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But are those really the root causes? An inflexible timeline is a constraint that is often valid -- e.g. if you have to launch a product meant for classrooms b

But are those really the root causes? An inflexible timeline is a constraint that is often valid -- e.g. if you have to launch a product meant for classrooms before the school year begins. So then the real question becomes, why wasn't work scoped accordingly? Why weren't features simplified or removed once it became clear there wouldn't be time to deliver them all working correctly? There's a failure of process there that is the root cause. Similarly, with "incentives are misaligned", that's fuzzy. A real root cause might be around managing time spent on bugfixes vs new feature, and the root cause is not dedicating enough time to bugfixes, and if that's because people aren't being promoted for those, it's about fixing the promotion process in a concrete way. You can't usually just stop at fuzzy cultural/management things because you want to blame others.

BeetleB 1y ago
> An inflexible timeline is a constraint that is often valid -- e.g. if you have to launch a product meant for classrooms before the school year begins. That's not an inflexible timeline. That's just a timeline. > So then the real question becomes, why wasn't work scoped accordingly? Why weren't features simplified or removed once it became clear there wouldn't be time to deliver them all working correctly? There's a failure of process there that is the root cause. Because management didn't want to drop features. Hence "inflexible". I'm not saying this is always the reason, or even most of the times. But if we can't invoke it when it is the problem, then the exercise is pointless. > Similarly, with "incentives are misaligned", that's fuzzy. Any generic statement is inherently fuzzy. > You can't usually just stop at fuzzy cultural/management things because you want to blame others. Did you really think I was advocating responding to a whole process with one liners? The examples you gave are often ones they will not accept as root causes.
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BeetleB 1y ago

> An inflexible timeline is a constraint that is often valid -- e.g. if you have to launch a product meant for classrooms before the school year begins. That's not an inflexible timeline. That's just a timeline. > So then the real question becomes, why wasn't work scoped accordingly? Why weren't features simplified or removed once it became clear there wouldn't be time to deliver them all working correctly? There's a failure of process there that is the root cause. Because management didn't want to drop features. Hence "inflexible". I'm not saying this is always the reason, or even most of the times. But if we can't invoke it when it is the problem, then the exercise is pointless. > Similarly, with "incentives are misaligned", that's fuzzy. Any generic statement is inherently fuzzy. > You can't usually just stop at fuzzy cultural/management things because you want to blame others. Did you really think I was advocating responding to a whole process with one liners? The examples you gave are often ones they will not accept as root causes.

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