same geographic constraints, the same marketing organisation, the same customer preconceptions about the company, etc, etc.
- laurent92 5y ago
  Nono it doesn’t make sense. What are the chances that both 50% failure chances of both teams overlap on 49% of each other? Bad luck! but it is rarely random: Start at the wrong time of the economic cycle for example. Also what are the chances each team poaches resources that the other needs? Then you increase failure rate to 75%…
stefanfisk 5y ago
and if the product's market only allows for say 2-3 dominant actors, the lack of focus might even mean that you lowered your chances of success quite a bit. just look at Google's multitude of misc chat and meeting solutions.
- laurent92 5y ago
  To their credit, Google avoided the problem of chat products competing against each other by shutting them down.

wildmanx 5y ago

That's the cold number's game. But that excludes a lot of factors which the original article is about. The moment you have internal competition, you build conflicts and distrust. The fallout on both teams may be much worse, in the long run. Maybe you get this one project out the door, one team wins, the other one loses. Great. And then what? Half the other team quits since they didn't get that bonus and feel betrayed by management. The other half stays, but resents both management and the "winning" team. Now you reshuffle, and those guys have to work with each other. Start the game anew, with a new project? Great, now people know what's up and will play their cards accordingly. Infighting is guaranteed. That's a terrible way to manage teams. Short-term gain? Maybe. Long-term destruction? Basically guaranteed. The "without any justification" part of your answer dismisses that that's exactly what the original article is about that we are discussing here. That alone is justification and it matches many people's experience. I'm personally experiencing the exact opposite these days. I'm thriving on my company not doing this nonsense and we are doing fantastic!

logicchains 5y ago
>The fallout on both teams may be much worse, in the long run. The key thing is that nobody's presented any evidence, just some anecdotes. Clearly there are places that have internal competition and have done quite well, like Amazon (compared to e.g. GCP), or many trading firms.
- wildmanx 5y ago
  I so far haven't heard an anecdote from somebody claiming "I experienced internal competition and it was sooo great!". It's anecdotes from people having experienced anxiety, toxicity and overall bad work climate leading them to either quit or seriously consider it themselves or hearing it from their colleagues. And it's other anecdotes saying "some companies have done quite well". I personally have experienced it and I won't go back. And I have also personally experienced the opposite and now I'm having a blast without this nonsense. But sure, let's just say "nobody has evidence, maybe it's great, maybe it's not".
- ganafagol 5y ago

dm3 5y ago

I'd think sharing the plan of building two versions of the same thing and tasking the teams to come up with two distinct implementation strategies would provide a better outcome. This way there's still competition, but of a friendly kind. The risk is further diminished by communication of lessons learned and not having to step on the same rake multiple times.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago

That's not how risk management works, and it's also not how costs work. You're (more or less) doubling costs, but the biggest risk factors may be outside the control of both teams. The opportunity cost is the productivity of an entire team of developers who might well be better employed doing something useful. Plus all the bad feeling when one team "loses." It's irrational sports cult management - competition good, cooperation bad.

logicchains 5y ago
>That's not how risk management works, and it's also not how costs work. It's how it works in a lot of successful trading firms; Jump Tower and Citadel for instance have competing internal teams. Reduces the risk to the firm because if one team's approach fails, chances are another will still be doing okay.
- YokoZar 5y ago
  Trading firms are not knowledge organizations. They compete in zero-sum games. The realm is completely different from building something of value.

blntechie 5y ago

It destroys at least one team’s morale and increases attrition directly. If a company cares only about results and has a good supply line of employees like for FAANG companies have, it might work. But for most companies, it would only lead to implosion.