6 ms·

Optimism, Hubris, and Strategic Misrepresentation

50 points by AlbertCory 3y ago

teddyh 3y ago
> > I’d like to be remembered as an innovator. I think it was General MacArthur said, you’re remembered for the rules you break, and you know I've broken some rules to make this. I think I've broken them with logic and good engineering behind me. The carbon fiber and titanium: there's a rule you don't do that. Well I did. > [Note: According to Wikipedia, MacArthur is remembered for his accomplishments and his failures, the Occupation of Japan, “I shall return,” and being fired by Truman, not the rules he broke.} Speaking of strategic misrepresentation… MacArthur is, in the initial quote above, presenting as having said that you’re remembered for the rules you break, but the response says that MacArthur was not himself remembered for the rules he broke, as if that was some sort of rebuttal.
- philipov 3y ago
  Are you suggesting he's remembered for breaking the rule of being remembered for the rules you break, thus proving the rule?
  - teddyh 3y ago
    No.
drewcoo 3y ago
The article seems to confuse optimism with thinking everything is good. I think many people do. Thinking everything is good means not having a reason to improve anything. Just eat some lotus, dude, it's okay . . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus-eaters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus-eaters Optimism, on the other hand, is the belief in improvement. To improve is to accept and to signal that we are not in the best of all possible worlds so that we can work toward improvement.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  "Optimism Bias" is a pretty well-accepted term in the research, and it's defined in here, which I cited: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(11)01191-2.pdf https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(11)01191... It means having a more positive view of your prospects than is warranted. Also, considering the risks to be less than they actually are ("it won't happen to me!"). What you're talking about is complacency.
lordnacho 3y ago
I wonder whether the best way to go about these massive software projects is actually completely different to hiring some business on a massive budget. It might be an interesting idea to instead take your massive budget, divide it into 10 pieces, and hire 10 independent teams to implement it. Just pick out of whichever ones are actually finished on time.
- nxpnsv 3y ago
  Smart, but will it still work if one of the teams fail? And if you control for interdependencies, are the still independent teams?
  - lordnacho 3y ago
    That's what I mean, you literally hire 10 different teams and tell them "hey make me a health insurance matching website".
    - nxpnsv 3y ago
      Incredibly wasteful, but probably less wasteful than what they already are doing :D
      - philipov 3y ago
        Waste is entirely a matter of perspective. Calling it waste implies there's a practical solution that's better, when it may be completely unreasonable to posit such a hypothetical. This approach is essentially an evolutionary strategy, and I would think twice about accusing nature of waste.
- mananaysiempre 3y ago
  IIRC LHC has two separate experiments doing largely equivalent physics, complete with separate teams, buildings and instruments, precisely as a cost-saving measure. (They tried axing one of them at some point, and the budget for the other very quickly increased twofold and then some more. Of course cross-checking is also a concern, now that the US can’t build accelerators anymore.) On the other hand, I don’t see how you could pull this off in an adversarial environment incentive-wise. If everybody gets paid, a winning strategy during the contract is to not really try; if only the winner gets paid, a winning strategy when choosing the contract is to avoid everything that looks even slightly risky. Supposedly there’s a whole not-a-Nobel-prize-winning theory of auctions—I wonder if it has something to say here.
AtNightWeCode 3y ago
I have seen many failed or very expensive projects. An unordered list of issues. 1. Sunk cost. Quit before it hurts. 2. Non-technical leaders. Talk to experts when it comes to tech. I don't care if you watched a Youtube-vid. 3. Tech people that think they know it all. Don't build waste that solves problems that the business does not have. 4. Person cult. Anybody can make simple mistakes. 5. Department cult. Quit pretending that the guys at your department are smarter. 6. No scope. Define what to do. 7. No order. Prioritize what is important. 8. Premature or upfront decisions. Why create time estimates first and then figure out what to do. 9. Cowboys. Crazy time estimates that someone high up in the hierarchy just made up without talking to anybody. 10. Everything tech. Not sure why, but some dev teams can't add a simple feature without rebuilding half the tech stack. Features are built on current stack. Tech is built with tech decisions but may be necessary to add a feature. 11. Overlapping. Multiple people doing the same work. 12. Bad architecture. Architecture that does not simplify anything.

50 points by AlbertCory 3y ago

> > I’d like to be remembered as an innovator. I think it was General MacArthur said, you’re remembered for the rules you break, and you know I've broken some rules to make this. I think I've broken them with logic and good engineering behind me. The carbon fiber and titanium: there's a rule you don't do that. Well I did. > [Note: According to Wikipedia, MacArthur is remembered for his accomplishments and his failures, the Occupation of Japan, “I shall return,” and being fired by Truman, not the rules he broke.} Speaking of strategic misrepresentation… MacArthur is, in the initial quote above, presenting as having said that you’re remembered for the rules you break, but the response says that MacArthur was not himself remembered for the rules he broke, as if that was some sort of rebuttal.

philipov 3y ago
Are you suggesting he's remembered for breaking the rule of being remembered for the rules you break, thus proving the rule?
- teddyh 3y ago
  No.

drewcoo 3y ago

The article seems to confuse optimism with thinking everything is good. I think many people do. Thinking everything is good means not having a reason to improve anything. Just eat some lotus, dude, it's okay . . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus-eaters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus-eaters Optimism, on the other hand, is the belief in improvement. To improve is to accept and to signal that we are not in the best of all possible worlds so that we can work toward improvement.

AlbertCory 3y ago
"Optimism Bias" is a pretty well-accepted term in the research, and it's defined in here, which I cited: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(11)01191-2.pdf https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(11)01191... It means having a more positive view of your prospects than is warranted. Also, considering the risks to be less than they actually are ("it won't happen to me!"). What you're talking about is complacency.

lordnacho 3y ago

I wonder whether the best way to go about these massive software projects is actually completely different to hiring some business on a massive budget. It might be an interesting idea to instead take your massive budget, divide it into 10 pieces, and hire 10 independent teams to implement it. Just pick out of whichever ones are actually finished on time.

nxpnsv 3y ago
Smart, but will it still work if one of the teams fail? And if you control for interdependencies, are the still independent teams?
- lordnacho 3y ago
  That's what I mean, you literally hire 10 different teams and tell them "hey make me a health insurance matching website".
  - nxpnsv 3y ago
    Incredibly wasteful, but probably less wasteful than what they already are doing :D
    - philipov 3y ago
      Waste is entirely a matter of perspective. Calling it waste implies there's a practical solution that's better, when it may be completely unreasonable to posit such a hypothetical. This approach is essentially an evolutionary strategy, and I would think twice about accusing nature of waste.
mananaysiempre 3y ago
IIRC LHC has two separate experiments doing largely equivalent physics, complete with separate teams, buildings and instruments, precisely as a cost-saving measure. (They tried axing one of them at some point, and the budget for the other very quickly increased twofold and then some more. Of course cross-checking is also a concern, now that the US can’t build accelerators anymore.) On the other hand, I don’t see how you could pull this off in an adversarial environment incentive-wise. If everybody gets paid, a winning strategy during the contract is to not really try; if only the winner gets paid, a winning strategy when choosing the contract is to avoid everything that looks even slightly risky. Supposedly there’s a whole not-a-Nobel-prize-winning theory of auctions—I wonder if it has something to say here.

AtNightWeCode 3y ago

I have seen many failed or very expensive projects. An unordered list of issues. 1. Sunk cost. Quit before it hurts. 2. Non-technical leaders. Talk to experts when it comes to tech. I don't care if you watched a Youtube-vid. 3. Tech people that think they know it all. Don't build waste that solves problems that the business does not have. 4. Person cult. Anybody can make simple mistakes. 5. Department cult. Quit pretending that the guys at your department are smarter. 6. No scope. Define what to do. 7. No order. Prioritize what is important. 8. Premature or upfront decisions. Why create time estimates first and then figure out what to do. 9. Cowboys. Crazy time estimates that someone high up in the hierarchy just made up without talking to anybody. 10. Everything tech. Not sure why, but some dev teams can't add a simple feature without rebuilding half the tech stack. Features are built on current stack. Tech is built with tech decisions but may be necessary to add a feature. 11. Overlapping. Multiple people doing the same work. 12. Bad architecture. Architecture that does not simplify anything.