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I was actually writing something on this, so I'm super interested that you brought this up. I have some strong theories, but I must admit I don't have the work

I was actually writing something on this, so I'm super interested that you brought this up. I have some strong theories, but I must admit I don't have the work experience to be that confident in them.

gumballindie 3y ago
Pretty much all companies i’ve been with an did “agile” ended up debating agile more than doing it. The outcome expected by managers was unequivocally to be able to allocate work and measure output similar to factories. Obviously it has always been a struggle to add anything of technical importance because there was no user story for it (in their limited thinking everything needs to benefit users directly, clearing tech debt is only a nice to have). As systems degrade over time they’d hire more people to maintain or increase velocity (factory output basically). Goes without saying that that doesnt work and you end up with the horror stories described here. Agile engineering practices on the other hand are beneficial. But those arent really invented by agile. All existed well before agile. Also every single large corporation i served suffered from endless meetings. It was almost always managers demanding such meetings. Somehow their belief is that engineers shouldnt spend time thinking about a problem - they should instead discuss it right away. A dubious mindset and telling of how said managers have no clue how thinking is to be made generally speaking. There needs to be communication between team members, but a good technical person is one that understands that and does it when needed. However since management and a factory mindset leads to hiring assembly line workers that lack communication skills that can sometimes be an issue - then the vicious cycle dictates that there need to be more meetings to cover communication gaps made by managers that hired assembly line workers that dont communicate well with peers, and so on. Companies run by founders usually fare better because founders are either technical, domain experts and or care about inefficiencies - thus they rarely hire non technical managers. Such companies often get acquired by larger companies that then turn them into factories and so the cycle begins. They still generate revenue and profits because generating profits doesnt always require a stellar product or sometimes they abuse their dominant position (google’s regressing, amazon’s a swamp of counterfeits, and both still make money). After a long time in tech i’ve reached the conclusion that tech has been turned into factory work (including threats of automation replacing “workers”). Growth will indeed come from ai companies because … such companies are not yet managed and factorised to death (still run by tech founders, and so on). Thats why google’s struggling to get ai working while openai is smashing it. But those too will become bastardised.
borg16 3y ago
> I have some strong theories, but I must admit I don't have the work experience to be that confident in them. This has not stopped you from posting the dozen or so blog posts you have already written so far. Go ahead and post what you are thinking. Do not let lack of experience stop you :)
- randomdata 3y ago
  To be fair, if he had the experience to know for sure, there would be no motivation to write about it anymore. People only talk about what they are unsure of.

gumballindie 3y ago

Pretty much all companies i’ve been with an did “agile” ended up debating agile more than doing it. The outcome expected by managers was unequivocally to be able to allocate work and measure output similar to factories. Obviously it has always been a struggle to add anything of technical importance because there was no user story for it (in their limited thinking everything needs to benefit users directly, clearing tech debt is only a nice to have). As systems degrade over time they’d hire more people to maintain or increase velocity (factory output basically). Goes without saying that that doesnt work and you end up with the horror stories described here. Agile engineering practices on the other hand are beneficial. But those arent really invented by agile. All existed well before agile. Also every single large corporation i served suffered from endless meetings. It was almost always managers demanding such meetings. Somehow their belief is that engineers shouldnt spend time thinking about a problem - they should instead discuss it right away. A dubious mindset and telling of how said managers have no clue how thinking is to be made generally speaking. There needs to be communication between team members, but a good technical person is one that understands that and does it when needed. However since management and a factory mindset leads to hiring assembly line workers that lack communication skills that can sometimes be an issue - then the vicious cycle dictates that there need to be more meetings to cover communication gaps made by managers that hired assembly line workers that dont communicate well with peers, and so on. Companies run by founders usually fare better because founders are either technical, domain experts and or care about inefficiencies - thus they rarely hire non technical managers. Such companies often get acquired by larger companies that then turn them into factories and so the cycle begins. They still generate revenue and profits because generating profits doesnt always require a stellar product or sometimes they abuse their dominant position (google’s regressing, amazon’s a swamp of counterfeits, and both still make money). After a long time in tech i’ve reached the conclusion that tech has been turned into factory work (including threats of automation replacing “workers”). Growth will indeed come from ai companies because … such companies are not yet managed and factorised to death (still run by tech founders, and so on). Thats why google’s struggling to get ai working while openai is smashing it. But those too will become bastardised.

borg16 3y ago

> I have some strong theories, but I must admit I don't have the work experience to be that confident in them. This has not stopped you from posting the dozen or so blog posts you have already written so far. Go ahead and post what you are thinking. Do not let lack of experience stop you :)

randomdata 3y ago
To be fair, if he had the experience to know for sure, there would be no motivation to write about it anymore. People only talk about what they are unsure of.