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A thought experiment. When is it "Normalization of Deviance"? and when is it a "Efficiency Optimization"? I mean, the difference is pretty clear after somethi

• jpollock 4y ago
  It is Efficiency Optimization when you know why the rule is there, and having made an estimation of the risks, perform a cost-benefit analysis. aka "Chesterton's Fence" Otherwise, it's "Normalization of Deviance": * The build is broken again? Force the submit. * Test failing? That's a flaky test, push to prod. * That alert always indicates that vendor X is having trouble, silence it. Those are deviant behaviours, the system is warning you that something is broken. By accepting that the signal/alert is present but uninformative, we train people to ignore them. vs... * The build is always broken - Detect breakage cause and auto rollback, or loosely couple the build so breakages don't propagate. * Low-value test always failing? Delete it/rewrite it. * Alert always firing for vendor X? Slice vendor X out of that alert and give them their own threshold.
  • manicennui 4y ago
    Unfortunately I don't find that most software engineers understand the difference between actually determining costs and benefits and choosing to make certain tradeoffs and rationalizing whatever choice they already made.
    • jpollock 4y ago
      I think that's ok, For me, it's more about "change the system, instead of ignoring it". Once you change the system (document/rules/alerts/etc), then if it breaks, you change it again and learn the lesson. Both are conscious decisions by the org.