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> - do they care? They don’t have to agree with my opinions. We can hammer out a compromise with enough laughs. I just want them to care. Because there’s still

by ls15 4y ago

> - do they care? They don’t have to agree with my opinions. We can hammer out a compromise with enough laughs. I just want them to care. Because there’s still a lot of things that even the best protocols, procedures, and practices can’t cover. Are their pay and their working conditions the best that the market can offer to them? > - can they be responsible? Or have they bought into the fantasy where they offload responsibility to a “decider” while they play the role exclusively of “doer”? Do they have the decision power and the salary that go hand in hand with high responsibility?

morelisp 4y ago
There's a difference between being responsible and being accountable. Everyone should be responsible.
- ls15 4y ago
  Good point. Actually this distinction is a bit blurry when I tranlate these words to my Mother Tongue, German.
  - morelisp 4y ago
    tbh it's blurry in English too, because you can be abstractly "responsible" / "a responsible person" which is a general virtue, while also being "responsible for" something / "the responsible person" i.e. some formal role which should also come with compensation. But I think the former case is what travisgriggs meant, and it's also something I expect from everyone regardless of level/role/pay. If someone's answer to "why does clicking 'Save' and then reloading not show the saved data?" is "the product requirements only said there should be a Save button, not that the data should be saved", I don't want to work with them. If you want something like this go work for a body shop, not a product-focused company - and then don't complain when you never get the interesting technical work.
    - ls15 4y ago
      I agree that everyone should feel responsible for fulfilling their part of the contract, not just in the most shallow way. > "the product requirements only said there should be a Save button, not that the data should be saved" If these were really the requirements, then the PO's salary should be split and go to the developers, because they would need to do that job anyway and at least do not get distracted by an incompetent PO.
      - morelisp 4y ago
        You think a PO is incompetent if they hand over a mockup with a "Save" button and not a 200 page document that among every other detail says "Clicking or otherwise depressing the 'Save' button should persist the information in fields A, B, and C into the database within 500ms" or some such overspecification? We're selling ads, not sending people to the moon. This kind of culture eventually produces the equivalent stupid formalization on the dev side like "all modules must have at least 99.85% coverage and a three-phase UML diagram review by the architecture team before deployment". Better to have some slack and people willing to use common sense on both sides.
        ls15 4y ago
        I think a PO is mostly useless if they do not provide a clear set of acceptance criteria. Low-effort requirement descriptions are just shifting the responsibility to the developers, because they leave too much room for interpretation. Lack of technical understanding is another common source of friction. TBH, the best PO that I worked with has a CS degree.
        willcipriano 4y ago
        I agree. I'd expect a huge compensation gap between someone who types up "make a save button" when the user says "I want to save", and some who comes up with "Users wish to persist state between uses of the application, therefore we want to retain the users current balance, brightness setting..." The former shouldn't be paid more than a front desk receptionist, and I'll keep the difference since I'll be picking up the rest of the role.
shswkna 4y ago
I would argue that you have presented a chicken and egg problem. As a business owner I am reluctant to offer a new entrant the best pay “that the market can offer”. Working conditions - a company can only offer the best within their means. I know that good faith must comes from both sides, and a company has to offer something worthwile in return. Like any type of relationship, its a two way street. But a sense of entitlement firstly, and then maybe if the company is lucky that the employee will care and take responsibility - that is a relationship one better not enter from the onset, if it can be detected ahead of time. Its just the wrong value set. I would also add that a company that displays the same kind of entitlement towards its workers, is also not worth an employee’s further attention.
- ls15 4y ago
  > As a business owner I am reluctant to offer a new entrant the best pay “that the market can offer”. Most businesses are also reluctant to give their best workers a meaningful raise.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mbrodersen 4y ago
  So do you regularly increase employee salaries to match their demonstrated competency and responsibility? Or are you like most employers, giving new hires better pay than your current top performers, incentivising your top performers to find a better paid job somewhere else?

by ls15 4y ago

morelisp 4y ago

There's a difference between being responsible and being accountable. Everyone should be responsible.

ls15 4y ago
Good point. Actually this distinction is a bit blurry when I tranlate these words to my Mother Tongue, German.
- morelisp 4y ago
  tbh it's blurry in English too, because you can be abstractly "responsible" / "a responsible person" which is a general virtue, while also being "responsible for" something / "the responsible person" i.e. some formal role which should also come with compensation. But I think the former case is what travisgriggs meant, and it's also something I expect from everyone regardless of level/role/pay. If someone's answer to "why does clicking 'Save' and then reloading not show the saved data?" is "the product requirements only said there should be a Save button, not that the data should be saved", I don't want to work with them. If you want something like this go work for a body shop, not a product-focused company - and then don't complain when you never get the interesting technical work.
  - ls15 4y ago
    I agree that everyone should feel responsible for fulfilling their part of the contract, not just in the most shallow way. > "the product requirements only said there should be a Save button, not that the data should be saved" If these were really the requirements, then the PO's salary should be split and go to the developers, because they would need to do that job anyway and at least do not get distracted by an incompetent PO.
    - morelisp 4y ago
      You think a PO is incompetent if they hand over a mockup with a "Save" button and not a 200 page document that among every other detail says "Clicking or otherwise depressing the 'Save' button should persist the information in fields A, B, and C into the database within 500ms" or some such overspecification? We're selling ads, not sending people to the moon. This kind of culture eventually produces the equivalent stupid formalization on the dev side like "all modules must have at least 99.85% coverage and a three-phase UML diagram review by the architecture team before deployment". Better to have some slack and people willing to use common sense on both sides.
      - ls15 4y ago
        I think a PO is mostly useless if they do not provide a clear set of acceptance criteria. Low-effort requirement descriptions are just shifting the responsibility to the developers, because they leave too much room for interpretation. Lack of technical understanding is another common source of friction. TBH, the best PO that I worked with has a CS degree.
        willcipriano 4y ago
        I agree. I'd expect a huge compensation gap between someone who types up "make a save button" when the user says "I want to save", and some who comes up with "Users wish to persist state between uses of the application, therefore we want to retain the users current balance, brightness setting..." The former shouldn't be paid more than a front desk receptionist, and I'll keep the difference since I'll be picking up the rest of the role.

shswkna 4y ago

I would argue that you have presented a chicken and egg problem. As a business owner I am reluctant to offer a new entrant the best pay “that the market can offer”. Working conditions - a company can only offer the best within their means. I know that good faith must comes from both sides, and a company has to offer something worthwile in return. Like any type of relationship, its a two way street. But a sense of entitlement firstly, and then maybe if the company is lucky that the employee will care and take responsibility - that is a relationship one better not enter from the onset, if it can be detected ahead of time. Its just the wrong value set. I would also add that a company that displays the same kind of entitlement towards its workers, is also not worth an employee’s further attention.

ls15 4y ago
> As a business owner I am reluctant to offer a new entrant the best pay “that the market can offer”. Most businesses are also reluctant to give their best workers a meaningful raise.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mbrodersen 4y ago
So do you regularly increase employee salaries to match their demonstrated competency and responsibility? Or are you like most employers, giving new hires better pay than your current top performers, incentivising your top performers to find a better paid job somewhere else?