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I work on a FANG team. I feel like the stakeholders and upper leadership have fallen into McNamara's Fallacy, and I have no idea how to get them out.

Lutger 4y ago
You don't get them out, you get out yourself.
- dilyevsky 4y ago
  To where? The contagion has spread pretty wide including very small companies.
scottLobster 4y ago
I forget where I found the quote, but the older I get the more I apply it: "Don't expect people to change their minds, expect them to lose." As a corollary, everyone knows they should change their minds based on new information, but shockingly few actually do or they only do it after it's too late. So if you find yourself working with/for someone who consistently and successfully changes their perspective based on new information, heavily weight keeping that person(s) around in your future plans.
- toss1 4y ago
  >> "Don't expect people to change their minds, expect them to lose." Excellent insight (sadly)
- wpietri 4y ago
  One approach that I think is really valuable in the face of this is helping people to lose ASAP while there's still time to change. I think that was one of the key insights that united the early Agile people, the ones who pioneered it before it turned into a certification/consulting scam. Releasing early and often to actual users enables a level of discipline and humility that's hard to achieve otherwise. I think this was taken further by the Lean Startup folks, where you were supposed to be explicit about your hypotheses and then construct tests to validate/invalidate them. E.g.: https://rulez.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/validation-board-lean-startup-rulez.pdf https://rulez.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/validation-board... I'm sorry it never caught on widely, but it has stuck with me. On any project I'm on, I structure the coding work such that as early as possible we can see if we are having the impact we aim for. That inevitably sucks early on as we put barely-adequate things in front of people and frequently get negative responses. But it really pays off over time, as you get to kill bad ideas early and use the savings to explore real solutions. Sadly, I don't think this approach scales, at least with current management culture. In the short term, managers and execs benefit a lot more from seeming right than from being wrong in ways that lead to them eventually being right.
d0mine 4y ago
"The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
antod 4y ago
I think McNamara's Fallacy is increasingly becoming standard management these days. It's a growing annoyance for me sadly.

Lutger 4y ago

You don't get them out, you get out yourself.

dilyevsky 4y ago
To where? The contagion has spread pretty wide including very small companies.

scottLobster 4y ago

I forget where I found the quote, but the older I get the more I apply it: "Don't expect people to change their minds, expect them to lose." As a corollary, everyone knows they should change their minds based on new information, but shockingly few actually do or they only do it after it's too late. So if you find yourself working with/for someone who consistently and successfully changes their perspective based on new information, heavily weight keeping that person(s) around in your future plans.

toss1 4y ago
>> "Don't expect people to change their minds, expect them to lose." Excellent insight (sadly)
wpietri 4y ago
One approach that I think is really valuable in the face of this is helping people to lose ASAP while there's still time to change. I think that was one of the key insights that united the early Agile people, the ones who pioneered it before it turned into a certification/consulting scam. Releasing early and often to actual users enables a level of discipline and humility that's hard to achieve otherwise. I think this was taken further by the Lean Startup folks, where you were supposed to be explicit about your hypotheses and then construct tests to validate/invalidate them. E.g.: https://rulez.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/validation-board-lean-startup-rulez.pdf https://rulez.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/validation-board... I'm sorry it never caught on widely, but it has stuck with me. On any project I'm on, I structure the coding work such that as early as possible we can see if we are having the impact we aim for. That inevitably sucks early on as we put barely-adequate things in front of people and frequently get negative responses. But it really pays off over time, as you get to kill bad ideas early and use the savings to explore real solutions. Sadly, I don't think this approach scales, at least with current management culture. In the short term, managers and execs benefit a lot more from seeming right than from being wrong in ways that lead to them eventually being right.

d0mine 4y ago

"The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

antod 4y ago

I think McNamara's Fallacy is increasingly becoming standard management these days. It's a growing annoyance for me sadly.