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I've been the 'fixer' in so many situations and I have a tactic for this. I ask them for the following things: - a ticket to track the work - that they get

I've been the 'fixer' in so many situations and I have a tactic for this. I ask them for the following things: - a ticket to track the work - that they get approval from my manager to drop all of the work that I am currently doing and affect other peoples timelines - that they document the problem and how they want it fixed - that they get approval for the extra hours required You'd be amazed at how many "critical" issues disappear when you ask for these things. I personally think it is only critical because someone wants to dump the problem on you so that they can go home to their families.

underwater 5y ago
I've heard the term "effort asymmetry" used for this phenomenon. If someone can spend five minutes of their own time to create a days worth of work for you, they will do that without any hesitation. If you require them to spend fifteen minutes instead, then all of a sudden these urgent requests go away.
- pm90 5y ago
  Wow. I’ve understood this viscerally but it’s great to be able to describe it explicitly this way. Having been both on the sending and receiving end of this, I’m somewhat reflexively hesitant to ask others to do things for me “on a top priority” unless there’s a really good reason (most often a production outage). I take a somewhat gentler view in that requesters may often not be aware of the effort required by you. If you’re able to communicate that, very often that’s enough for them to reconsider their ask or it’s priority. Of course there will be a handful of jerks who always want their requests to be prioritized.
- cbushko 5y ago
  "Effort Asymmetry". That is a fantastic phrase and is so true.
bgro 5y ago
I'm going to start doing this.
hedberg10 5y ago
Not even dumping the problem. Many managers procrastinate by delegating. "I did some work on this" - No, you didn't, you just handed the hot potato to somebody dumb enough to take it. Notice that the problem usually doesn't get solved by this. On the contrary: These managers "work" on something and the problems multiply, not get less. Ask everybody who wants you to do work for a spec sheet. The above mentioned people can not do this. Again what they are really doing is to appear to be working. That is the real goal. If you force them to actually do work (spec sheet), they'll disappear or deliver a hilariously bad one.
cbushko 5y ago
As an add-on to protecting your time. I will help just about anyone that needs help but be wary of people that send you direct slack messages. Often they are messaging you directly because they are stuck. That is fine as we all get stuck sometimes. If they directly message you often they: - are lacking the skills/time/training to do their job. Been there. - are under pressure to get results quickly. Been there too. - are lacking the people/resources on their team to get results. Yup, been there too. - more horribly, they are taking credit for your knowledge and using you to get ahead. This has happened to me and I was pissed. You have to break out of this cycle. - In your standups/scrums/reporting, make it very well known that you 'spent X hours helping Y with Z'. You do not want to get in trouble for missing deadlines because you were helping someone else. You also want to be known as a helper/fixer because those are useful to teams. - Move the chats from direct messages to private channels. You need to let others know what is going on and more importantly you need to spread the knowledge that you are an expert of. - Moving to a channel also publicly sells your skills and knowledge to a wider audience. - Moving to a channel lets all managers know that something is lacking somewhere. Either their team doesn't have enough training, people or docs to get the jobs done. - Start writing documentation or updating the current docs. There is a gap somewhere in the docs if your knowledge is directly needed. Even 2 paragraph FAQs are useful to everyone. Having a doc will save you time in the future as you can just point people to it. Note: Always give credit where credit is due. If someone helps you out, let the world know how awesome they are. This will help you out in the long run because you will be known as someone that is humble, human and a growing. edit: the formatting is always terrible for me

underwater 5y ago

I've heard the term "effort asymmetry" used for this phenomenon. If someone can spend five minutes of their own time to create a days worth of work for you, they will do that without any hesitation. If you require them to spend fifteen minutes instead, then all of a sudden these urgent requests go away.

pm90 5y ago
Wow. I’ve understood this viscerally but it’s great to be able to describe it explicitly this way. Having been both on the sending and receiving end of this, I’m somewhat reflexively hesitant to ask others to do things for me “on a top priority” unless there’s a really good reason (most often a production outage). I take a somewhat gentler view in that requesters may often not be aware of the effort required by you. If you’re able to communicate that, very often that’s enough for them to reconsider their ask or it’s priority. Of course there will be a handful of jerks who always want their requests to be prioritized.
cbushko 5y ago
"Effort Asymmetry". That is a fantastic phrase and is so true.

bgro 5y ago

I'm going to start doing this.

hedberg10 5y ago

Not even dumping the problem. Many managers procrastinate by delegating. "I did some work on this" - No, you didn't, you just handed the hot potato to somebody dumb enough to take it. Notice that the problem usually doesn't get solved by this. On the contrary: These managers "work" on something and the problems multiply, not get less. Ask everybody who wants you to do work for a spec sheet. The above mentioned people can not do this. Again what they are really doing is to appear to be working. That is the real goal. If you force them to actually do work (spec sheet), they'll disappear or deliver a hilariously bad one.

cbushko 5y ago

As an add-on to protecting your time. I will help just about anyone that needs help but be wary of people that send you direct slack messages. Often they are messaging you directly because they are stuck. That is fine as we all get stuck sometimes. If they directly message you often they: - are lacking the skills/time/training to do their job. Been there. - are under pressure to get results quickly. Been there too. - are lacking the people/resources on their team to get results. Yup, been there too. - more horribly, they are taking credit for your knowledge and using you to get ahead. This has happened to me and I was pissed. You have to break out of this cycle. - In your standups/scrums/reporting, make it very well known that you 'spent X hours helping Y with Z'. You do not want to get in trouble for missing deadlines because you were helping someone else. You also want to be known as a helper/fixer because those are useful to teams. - Move the chats from direct messages to private channels. You need to let others know what is going on and more importantly you need to spread the knowledge that you are an expert of. - Moving to a channel also publicly sells your skills and knowledge to a wider audience. - Moving to a channel lets all managers know that something is lacking somewhere. Either their team doesn't have enough training, people or docs to get the jobs done. - Start writing documentation or updating the current docs. There is a gap somewhere in the docs if your knowledge is directly needed. Even 2 paragraph FAQs are useful to everyone. Having a doc will save you time in the future as you can just point people to it. Note: Always give credit where credit is due. If someone helps you out, let the world know how awesome they are. This will help you out in the long run because you will be known as someone that is humble, human and a growing. edit: the formatting is always terrible for me