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I think the most important part of these processes is to document what’s being proposed and have a period for comments / inputs. I also think it’s ok for a mona

I think the most important part of these processes is to document what’s being proposed and have a period for comments / inputs. I also think it’s ok for a monarchy as opposed to democracy ruling what gets approved, assuming merit based is not an option. In general merits (rationality?) can bubble up if it’s framed in correct way for upper levels (eg. risk, profit, time horizon), and can then sway the position. But yes on average what’s decide at upper levels is gospel. But that’s how corporations function, and that’s ok.

JohnBooty 4y ago
I also think it’s ok for a monarchy as opposed to democracy ruling what gets approved, assuming merit based is not an option. I completely agree. What I object to is the charade! In general merits (rationality?) can bubble up if it’s framed in correct way for upper levels Theoretically, yes, but it's trivially easy to fool upper levels with one-sided technical opinions. Choose the name of any technology or tech-related practice at random, pay me $20, and I'll write you a one-sided RFC about why our imaginary company should adopt it. I'll make it sound really good. Your boss will love it and if they don't, I promise their boss will.
- Hermitian909 4y ago
  > Choose the name of any technology or tech-related practice at random, pay me $20, and I'll write you a one-sided RFC about why our imaginary company should adopt it. I'll make it sound really good. Your boss will love it and if they don't, I promise their boss will. Ultimately, business folks must always trust someone with technical expertise, trust is a necessary component of the system. Competent organizations ensure that someone technical has the relevant executive's ear, there are lots of ways to achieve this and it should be able to catch your one-sided RFC if you're proposing anything important. At the end of the day though, there's no process-based solution for an organization riddled with incompetence. Business must make judgment calls and if your company is staffed with people who consistently make bad calls process will not save you.
t0mas88 4y ago
> I also think it’s ok for a monarchy as opposed to democracy ruling what gets approved, assuming merit based is not an option. Just to share: I've been an outside advisor to a few companies where some developers may think "this is a politics based monarchy and we're not looking at proposals rationally". Where as an outsider it was clear to me that the higher up roles just had more context to make their decisions. Especially decisions coming from the CTO and VP Engineering kind of roles tended to be driven by input from the wider company strategy, due to daily interaction with the rest of the management team. In those cases there was a clear need for coaching the higher ups on how to explain and communicate their decisions, but what they were deciding were the right things. And everybody leaving before they improved communications would be on here posting about how bad their higher ups were and what a political mess it was. While that wasn't really the issue. I'm sure that's not always the case and big political dumpster fires exist (I've seen a few), but there are also many cases where it's only an issue with communicating more clearly from the (technical) management side of things.
- barefeg 4y ago
  Out of curiously what kind of advisory roles have you had?
  - t0mas88 4y ago
    Advisor to the CTO on request of their investors after an acquisition. The big challenge was to merge the two technologies. And advisor to the CEO in a scale-up where they used to have a quite technical founder as the CEO who left and got replaced by a not so technical outside hire. I'm also trying to get a few more board advisor kind of roles, but so far everything has been with an emphasis on the tech side of the business.
- pbronez 4y ago
  Yeah that tracks with my experience. Sucks when more junior folks blow up over things they don’t have total context on. You give them as much as you can, but sometimes people decide they want to be a prophet of doom and close their minds.
- 4y ago

JohnBooty 4y ago

I also think it’s ok for a monarchy as opposed to democracy ruling what gets approved, assuming merit based is not an option. I completely agree. What I object to is the charade! In general merits (rationality?) can bubble up if it’s framed in correct way for upper levels Theoretically, yes, but it's trivially easy to fool upper levels with one-sided technical opinions. Choose the name of any technology or tech-related practice at random, pay me $20, and I'll write you a one-sided RFC about why our imaginary company should adopt it. I'll make it sound really good. Your boss will love it and if they don't, I promise their boss will.

Hermitian909 4y ago
> Choose the name of any technology or tech-related practice at random, pay me $20, and I'll write you a one-sided RFC about why our imaginary company should adopt it. I'll make it sound really good. Your boss will love it and if they don't, I promise their boss will. Ultimately, business folks must always trust someone with technical expertise, trust is a necessary component of the system. Competent organizations ensure that someone technical has the relevant executive's ear, there are lots of ways to achieve this and it should be able to catch your one-sided RFC if you're proposing anything important. At the end of the day though, there's no process-based solution for an organization riddled with incompetence. Business must make judgment calls and if your company is staffed with people who consistently make bad calls process will not save you.

t0mas88 4y ago

> I also think it’s ok for a monarchy as opposed to democracy ruling what gets approved, assuming merit based is not an option. Just to share: I've been an outside advisor to a few companies where some developers may think "this is a politics based monarchy and we're not looking at proposals rationally". Where as an outsider it was clear to me that the higher up roles just had more context to make their decisions. Especially decisions coming from the CTO and VP Engineering kind of roles tended to be driven by input from the wider company strategy, due to daily interaction with the rest of the management team. In those cases there was a clear need for coaching the higher ups on how to explain and communicate their decisions, but what they were deciding were the right things. And everybody leaving before they improved communications would be on here posting about how bad their higher ups were and what a political mess it was. While that wasn't really the issue. I'm sure that's not always the case and big political dumpster fires exist (I've seen a few), but there are also many cases where it's only an issue with communicating more clearly from the (technical) management side of things.

barefeg 4y ago
Out of curiously what kind of advisory roles have you had?
- t0mas88 4y ago
  Advisor to the CTO on request of their investors after an acquisition. The big challenge was to merge the two technologies. And advisor to the CEO in a scale-up where they used to have a quite technical founder as the CEO who left and got replaced by a not so technical outside hire. I'm also trying to get a few more board advisor kind of roles, but so far everything has been with an emphasis on the tech side of the business.
pbronez 4y ago
Yeah that tracks with my experience. Sucks when more junior folks blow up over things they don’t have total context on. You give them as much as you can, but sometimes people decide they want to be a prophet of doom and close their minds.
4y ago