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> I couldn't tell you the amount of times I've had to fight back against implementing yet another tracking tool at work, just to collect data that I know for a

> I couldn't tell you the amount of times I've had to fight back against implementing yet another tracking tool at work, just to collect data that I know for a fact no one will look at after the first few weeks of the tool being there. I'm curious, how does such a conversation usually go? Is your main angle to point out how useless the data ultimately will be, or did you find a resonating way to point out the negative effects on users?

sensanaty 1y ago
There's lots of ways to address it, depends on what the feature is. There's always ways you can spin it, like going the technical route: "That would require a new column which would add X to the size of the DB and thus our costs would rise by Y", "That would require X, Y and Z investment from these 3 teams just to add this 1 new column" etc. Usually the people pushing this stuff are non-technical so you can just give them any technical mumbo jumbo and they'll give up. I also tend to highlight that we do have historical data that nobody is looking at as-is, what's different about this new data? What are the actual long-term plans for the data? Can we reuse what we already have for what we're aiming for here? These days my default is "Oooh we'll have to check in with legal on that one, not sure if it's GDPR-friendly to include this new column like this". No one likes talking to legal unless they absolutely have to, so most will just drop it. And unfortunately sometimes there's no winning it no matter what, so you have to "disagree and move on" as it were. If it's some manager's pet project, well, you're SOL for the most part. > or did you find a resonating way to point out the negative effects on users? Unfortunately I've found this to seldom work unless you're working somewhere where privacy is part of the value prop. Even pointing things out like "How would you feel if the DB were to leak and all your info were to be made public?" elicits 0 response. The marketing people and C-suite that push these kind of boneheaded things forward don't view the users as actual humans, they're all just numbers to them. Will this cause churn? How much? Those are the only questions that matter to them.
- neobrain 1y ago
  Thanks, this is very insightful! Sadly there's no magic trick but this gives me some good ideas next time I find myself in that situation.

sensanaty 1y ago

There's lots of ways to address it, depends on what the feature is. There's always ways you can spin it, like going the technical route: "That would require a new column which would add X to the size of the DB and thus our costs would rise by Y", "That would require X, Y and Z investment from these 3 teams just to add this 1 new column" etc. Usually the people pushing this stuff are non-technical so you can just give them any technical mumbo jumbo and they'll give up. I also tend to highlight that we do have historical data that nobody is looking at as-is, what's different about this new data? What are the actual long-term plans for the data? Can we reuse what we already have for what we're aiming for here? These days my default is "Oooh we'll have to check in with legal on that one, not sure if it's GDPR-friendly to include this new column like this". No one likes talking to legal unless they absolutely have to, so most will just drop it. And unfortunately sometimes there's no winning it no matter what, so you have to "disagree and move on" as it were. If it's some manager's pet project, well, you're SOL for the most part. > or did you find a resonating way to point out the negative effects on users? Unfortunately I've found this to seldom work unless you're working somewhere where privacy is part of the value prop. Even pointing things out like "How would you feel if the DB were to leak and all your info were to be made public?" elicits 0 response. The marketing people and C-suite that push these kind of boneheaded things forward don't view the users as actual humans, they're all just numbers to them. Will this cause churn? How much? Those are the only questions that matter to them.

neobrain 1y ago
Thanks, this is very insightful! Sadly there's no magic trick but this gives me some good ideas next time I find myself in that situation.