9 ms·

Being able to clearly articulate risk, and the business consequences of technical consequences, is a key skill for IT folk. It’s possible that management at thi

by jl6 3y ago

Being able to clearly articulate risk, and the business consequences of technical consequences, is a key skill for IT folk. It’s possible that management at this bank were profoundly thick in the head, but it’s also possible the tech team didn’t explain it very well.

cromulent 3y ago
People also find it hard to understand or recognise exponential growth.
- Jabbles 3y ago
  Perhaps using a log-scale y-axis would help!
- jl6 3y ago
  That’s part of the communication challenge. If the audience doesn’t understand exponential growth (kind of surprising for a bank exec) then you still have to explain the problem in a way they will understand. “The current growth trajectory means we’ll be out of capacity in a month, and it takes 3 weeks to install more capacity, so you’ve got a week to find the budget. If we don’t do this, customers will experience a slower service which may lead to complaints and reputational damage.” It’s also possible that the execs understood perfectly and were happy to accept the risk of the service being slower for a short period of time. Maybe the Internet-using customer base was tiny, or the service in question wasn’t critical, or the execs were handling general financial pressures leading them to want to sweat every asset until it was impossible to ignore, or maybe they just understood that “the internet being slow” was normal for the 90s and it would be unlikely to hit their reputation in the long term.
  - komali2 3y ago
    Or the execs were sweating assets as you say, but also understood that they could lay the blame entirely on IT when things started breaking.
- Jeff_Brown 3y ago
  Also the behavior of queues is surprising. Average wait time does not tell you much about the distribution of wait time, and is an extremely nonlinear function of the number of queues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory
Waterluvian 3y ago
I’ve found this to be true much more often than one might think. The suits are cheap or dumb or it’s their fault they can’t speak tech. But often there’s just a lack of communication skills.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Actually the prevailing wisdom is that it is those in the IT departments that lack proper social and communication skills. And posts like this where you act so smug and callous do nothing to change this.
  - ric2b 3y ago
    This post is an example of IT making it clear as day what the problem will be before it happens, it's amazing communication when the very obvious "trust what the actual experts are telling you" advice isn't being followed.
- capybara_2020 3y ago
  Maybe it is time we acknowledge that tech skills are a core requirement in today's world. Maybe it is hard to communicate with people who lack a fundamental understanding of the critical tools they use.
  - lifeisstillgood 3y ago
    I call this software literacy - we would not hire an illiterate CEO and we are in the middle of a transition from software eating the world to the world is software. If you don't understand how to write software it's like not understanding how to run a newsroom for a newspaper - you simply won't make the right decision often enough no matter how clever you are
    - freeopinion 3y ago
      You don't need to understand how a fuel pump works to manage a fleet of vehicles. But you need to trust that when your mechanics are telling you that a particular model has a lot of fuel pump problems, they know what they are talking about. If you, the fleet manager, are approached with a plan to replace all the fuel pumps in a particular model with an in-house design, you still don't need to know the particulars of the in-house design. You do need to have some sense of whether you really have the in-house ability to competently design, manufacture, and sustain such a device. It may seem like a ridiculous idea for a floral delivery service. But if you know your people enough to trust them or not trust them, you don't have to be an expert in everything to make the right decisions.
nabla9 3y ago
That's why firms today have CTO with seat on the table. Corporate IT grew from office clerks. Obviously you don't need strategic planing to see that fax machines and PC's work, so corporate IT started as being nobody important.
forinti 3y ago
There's this myth that IT people can't communicate. Maybe it's because I'm in IT that I think it's quite the opposite: we communicate very well and precisely. The real issue is that middle management has a ton of politics that muddle up everything. I can say to my team that I messed something up and that we have to fix it; but I've seen people higher up who will bend over backwards just to not have to roll back a decision (and sometimes not even a very important decision). So maybe someone had already sold to the boss that the equipment was good for another 10 years.
- wjnc 3y ago
  In my opinion IT people are often great at communicating clearly and with what in other parts of business would be called vision. They think ahead and see connections between processes and systems that non-technical management (even the process owners) miss. They can see the dot on the wall and deliver a program brining you there. However, and that’s the big gripe, each and every one IT proposal I see costs money. It not just costs money, everything costs money, but it raises the long term average cost per unit. Even when we are dismantling ancient and totally non functional systems, the TCO of the modern solution is higher than the previous. Look I’m here on HN, can program a bit, understand quite large parts of the tech stack. But not why even highly capable IT-staff and management whom I have confidence in can’t seem to explain their contribution to the basic underpinning of business: average cost should go down over time and with scale. (Advice about how to talk about this with IT people is more than welcome! A lot of organizational distrust and poison sadly follows from this.) One of the more current examples is that IT-staff forgets that they are 2-3x more expensive per FTE than general workers. So when I see a plan and calculate how much middle management should save in reduced workload thanks to plan X both sides don’t like the outcome. The end of the day picture that companies exist by grace of customers willing to pay for your product (and cost loading!) is lost at that moment.
- liquidpele 3y ago
  I find it’s more that people suck at listening, not communicating. IT people will happily explain if you ask and listen, but frankly most people dont like to feel dumb for asking questions. When was the last time a manager asked you what you needed to do your job better?
em-bee 3y ago
yup, i was waiting for at least a cursory mention of the actual growth rate and details to the cost and how long it actually took to install the line.
sensanaty 3y ago
I've often wondered about this myth that the tech-nerds can't articulate stuff properly. In my experience with my coworkers it's not really the case, we go out of our way to explain everything to various levels of detail depending on who's on the receiving end. What happens more often than not is that the C-suites and their underling managers just don't give a shit. They've got their "grand plan" that works in their minds, and no amount of annoying devs that tell them that their fantasies can in fact, not, be made into reality can sway them otherwise. Doesn't matter how well you explain it, they want it done, so it'll get done, regardless of any other problems. Hell, they perfectly understand what we're talking about most of the time, it's not like we're hitting them with obscure jargon known only to the highest caste of the nerds, it's really just that they don't care. I do get where they're coming from as well, as we can be extremely annoying oftentimes (at least, I know I can be extremely annoying), but the feeling is often mutual when I'm given a ticket I've argued vehemently against, more often than not with good reasoning. I just wish more companies weren't being run by brainless, heartless MBA types and there was more of us engineers in charge, but c'est la vie.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  I think it’s going to always keep being like this. The people that would be good to have in charge do not actually want to be in charge because being a manager sucks for them.
  - pas 3y ago
    it's because tech people - like any employee who doesn't have to bear professional liability - can be pushed around easily (because who cares if the suits are occasionally blaming IT, who cares if the company fails, the pay is good, there are other jobs, etc.) also from the perspective of the aforementioned suits, they can hire IT guys easily, who cares if one of them gets very uppity and quits if we blame them for everything/anything.
  - geraldhh 3y ago
    "Good leaders have power thrust upon them, bad ones seek it."
asylteltine 3y ago
I would argue they communicated the risks by showing them the user experience
nitwit005 3y ago
As portrayed, it sounds like management agreed the growth would happen, understood it would become a problem, and were even willing to pay for the upgrade. They just insisted on delaying paying for it. That doesn't sound like a failure to communicate.

by jl6 3y ago

cromulent 3y ago

People also find it hard to understand or recognise exponential growth.

Jabbles 3y ago
Perhaps using a log-scale y-axis would help!
jl6 3y ago
That’s part of the communication challenge. If the audience doesn’t understand exponential growth (kind of surprising for a bank exec) then you still have to explain the problem in a way they will understand. “The current growth trajectory means we’ll be out of capacity in a month, and it takes 3 weeks to install more capacity, so you’ve got a week to find the budget. If we don’t do this, customers will experience a slower service which may lead to complaints and reputational damage.” It’s also possible that the execs understood perfectly and were happy to accept the risk of the service being slower for a short period of time. Maybe the Internet-using customer base was tiny, or the service in question wasn’t critical, or the execs were handling general financial pressures leading them to want to sweat every asset until it was impossible to ignore, or maybe they just understood that “the internet being slow” was normal for the 90s and it would be unlikely to hit their reputation in the long term.
- komali2 3y ago
  Or the execs were sweating assets as you say, but also understood that they could lay the blame entirely on IT when things started breaking.
Jeff_Brown 3y ago
Also the behavior of queues is surprising. Average wait time does not tell you much about the distribution of wait time, and is an extremely nonlinear function of the number of queues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory

Waterluvian 3y ago

I’ve found this to be true much more often than one might think. The suits are cheap or dumb or it’s their fault they can’t speak tech. But often there’s just a lack of communication skills.

threeseed 3y ago
Actually the prevailing wisdom is that it is those in the IT departments that lack proper social and communication skills. And posts like this where you act so smug and callous do nothing to change this.
- ric2b 3y ago
  This post is an example of IT making it clear as day what the problem will be before it happens, it's amazing communication when the very obvious "trust what the actual experts are telling you" advice isn't being followed.
capybara_2020 3y ago
Maybe it is time we acknowledge that tech skills are a core requirement in today's world. Maybe it is hard to communicate with people who lack a fundamental understanding of the critical tools they use.
- lifeisstillgood 3y ago
  I call this software literacy - we would not hire an illiterate CEO and we are in the middle of a transition from software eating the world to the world is software. If you don't understand how to write software it's like not understanding how to run a newsroom for a newspaper - you simply won't make the right decision often enough no matter how clever you are
  - freeopinion 3y ago
    You don't need to understand how a fuel pump works to manage a fleet of vehicles. But you need to trust that when your mechanics are telling you that a particular model has a lot of fuel pump problems, they know what they are talking about. If you, the fleet manager, are approached with a plan to replace all the fuel pumps in a particular model with an in-house design, you still don't need to know the particulars of the in-house design. You do need to have some sense of whether you really have the in-house ability to competently design, manufacture, and sustain such a device. It may seem like a ridiculous idea for a floral delivery service. But if you know your people enough to trust them or not trust them, you don't have to be an expert in everything to make the right decisions.

nabla9 3y ago

That's why firms today have CTO with seat on the table. Corporate IT grew from office clerks. Obviously you don't need strategic planing to see that fax machines and PC's work, so corporate IT started as being nobody important.

forinti 3y ago

There's this myth that IT people can't communicate. Maybe it's because I'm in IT that I think it's quite the opposite: we communicate very well and precisely. The real issue is that middle management has a ton of politics that muddle up everything. I can say to my team that I messed something up and that we have to fix it; but I've seen people higher up who will bend over backwards just to not have to roll back a decision (and sometimes not even a very important decision). So maybe someone had already sold to the boss that the equipment was good for another 10 years.

wjnc 3y ago
In my opinion IT people are often great at communicating clearly and with what in other parts of business would be called vision. They think ahead and see connections between processes and systems that non-technical management (even the process owners) miss. They can see the dot on the wall and deliver a program brining you there. However, and that’s the big gripe, each and every one IT proposal I see costs money. It not just costs money, everything costs money, but it raises the long term average cost per unit. Even when we are dismantling ancient and totally non functional systems, the TCO of the modern solution is higher than the previous. Look I’m here on HN, can program a bit, understand quite large parts of the tech stack. But not why even highly capable IT-staff and management whom I have confidence in can’t seem to explain their contribution to the basic underpinning of business: average cost should go down over time and with scale. (Advice about how to talk about this with IT people is more than welcome! A lot of organizational distrust and poison sadly follows from this.) One of the more current examples is that IT-staff forgets that they are 2-3x more expensive per FTE than general workers. So when I see a plan and calculate how much middle management should save in reduced workload thanks to plan X both sides don’t like the outcome. The end of the day picture that companies exist by grace of customers willing to pay for your product (and cost loading!) is lost at that moment.
liquidpele 3y ago
I find it’s more that people suck at listening, not communicating. IT people will happily explain if you ask and listen, but frankly most people dont like to feel dumb for asking questions. When was the last time a manager asked you what you needed to do your job better?

em-bee 3y ago

yup, i was waiting for at least a cursory mention of the actual growth rate and details to the cost and how long it actually took to install the line.

sensanaty 3y ago

I've often wondered about this myth that the tech-nerds can't articulate stuff properly. In my experience with my coworkers it's not really the case, we go out of our way to explain everything to various levels of detail depending on who's on the receiving end. What happens more often than not is that the C-suites and their underling managers just don't give a shit. They've got their "grand plan" that works in their minds, and no amount of annoying devs that tell them that their fantasies can in fact, not, be made into reality can sway them otherwise. Doesn't matter how well you explain it, they want it done, so it'll get done, regardless of any other problems. Hell, they perfectly understand what we're talking about most of the time, it's not like we're hitting them with obscure jargon known only to the highest caste of the nerds, it's really just that they don't care. I do get where they're coming from as well, as we can be extremely annoying oftentimes (at least, I know I can be extremely annoying), but the feeling is often mutual when I'm given a ticket I've argued vehemently against, more often than not with good reasoning. I just wish more companies weren't being run by brainless, heartless MBA types and there was more of us engineers in charge, but c'est la vie.

Aeolun 3y ago
I think it’s going to always keep being like this. The people that would be good to have in charge do not actually want to be in charge because being a manager sucks for them.
- pas 3y ago
  it's because tech people - like any employee who doesn't have to bear professional liability - can be pushed around easily (because who cares if the suits are occasionally blaming IT, who cares if the company fails, the pay is good, there are other jobs, etc.) also from the perspective of the aforementioned suits, they can hire IT guys easily, who cares if one of them gets very uppity and quits if we blame them for everything/anything.
- geraldhh 3y ago
  "Good leaders have power thrust upon them, bad ones seek it."

asylteltine 3y ago

I would argue they communicated the risks by showing them the user experience

nitwit005 3y ago

As portrayed, it sounds like management agreed the growth would happen, understood it would become a problem, and were even willing to pay for the upgrade. They just insisted on delaying paying for it. That doesn't sound like a failure to communicate.