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That sounds lovely riiight up until you’re in a position where one of your reports gets very inconveniently standoffish when they’re tasked with something that

That sounds lovely riiight up until you’re in a position where one of your reports gets very inconveniently standoffish when they’re tasked with something that has been pre-determined, has been decided for complex workflow management , political, legal, etc reasons. I am a big believer in developers working with sufficient context, but the reality is that when an org gets to a certain size, everyone can’t have full visibility over everything. Sometimes the ‘business analysis’ involved in determining how to address a particular need can be painful, intense, political, disruptive, etc. A burden that I want to and should shoulder for my team. Sometimes you’ve just gotta divide and conquer with some things. And that means that sometimes developers need to start with the puzzle already partially solved. Again, this can all sound completely unreasonable, right up until the point when you’re first faced with this situation. Framing it as “you’re not being paid to think! conform, swine!” is too cynical. Rather, sometimes, it’s impractical or flat out undesirable for everyone to do everything. Sometimes you’re better off focusing on a certain type of thinking / work.

RHSeeger 2y ago
> That sounds lovely riiight up until you’re in a position where one of your reports gets very inconveniently standoffish when they’re tasked with something that has been pre-determined, has been decided for complex workflow management , political, legal, etc reasons. There is a very big difference between 1. I expect my worker to do as their told and not question it. and 2. I expect my worker to use their analytic ability to make sure our plans are reasonable, and let me know when they're not. But sometimes, even knowing the issues they point out, I have to tell them to move forward with it anyways, because <factors>. And the need to be able to understand that sometimes we don't make the decisions. A developer that can't help understand the various possible choices to be made is... less useful. A developer that can't understand that they don't always get to make the final call is... less useful.

RHSeeger 2y ago

> That sounds lovely riiight up until you’re in a position where one of your reports gets very inconveniently standoffish when they’re tasked with something that has been pre-determined, has been decided for complex workflow management , political, legal, etc reasons. There is a very big difference between 1. I expect my worker to do as their told and not question it. and 2. I expect my worker to use their analytic ability to make sure our plans are reasonable, and let me know when they're not. But sometimes, even knowing the issues they point out, I have to tell them to move forward with it anyways, because <factors>. And the need to be able to understand that sometimes we don't make the decisions. A developer that can't help understand the various possible choices to be made is... less useful. A developer that can't understand that they don't always get to make the final call is... less useful.