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Gun to the head solutions: no tests, no quality, no future planning, hacks on top of hacks, tech debt. As a manager, this "thought exercise" is dangerous. You
by mattlondon 2y ago
Gun to the head solutions: no tests, no quality, no future planning, hacks on top of hacks, tech debt.
As a manager, this "thought exercise" is dangerous. You think it is a fun and harmless exercise to your reports to really focus, your reports at best think you don't trust them, and at worst think you are threatening them with violence (hypothetical or otherwise) unless they tell you what they think you want them to say. Psychology safety will be at rock bottom pretty quickly.
Nice job you have there, would be a reaaaaalll shame if anything hypothetical happened to it huh? Now estimate again, and this time don't make me angry <imitates pulling a trigger of an invisible gun at someone's head>.
Absolutely terrible behaviour.
- me-vs-cat 2y agoHe does need a better name. > The purpose of the thought experiment isn't to generate the real solution. It's meant to put a lower bound on the solution. Then you think of a real solution with that lower bound in eyesight, and you'll find it's often better than your original solution. He does not say to actually implement the quickest hack you can imagine, nor to skip the mundane steps that avoid tech debt. He says spend 10 minutes imagining a quick hack after laying out your initial solution, and incorporate anything you learned into your actual work. To me, it sounds very similar to a startup chipping away at their original idea to get a MVP. > The purpose here is to break their frame and their anchoring bias. If you've just said something will take a month, doing it in a day must require a radically different solution.