4 ms·

Not sure I see the point, rules are in place for a reason and it's not like changing 2 lines would have taken 12 days. This seems like it changes something wit

Not sure I see the point, rules are in place for a reason and it's not like changing 2 lines would have taken 12 days. This seems like it changes something with potentially super-high impact, 6 days from request by the CEO to release to production is a pretty good release time.

crop_rotation 3y ago
It is not a good release time for the described scenario. The company badly needed a change to survive so fixing unrelated issues in the same change doesn't make sense.
- iLoveOncall 3y ago
  I could somewhat agree with that, however it seems like this only added a couple of hours out of the 6 days.
- icegreentea2 3y ago
  The problem (and solution) isn't necessarily to change the process. Assuming good faith and competence when designing the process, all (or similar) of the downsides encountered in the scenario were considered when designing the process, and the cost-benefit came out ahead to add the extra safeguards the layers. As demonstrated by the end of the scenario, the 'solution' was the president to more directly intervene. The failure in this scenario isn't necessarily that the process got in the way, it was that when the President and IT Director kicked off the action, they were not fully aware of the efforts and overrides required to escalate to 'do this now'. A converse failure is that the intent of the President and IT Director was not properly communicated to all stakeholders in the process.
- moralestapia 3y ago
  >The company badly needed a change to survive [...] Lol, nah. This is fiction, no company IRL is going to start laying off people after a few days of noticing a small dip in production. The whole premise of "We own this company but if this code change doesn't go through in X days we will fire people instead" is completely stupid. But it is an entertaining story and it gets the point through that internal bureaucracy gets in the way of many things.
sz4kerto 3y ago
Exactly. 6 days latency is great for a complex system. In heavily regulated industries this can easily be 6 weeks or 6 months.
- 0x445442 3y ago
  This is true and why I’ll never work in the banking sector again.
matwood 3y ago
When I see rule or process my first thought is 'what happened that led to this rule or process?'
- ReflectedImage 3y ago
  That's hardly relevant. The bureaucracy will increase until the company goes bankrupt.
- justin_oaks 3y ago
  Yes, such rules and processes are often made in reaction to something bad happening. I like the description Jason Fried gave of policies being "organizational scar tissue" in response to a "cut" (i.e. something bad happening). He suggests that we don't scar on the first cut: https://m.signalvnoise.com/dont-scar-on-the-first-cut/ https://m.signalvnoise.com/dont-scar-on-the-first-cut/

crop_rotation 3y ago

It is not a good release time for the described scenario. The company badly needed a change to survive so fixing unrelated issues in the same change doesn't make sense.

iLoveOncall 3y ago
I could somewhat agree with that, however it seems like this only added a couple of hours out of the 6 days.
icegreentea2 3y ago
The problem (and solution) isn't necessarily to change the process. Assuming good faith and competence when designing the process, all (or similar) of the downsides encountered in the scenario were considered when designing the process, and the cost-benefit came out ahead to add the extra safeguards the layers. As demonstrated by the end of the scenario, the 'solution' was the president to more directly intervene. The failure in this scenario isn't necessarily that the process got in the way, it was that when the President and IT Director kicked off the action, they were not fully aware of the efforts and overrides required to escalate to 'do this now'. A converse failure is that the intent of the President and IT Director was not properly communicated to all stakeholders in the process.
moralestapia 3y ago
>The company badly needed a change to survive [...] Lol, nah. This is fiction, no company IRL is going to start laying off people after a few days of noticing a small dip in production. The whole premise of "We own this company but if this code change doesn't go through in X days we will fire people instead" is completely stupid. But it is an entertaining story and it gets the point through that internal bureaucracy gets in the way of many things.

sz4kerto 3y ago

Exactly. 6 days latency is great for a complex system. In heavily regulated industries this can easily be 6 weeks or 6 months.

0x445442 3y ago
This is true and why I’ll never work in the banking sector again.

matwood 3y ago

When I see rule or process my first thought is 'what happened that led to this rule or process?'

ReflectedImage 3y ago
That's hardly relevant. The bureaucracy will increase until the company goes bankrupt.
justin_oaks 3y ago
Yes, such rules and processes are often made in reaction to something bad happening. I like the description Jason Fried gave of policies being "organizational scar tissue" in response to a "cut" (i.e. something bad happening). He suggests that we don't scar on the first cut: https://m.signalvnoise.com/dont-scar-on-the-first-cut/ https://m.signalvnoise.com/dont-scar-on-the-first-cut/