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You have to be a manager in order to throw a word salad like this. "stakeholders", "forecast team velocity", "aggregate potential throughput"... As an engineer

by palata 2y ago

You have to be a manager in order to throw a word salad like this. "stakeholders", "forecast team velocity", "aggregate potential throughput"... As an engineer, my feeling is that this bullshit never works and loses a lot of my time for the sake of a manager justifying their work instead of actually creating value.

jf22 2y ago
"stakeholders" Can I ask what do you think this the term "stakeholders" describes and what alternative terms you should use?
- mattmanser 2y ago
  Stakeholder is corporate jargon. User, customer or client are the normal, non-corporate jargon, terms. A cynic might think 'stakeholder' gets used when a company forgets about the end-users.
  - jf22 2y ago
    I was more interested in the original authors definition as he called it part of a word salad. I don't see a problem with some terms as being corporate jargon. That's just shorthand for an idea the same way any slang for a group is shorthand.
    - palata 2y ago
      Here is why I did not answer: I don't think you are genuinely interested, I think you just disagree and were trying to argue that it was not a "word salad". Which is valid, it's okay to disagree with my subjective opinion. For the sake of the argument: I say "apple, pear, avocado... that's a salad!" and you answer "Why would you say that an apple is necessarily part of a salad? How should I call an apple if I don't want it to sound like it is part of a salad?" What makes a salad is the aggregation of multiple ingredients. Of course "stakeholders" is not a word salad.
      - jf22 2y ago
        You typed more about your definition of "word salad" than you did about stakeholders. I think business shorthand is great. The word stakeholders has meaning and isn't part of a word salad to me.
        palata 2y ago
        > You typed more about your definition of "word salad" than you did about stakeholders. Because it seems to me that you focus on my definition of "stakeholders" but you actually have not understood what I was trying to say, which requires understanding what I mean by "word salad". > The word stakeholders has meaning and isn't part of a word salad to me. And this confirms that my point hasn't been understood.
        jf22 2y ago
        Yes, I do not understand your point.
fragmede 2y ago
> creating value No true engineer I know would be caught dead using that phrase. Must be a manager! Gettim!
- palata 2y ago
  Hahaha, Touché! Here is an upvote :-). I think it's very funny because I first wrote "instead of actually doing stuff" (which was wrong because this is "doing stuff", just bullshit stuff IMO). So I rephrased as "instead of actually being productive", which I thought was maybe a bit aggressive. So I went for "actually creating value", because it felt like the way a manager would describe it. "I appreciate that you are doing work, and it is good, but it is not creating value... therefore I believe we need to change something" is how I imagined trying to constructively say "this is all bullshit, but I respect you as a person and I believe that you could do proper stuff instead".

by palata 2y ago

jf22 2y ago

"stakeholders" Can I ask what do you think this the term "stakeholders" describes and what alternative terms you should use?

mattmanser 2y ago
Stakeholder is corporate jargon. User, customer or client are the normal, non-corporate jargon, terms. A cynic might think 'stakeholder' gets used when a company forgets about the end-users.
- jf22 2y ago
  I was more interested in the original authors definition as he called it part of a word salad. I don't see a problem with some terms as being corporate jargon. That's just shorthand for an idea the same way any slang for a group is shorthand.
  - palata 2y ago
    Here is why I did not answer: I don't think you are genuinely interested, I think you just disagree and were trying to argue that it was not a "word salad". Which is valid, it's okay to disagree with my subjective opinion. For the sake of the argument: I say "apple, pear, avocado... that's a salad!" and you answer "Why would you say that an apple is necessarily part of a salad? How should I call an apple if I don't want it to sound like it is part of a salad?" What makes a salad is the aggregation of multiple ingredients. Of course "stakeholders" is not a word salad.
    - jf22 2y ago
      You typed more about your definition of "word salad" than you did about stakeholders. I think business shorthand is great. The word stakeholders has meaning and isn't part of a word salad to me.
      - palata 2y ago
        > You typed more about your definition of "word salad" than you did about stakeholders. Because it seems to me that you focus on my definition of "stakeholders" but you actually have not understood what I was trying to say, which requires understanding what I mean by "word salad". > The word stakeholders has meaning and isn't part of a word salad to me. And this confirms that my point hasn't been understood.
        jf22 2y ago
        Yes, I do not understand your point.

fragmede 2y ago

> creating value No true engineer I know would be caught dead using that phrase. Must be a manager! Gettim!

palata 2y ago
Hahaha, Touché! Here is an upvote :-). I think it's very funny because I first wrote "instead of actually doing stuff" (which was wrong because this is "doing stuff", just bullshit stuff IMO). So I rephrased as "instead of actually being productive", which I thought was maybe a bit aggressive. So I went for "actually creating value", because it felt like the way a manager would describe it. "I appreciate that you are doing work, and it is good, but it is not creating value... therefore I believe we need to change something" is how I imagined trying to constructively say "this is all bullshit, but I respect you as a person and I believe that you could do proper stuff instead".