8 ms·

Embrace Complexity; Tighten Your Feedback Loops

150 points by lutzh 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kaycebasques 3y ago
This comment is in reference to the second to last paragraph (there's something weird going on with that page that's preventing me from copying text on my mobile). That paragraph says something like "by being outside silos you can carry information around and tie it all together". I've been thinking about my role as a technical writer (TW) recently. I think TWs have a lot of opportunity to operate in a similar way. The real name of the game for my line of work is organizational knowledge management. For example, I've had some [1] success getting Eng teams to dump common Q&A into Stack Overflow so that the next time the issue comes up they can just link customers to that answer. It often feels a bit more lightweight and less intimidating than updating the official docs. Also the Q and A nature of Stack Overflow keeps the docs request tightly scoped. And of course the end result is that the knowledge is much more accessible. On the other hand, maybe there's nothing special about SREs or TWs here and "organizational knowledge management" is the name of the game for every role in the org. We all just tackle the problem from a different angle. [1] Emphasis on "some" here. Sometimes it works very well, other times it doesn't go anywhere.
- robocat 3y ago
  > there's something weird going on with that page that's preventing me from copying text on my mobile reader-mode (if available) is often the best workaround to enable copy
ilaksh 3y ago
A lot of good information. But my cynical worker viewpoint is that the problem is really that upper management doesn't do the actual work and that is by design. It's a class separation. They are there to crack the whip and collect the spoils. The only way for upper management to really understand what's going on and give useful input would be for them to be directly involved on a day-to-day basis. In other words, they would have to do actual work. That's not going to happen. So the best they can do is to stay out of the way of people who are actually working, avoid making decrees, and maybe try to keep the other managers from interfering with the work also. Maybe another approach would be for the workers to share more equally in the spoils so that they would be naturally inclined to integrate business improvements and goals. But that's never going to happen. The structure is much more directly related to a caste system than people may acknowledge.
- mwerd 3y ago
  That's a point of view that would change quickly if you were in one of those management positions. You get to a point where it's impossible to do the work anymore. There's too much of it. You have to develop teams, processes, structure, etc. that delivers the outcomes you're accountable for with full knowledge that you cannot do them yourself. It's very different than doing the work and experience shows that fewer people are capable of doing it, especially with any repeatability. The working world yearns for effective managers. I encourage you to compare the productivity of the modern multinational corporation to any commune in history. The people working in collectives are not stupid or lazy. It's not an effective structure.
  - chrisdbanks 3y ago
    Agree. In fact one problem many have when new to management is actually doing the work themselves rather than coaching others to achieve it.
  - LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
    > I encourage you to compare the productivity of the modern multinational corporation to any commune in history. The people working in collectives are not stupid or lazy. It's not an effective structure. It’s a hard comparison to make when the goals of those two systems are vastly different. I worked for a multinational software company and the amount of waste I saw was just staggering. If outside shareholders knew how little we actually produced on a day to day basis, they would probably be appalled. But because the company knew how to engage with market analysts, we looked good on paper. So much of the money made today involves just being the biggest player in a given market, regardless of how effective the product is (i.e. “nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft”)
    - phs318u 3y ago
      But maximum efficiency does not scale linearly with organisational size/product complexity. So yes, lots of wastage, but still possibly the least wastage of other tried-and-tested organisational models. Also, effectiveness of software relates to the attributes that align to the dimensions of "goodness" as defined by each user not the developer. The software does not have to be the best (among its peers) to be the most effective for me. The same software may be completely ineffective for you, if what you want out of it is different to what I want.
tempodox 3y ago
I like the fucking-around/finding-out graph. It looks realistic to me (implicitly assuming the right kind of fucking around). And yes, tighten your feedback loops.
GuB-42 3y ago
> and maybe try to keep the other managers from interfering with the work also. I think that's what good managers are supposed to do. As in, that's their entire job. Managers are not necessarily good at doing the actual work, but hopefully, the people they manage are. The thing is: running a business involves a lot more than doing the "actual work", coordination, dealing with customers, etc... Managers are supposed to shield workers from all that, so that they can concentrate on the "actual work". For example, a somewhat idealized but not so far from the truth exchange with my manager could look like: - The customers is unhappy with the latest release, he says that X doesn't work as expected, can you tell me why? - Uhm... X wasn't in the specs so it wasn't tested, but sure, it is a bug - Ok, how long you think it will it take to fix it? - Probably around two days - Ok, let's make it 4 to account for risk and management. It shouldn't cause major delays but I may need to find some extra budget, I will negotiate with the customer since it wasn't originally planned. In the meantime, work on fixing that bug and tell me how it goes.
21eleven 3y ago
"What do you know about proofs engineer?" "Uuuh nothing, only that they are an impending thing in software :sweat-smile:"

150 points by lutzh 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

This comment is in reference to the second to last paragraph (there's something weird going on with that page that's preventing me from copying text on my mobile). That paragraph says something like "by being outside silos you can carry information around and tie it all together". I've been thinking about my role as a technical writer (TW) recently. I think TWs have a lot of opportunity to operate in a similar way. The real name of the game for my line of work is organizational knowledge management. For example, I've had some [1] success getting Eng teams to dump common Q&A into Stack Overflow so that the next time the issue comes up they can just link customers to that answer. It often feels a bit more lightweight and less intimidating than updating the official docs. Also the Q and A nature of Stack Overflow keeps the docs request tightly scoped. And of course the end result is that the knowledge is much more accessible. On the other hand, maybe there's nothing special about SREs or TWs here and "organizational knowledge management" is the name of the game for every role in the org. We all just tackle the problem from a different angle. [1] Emphasis on "some" here. Sometimes it works very well, other times it doesn't go anywhere.

robocat 3y ago
> there's something weird going on with that page that's preventing me from copying text on my mobile reader-mode (if available) is often the best workaround to enable copy

ilaksh 3y ago

A lot of good information. But my cynical worker viewpoint is that the problem is really that upper management doesn't do the actual work and that is by design. It's a class separation. They are there to crack the whip and collect the spoils. The only way for upper management to really understand what's going on and give useful input would be for them to be directly involved on a day-to-day basis. In other words, they would have to do actual work. That's not going to happen. So the best they can do is to stay out of the way of people who are actually working, avoid making decrees, and maybe try to keep the other managers from interfering with the work also. Maybe another approach would be for the workers to share more equally in the spoils so that they would be naturally inclined to integrate business improvements and goals. But that's never going to happen. The structure is much more directly related to a caste system than people may acknowledge.

mwerd 3y ago
That's a point of view that would change quickly if you were in one of those management positions. You get to a point where it's impossible to do the work anymore. There's too much of it. You have to develop teams, processes, structure, etc. that delivers the outcomes you're accountable for with full knowledge that you cannot do them yourself. It's very different than doing the work and experience shows that fewer people are capable of doing it, especially with any repeatability. The working world yearns for effective managers. I encourage you to compare the productivity of the modern multinational corporation to any commune in history. The people working in collectives are not stupid or lazy. It's not an effective structure.
- chrisdbanks 3y ago
  Agree. In fact one problem many have when new to management is actually doing the work themselves rather than coaching others to achieve it.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
  > I encourage you to compare the productivity of the modern multinational corporation to any commune in history. The people working in collectives are not stupid or lazy. It's not an effective structure. It’s a hard comparison to make when the goals of those two systems are vastly different. I worked for a multinational software company and the amount of waste I saw was just staggering. If outside shareholders knew how little we actually produced on a day to day basis, they would probably be appalled. But because the company knew how to engage with market analysts, we looked good on paper. So much of the money made today involves just being the biggest player in a given market, regardless of how effective the product is (i.e. “nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft”)
  - phs318u 3y ago
    But maximum efficiency does not scale linearly with organisational size/product complexity. So yes, lots of wastage, but still possibly the least wastage of other tried-and-tested organisational models. Also, effectiveness of software relates to the attributes that align to the dimensions of "goodness" as defined by each user not the developer. The software does not have to be the best (among its peers) to be the most effective for me. The same software may be completely ineffective for you, if what you want out of it is different to what I want.

tempodox 3y ago

I like the fucking-around/finding-out graph. It looks realistic to me (implicitly assuming the right kind of fucking around). And yes, tighten your feedback loops.

GuB-42 3y ago

> and maybe try to keep the other managers from interfering with the work also. I think that's what good managers are supposed to do. As in, that's their entire job. Managers are not necessarily good at doing the actual work, but hopefully, the people they manage are. The thing is: running a business involves a lot more than doing the "actual work", coordination, dealing with customers, etc... Managers are supposed to shield workers from all that, so that they can concentrate on the "actual work". For example, a somewhat idealized but not so far from the truth exchange with my manager could look like: - The customers is unhappy with the latest release, he says that X doesn't work as expected, can you tell me why? - Uhm... X wasn't in the specs so it wasn't tested, but sure, it is a bug - Ok, how long you think it will it take to fix it? - Probably around two days - Ok, let's make it 4 to account for risk and management. It shouldn't cause major delays but I may need to find some extra budget, I will negotiate with the customer since it wasn't originally planned. In the meantime, work on fixing that bug and tell me how it goes.

21eleven 3y ago

"What do you know about proofs engineer?" "Uuuh nothing, only that they are an impending thing in software :sweat-smile:"