4 ms·

Reminds me of a story a friend related a long time ago about how to manage bosses. That probably applies to bike sheds. The general idea is to introduce a glar

by YZF 1y ago

Reminds me of a story a friend related a long time ago about how to manage bosses. That probably applies to bike sheds. The general idea is to introduce a glaring mistake into any proposal you make. Then the boss (or whoever feels like bikeshedding) can "catch" that mistake upon which you congratulate them on their infinite wisdom, fix the mistake, and the project can move along. So to avoid the bikeshed color discussion, just do something totally stupid, like not have a roof, or a wall, then the nit-pickers will comment on that, you can quickly "address their concerns" and proceed to have a bike shed of any color you want.

marshmellman 1y ago
How does one do this without appearing incompetent?
- YZF 1y ago
  You just gotta pick mistakes that are plausible. The point is whatever you do the "bad boss" will find something. The very competent can do this without the boss realizing ;) Or it's just a tall tale.
- wizardforhire 1y ago
  Spellcheck is a thing… One strategically misspelled word placed somewhere around and neer the lower right of the page… At least that’s the way some lawyers I know do it.
  - fainpul 1y ago
    You have a typo there!
- aureianimus 1y ago
  The version I heard involves a 3d artist adding an obnoxious fairy flying around the character, so not critical, but noticable. I also think the idea here is to apply it to bosses who's self-worth seems to be tied to putting their mark on the product without being burdened by knowledge. (Because they'll want to change something regardless of the state)
- edgineer 1y ago
  It doesn't have to a mistake, it could be any other detail that you know would be disagreed with. Comedy sketch writers would write a throwaway that was too off the wall to air, then include it in their proposal among others to make sure their darlings made it through. I'm also reminded of the story of the Tetris contract in which a revision of the contract had an important change of a few words, and also an increase of some other fee. This fee change stole the attention and hid the other more insidious revision.
  - ErroneousBosh 1y ago
    > It doesn't have to a mistake, it could be any other detail that you know would be disagreed with. A friend's father who was an architect used to do that all the time. He'd submit a drawing that definitely wouldn't pass planning regulations, then go for a meeting with the planning officer and say "Right well how about we swap the swimming pool I am allowed to have, for the dormer windows that I'm not allowed to have?" Given that even down south here at 56°N no-one really bothers with having a pool, it's an easy trade. My late father solved the "getting round the planning department" thing by simply being the only person prepared to keep welding new floor pans into the local head planning officer's string of rusty old Opel Manta GTEs...
    - bluGill 1y ago
      One more reason to opposed planning departments - too often they are focused on the wrong things. They need to ensure the fire department can rescue people if there is a fire. If my house has a dormer - that should be a first amendment free speech issue they have no interest in (assuming it is otherwise safe). However the looks are easy for someone to verify, while the important things need an engineer to spend time.
      - ErroneousBosh 1y ago
        Okay, so no planning regulations at all? So if I buy the plot of land in front of yours and want to build my house as a 40-metre tower of rusted Cor-Ten steel with 1kW floodlights every metre or so, you'd be okay with that?
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Everyone is incompetent, at least situationally.
jkaptur 1y ago
I've heard this called "A Duck" https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/#:~:text=phrase%20%E2%80%9Cdoesn%E2%80%99t%20work.%E2%80%9D)-,5.%20A%20Duck,-kyoryu https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/#:~:tex...
- bikeshed2 1y ago
  I’ve never had the mental bandwidth to try to manage my manager and team like this. While I don’t trust them to provide the best feedback, I also don’t trust that I won’t make mistakes. And what does it matter if I cannot control everything, unless too much risk is involved. The color of that bike shed is distracting, though. Is it purple or pink?
bee_rider 1y ago
Do people actually do this? It seems silly and childish. Although I’ve never had a boss that needed to find an error.
- Cantinflas 1y ago
  I was taught to always speak up in every meeting by my boss at that time. Always, no matrer what, I had to come up with something. If you do that, you'd do me a favour.
  - portaouflop 1y ago
    Do you mean the babble hypothesis? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babble_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babble_hypothesis
    - Cantinflas 1y ago
      That's exactly it! I didn't knew it had a name until today. Thanks!
  - Macha 1y ago
    This is often my pain as a senior dev. If the more junior members of my team propose something, and it's perfectly acceptable, if I just rubber stamp it then it looks like I didn't read it or do anything. So with some of the past managers I've had, I felt like I had to find something to point out, so best to find something that doesn't inconvenience the proposal author too much. I could see the same dynamic in reverse when I had to propose stuff to the central tech team at that employer.
    - ht_th 1y ago
      Why not compliment them with a job well done? Add some details in your compliment that shows you've read their proposal.
- cerved 1y ago
  It's extremely common in graphic design because it's so easy for everyone to have an opinion.
zer00eyz 1y ago
The better version of this is to deliver something so big, that no one will read it. Put the good, the bad and the ugly in it. Make it huge, make it read like a mastrubatory PHD thesis... The printed version, should, if dropped on a desk from about a foot, make a thud. Then write the summary that is short, sweet, to the point, and nothing but glowing. Every one will just smile and nod and agree with you.
cornuto 1y ago
Reminiscent of the Philip K. Dick short story "War Game": https://philipkdickreview.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/war-game/ https://philipkdickreview.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/war-game/
djtango 1y ago
Reminds me a bit of the story about "bird mode" at google [0] https://mashable.com/article/google-maps-origin-story-satellite-bird-mode https://mashable.com/article/google-maps-origin-story-satell...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- nelsondev 1y ago
  Wait Google Maps is not satellite photography it’s aerial?? I feel like I’ve been lied to.
  - estimator7292 1y ago
    It's a (mostly) seamless blend of satellite, areal, and ground photography.
maccard 1y ago
I’ve never done this and I’ve never told my team to do it. What we have done though, and I will continue to do, js force us to leave things we want a decision on in a clearly broken/prototype state. The number of times I’ve gone into meetings to unblock a team only to have the whole thing derailed by a nothingburger bug that was hard to not see was the inspiration. if you leave the UI element magenta with cyan font instead of default application style then you’ll actually get a discussion on your UI element.
foofoo12 1y ago
That could work. It's like a variation of The Dead Cat Strategy. "The dead cat strategy is a kind of misdirection where somebody will say something so ridiculous or do something so outlandish that it takes your attention away from where they don't want you to look. ..." 1 minute summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3NvncA_oh0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3NvncA_oh0
dctoedt 1y ago
In the law school contract-drafting course that I teach, students read about "Combat Barbie" as a way of giving the other party's contract reviewer something to ask to be changed. https://www.contract-rpm.org/#combat-barbie https://www.contract-rpm.org/#combat-barbie
- random3 1y ago
  That's awesome. Having done a bit of contract ping-pong and karate (many times as collateral damage of one of the legal teams) as a founder, this makes a ton of sense, now :) This point and the article is more interesting than the OP, IMO
m463 1y ago
later: "how did this get built without a wall?" Can't help but think that getting a good review is also important, not just avoiding friction. What if they catch the roof, but everyone gets a little tired as the review goes on and they miss some small mistake you actually made?
aleph_minus_one 1y ago
> The general idea is to introduce a glaring mistake into any proposal you make. Then the boss (or whoever feels like bikeshedding) can "catch" that mistake upon which you congratulate them on their infinite wisdom, fix the mistake, and the project can move along. As a programmer who perhaps has a little bit of OCD concerning code quality ;-) when I see such a mistake, I rather tend to dive much deeper into the proposal than when it looks "basically OK", because if there is one such glaring error, in my experience there often are at least dozens. And well, I indeed typically tend to find lots of them in such a situation. TLDR: Depending on the personality traits of the person who reads the proposal this can be an insanely dangerous game to play.

by YZF 1y ago

marshmellman 1y ago

How does one do this without appearing incompetent?

YZF 1y ago
You just gotta pick mistakes that are plausible. The point is whatever you do the "bad boss" will find something. The very competent can do this without the boss realizing ;) Or it's just a tall tale.
wizardforhire 1y ago
Spellcheck is a thing… One strategically misspelled word placed somewhere around and neer the lower right of the page… At least that’s the way some lawyers I know do it.
- fainpul 1y ago
  You have a typo there!
aureianimus 1y ago
The version I heard involves a 3d artist adding an obnoxious fairy flying around the character, so not critical, but noticable. I also think the idea here is to apply it to bosses who's self-worth seems to be tied to putting their mark on the product without being burdened by knowledge. (Because they'll want to change something regardless of the state)
edgineer 1y ago
It doesn't have to a mistake, it could be any other detail that you know would be disagreed with. Comedy sketch writers would write a throwaway that was too off the wall to air, then include it in their proposal among others to make sure their darlings made it through. I'm also reminded of the story of the Tetris contract in which a revision of the contract had an important change of a few words, and also an increase of some other fee. This fee change stole the attention and hid the other more insidious revision.
- ErroneousBosh 1y ago
  > It doesn't have to a mistake, it could be any other detail that you know would be disagreed with. A friend's father who was an architect used to do that all the time. He'd submit a drawing that definitely wouldn't pass planning regulations, then go for a meeting with the planning officer and say "Right well how about we swap the swimming pool I am allowed to have, for the dormer windows that I'm not allowed to have?" Given that even down south here at 56°N no-one really bothers with having a pool, it's an easy trade. My late father solved the "getting round the planning department" thing by simply being the only person prepared to keep welding new floor pans into the local head planning officer's string of rusty old Opel Manta GTEs...
  - bluGill 1y ago
    One more reason to opposed planning departments - too often they are focused on the wrong things. They need to ensure the fire department can rescue people if there is a fire. If my house has a dormer - that should be a first amendment free speech issue they have no interest in (assuming it is otherwise safe). However the looks are easy for someone to verify, while the important things need an engineer to spend time.
    - ErroneousBosh 1y ago
      Okay, so no planning regulations at all? So if I buy the plot of land in front of yours and want to build my house as a 40-metre tower of rusted Cor-Ten steel with 1kW floodlights every metre or so, you'd be okay with that?
SoftTalker 1y ago
Everyone is incompetent, at least situationally.

jkaptur 1y ago

I've heard this called "A Duck" https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/#:~:text=phrase%20%E2%80%9Cdoesn%E2%80%99t%20work.%E2%80%9D)-,5.%20A%20Duck,-kyoryu https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/#:~:tex...

bikeshed2 1y ago
I’ve never had the mental bandwidth to try to manage my manager and team like this. While I don’t trust them to provide the best feedback, I also don’t trust that I won’t make mistakes. And what does it matter if I cannot control everything, unless too much risk is involved. The color of that bike shed is distracting, though. Is it purple or pink?

bee_rider 1y ago

Do people actually do this? It seems silly and childish. Although I’ve never had a boss that needed to find an error.

Cantinflas 1y ago
I was taught to always speak up in every meeting by my boss at that time. Always, no matrer what, I had to come up with something. If you do that, you'd do me a favour.
- portaouflop 1y ago
  Do you mean the babble hypothesis? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babble_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babble_hypothesis
  - Cantinflas 1y ago
    That's exactly it! I didn't knew it had a name until today. Thanks!
- Macha 1y ago
  This is often my pain as a senior dev. If the more junior members of my team propose something, and it's perfectly acceptable, if I just rubber stamp it then it looks like I didn't read it or do anything. So with some of the past managers I've had, I felt like I had to find something to point out, so best to find something that doesn't inconvenience the proposal author too much. I could see the same dynamic in reverse when I had to propose stuff to the central tech team at that employer.
  - ht_th 1y ago
    Why not compliment them with a job well done? Add some details in your compliment that shows you've read their proposal.
cerved 1y ago
It's extremely common in graphic design because it's so easy for everyone to have an opinion.

zer00eyz 1y ago

The better version of this is to deliver something so big, that no one will read it. Put the good, the bad and the ugly in it. Make it huge, make it read like a mastrubatory PHD thesis... The printed version, should, if dropped on a desk from about a foot, make a thud. Then write the summary that is short, sweet, to the point, and nothing but glowing. Every one will just smile and nod and agree with you.

cornuto 1y ago

Reminiscent of the Philip K. Dick short story "War Game": https://philipkdickreview.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/war-game/ https://philipkdickreview.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/war-game/

djtango 1y ago

Reminds me a bit of the story about "bird mode" at google [0] https://mashable.com/article/google-maps-origin-story-satellite-bird-mode https://mashable.com/article/google-maps-origin-story-satell...

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
nelsondev 1y ago
Wait Google Maps is not satellite photography it’s aerial?? I feel like I’ve been lied to.
- estimator7292 1y ago
  It's a (mostly) seamless blend of satellite, areal, and ground photography.

maccard 1y ago

I’ve never done this and I’ve never told my team to do it. What we have done though, and I will continue to do, js force us to leave things we want a decision on in a clearly broken/prototype state. The number of times I’ve gone into meetings to unblock a team only to have the whole thing derailed by a nothingburger bug that was hard to not see was the inspiration. if you leave the UI element magenta with cyan font instead of default application style then you’ll actually get a discussion on your UI element.

foofoo12 1y ago

That could work. It's like a variation of The Dead Cat Strategy. "The dead cat strategy is a kind of misdirection where somebody will say something so ridiculous or do something so outlandish that it takes your attention away from where they don't want you to look. ..." 1 minute summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3NvncA_oh0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3NvncA_oh0

dctoedt 1y ago

In the law school contract-drafting course that I teach, students read about "Combat Barbie" as a way of giving the other party's contract reviewer something to ask to be changed. https://www.contract-rpm.org/#combat-barbie https://www.contract-rpm.org/#combat-barbie

random3 1y ago
That's awesome. Having done a bit of contract ping-pong and karate (many times as collateral damage of one of the legal teams) as a founder, this makes a ton of sense, now :) This point and the article is more interesting than the OP, IMO

m463 1y ago

later: "how did this get built without a wall?" Can't help but think that getting a good review is also important, not just avoiding friction. What if they catch the roof, but everyone gets a little tired as the review goes on and they miss some small mistake you actually made?

aleph_minus_one 1y ago

> The general idea is to introduce a glaring mistake into any proposal you make. Then the boss (or whoever feels like bikeshedding) can "catch" that mistake upon which you congratulate them on their infinite wisdom, fix the mistake, and the project can move along. As a programmer who perhaps has a little bit of OCD concerning code quality ;-) when I see such a mistake, I rather tend to dive much deeper into the proposal than when it looks "basically OK", because if there is one such glaring error, in my experience there often are at least dozens. And well, I indeed typically tend to find lots of them in such a situation. TLDR: Depending on the personality traits of the person who reads the proposal this can be an insanely dangerous game to play.