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I am dubious. The whole point of having leaders is that they're supposed to talk to each other and coordinate the different needs of the different teams. Whic

I am dubious. The whole point of having leaders is that they're supposed to talk to each other and coordinate the different needs of the different teams. Which is more important to accomplish by EOY, to adopt k8s or to ship the new feature? There is an objectively correct answer to that, and ideally the leaders should be able to talk to each other and agree on what it is and plan accordingly. What kind of bottom-up "democratic" process would accomplish that, when the Sales people don't know what k8s is or why it's useful, and the Devs don't talk to customers about what features they most urgently want?

lifeisstillgood 4y ago
Organisational forms matter - look at Ford what if there is a org form (democracy) that is 5x or 10x faster better more flexible than the hierarchical one we are all living in? I mean we all work in modern companies. no one can believe this is the best that can be. But where are the experiments and new forms being tried out. And no, DAOs barely count.
powerslacker 4y ago
You are right to be dubious.
comex 4y ago
> Which is more important to accomplish by EOY, to adopt k8s or to ship the new feature? There is an objectively correct answer to that This doesn't really negate your point, but what do you mean by objective? It seems to me like this would depend on a number of factors, like - How much time you stand to save in the long run by switching to k8s. - How much revenue or growth you stand to gain in the short run by adding the new feature. - How much you prioritize the long run versus the short run. Of those factors, the first two can only be vaguely estimated; you can gain more information by having sales and development talk to each other, but ultimately someone needs to make a fairly subjective judgement call. And the third factor is even more subjective. Indeed, I'd argue that ability to handle subjectivity is a strong point of top-down processes. For questions with an objectively correct answer that can be discerned through discussion, there's less need for such a formal and rigid structure; the group of individuals who care most about the specific issue (who may not all line up neatly on the org chart) can meet and hash it out. It's when people can't come to an agreement that it helps to have someone above them to make the decision.
- ineptech 4y ago
  I was using that term kinda loosely, I didn't mean there's nothing subjective in a decision like that. I used objective to mean the POV of the whole company, and subjective to mean the views from within the departments. A salesperson says, "we need this feature because X", and a dev says, "we need k8s because Y", and someone outside those perspectives needs to decide whether X or Y is more urgent. That might happen collaboratively (all the leaders go to an offsite and come away with the same opinion) or combatively (they can't agree and the CEO has to make a tough call), and they might get it right or wrong, but they can't even attempt it if they're looking at things from the subjective view of one dept or the other. So I was asking OP, how does that happen in a "democracy" company? Presumably the employees vote on it? And if Sales has more people than IT, wouldn't that mean that the company would invest more and more in Sales even when the problems of IT are more urgent?

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

Organisational forms matter - look at Ford what if there is a org form (democracy) that is 5x or 10x faster better more flexible than the hierarchical one we are all living in? I mean we all work in modern companies. no one can believe this is the best that can be. But where are the experiments and new forms being tried out. And no, DAOs barely count.

powerslacker 4y ago

You are right to be dubious.

comex 4y ago

> Which is more important to accomplish by EOY, to adopt k8s or to ship the new feature? There is an objectively correct answer to that This doesn't really negate your point, but what do you mean by objective? It seems to me like this would depend on a number of factors, like - How much time you stand to save in the long run by switching to k8s. - How much revenue or growth you stand to gain in the short run by adding the new feature. - How much you prioritize the long run versus the short run. Of those factors, the first two can only be vaguely estimated; you can gain more information by having sales and development talk to each other, but ultimately someone needs to make a fairly subjective judgement call. And the third factor is even more subjective. Indeed, I'd argue that ability to handle subjectivity is a strong point of top-down processes. For questions with an objectively correct answer that can be discerned through discussion, there's less need for such a formal and rigid structure; the group of individuals who care most about the specific issue (who may not all line up neatly on the org chart) can meet and hash it out. It's when people can't come to an agreement that it helps to have someone above them to make the decision.

ineptech 4y ago
I was using that term kinda loosely, I didn't mean there's nothing subjective in a decision like that. I used objective to mean the POV of the whole company, and subjective to mean the views from within the departments. A salesperson says, "we need this feature because X", and a dev says, "we need k8s because Y", and someone outside those perspectives needs to decide whether X or Y is more urgent. That might happen collaboratively (all the leaders go to an offsite and come away with the same opinion) or combatively (they can't agree and the CEO has to make a tough call), and they might get it right or wrong, but they can't even attempt it if they're looking at things from the subjective view of one dept or the other. So I was asking OP, how does that happen in a "democracy" company? Presumably the employees vote on it? And if Sales has more people than IT, wouldn't that mean that the company would invest more and more in Sales even when the problems of IT are more urgent?