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This whole list just begs to be implemented just to see it horribly, horribly crash and burn when it hits reality. Any real company and all real projects are fa
by kahawe 14y ago
This whole list just begs to be implemented just to see it horribly, horribly crash and burn when it hits reality. Any real company and all real projects are far more complex than that and no matter how great these rules sound on their own, I doubt they will survive the proverbial first contact with the enemy.
Sorry if this all sounds too negative but I have seen so many lists like this, nice sounding promises which never held up in reality as soon as the smallest issues came up.
It's not so much how nice and "totally logical" a value sounds, the important thing is realizing how you will hold up this value and deal with possible trade-offs because every decision and value means there will be possibly negative consequences to it just by the fact alone that you prioritize things.
> Working longer is not working harder. Go home.
Fair enough, except then that one really great opportunity comes around, this huge client who could boost your business to the next level... now tell me you won't bend over backwards for him and so will your team?
> 40 hours includes the commute.
This sounds really great! But John lives around the block and is there in 5 minutes, Jane commutes from the suburbs and it takes her at least an hour by car so there, you "lost" 10 hours of Jane-working and John wonders why he has to work so much more than Jane. You are saying "that's childish"? Well, welcome to working with adults.
> Resist the urge to call a meeting
This could quickly put a damper on communication but ok, whatever floats your boat.
> Consensus is bullshit. Do what’s best for the company.
And this is the first nice-sounding but completely empty word-shell in the list. So we are supposed to JUST do what's best for the company and not care about consensus... what if we disagree with you about what's best for the company? Oh and somewhere else you said "customers are your business" so which one takes precedence now? "Business" or "customers"? Because there are a lot of situations where you might have to do something for a customer even it hurts business.
> We will not ship shit.
So you would rather postpone the launch time and again if it isn't perfect? I am not sure a lot of customers would appreciate this. They EXPECT "not shit" and they EXPECT it on time. Why do you even mention this?
> You will do customer service for the products you create.
How is this even going to work? The more projects I have been on, the more customer service I will be doing and suddenly I end up being a customer service drone and how is that going to be awesome fun every day like you promised?
> We will work in public
What does that even mean? You publish all the code or will you all sit in a café?
> People are expensive. We will strive to keep individuals working for the customer, and not on the business.
The most important duty of management is not to fill their own pockets but making SURE people can keep working for the customer... so if you cut managers, who is going to make sure things run smoothly?
> Efficiency is everything. We will remove obstructions.
Again, a nice sounding shell... it is easy to say "no consensus and remove obstructions" until you are in a situation where cowboy-coding just isn't going to cut it anymore and you will implement some process, some documents, some necessary "obstruction".
> We will not celebrate. Every day will be awesome, or we stop
I will be working more and more on customer service than on new, hot, sexy projects... how is this fun? How do you even think you can make every day awesome for all your employees? Do you realize how empty and worthless this sentence is? It is work - if it was all fun and sunshine, I am not sure you would get paid for it and work is NOT always fun.
> We will enjoy our work, our products, and our lives. We will make work awesome.
You just repeated yourself and it is just as empty. How will you guarantee this against all the things crashing down on you in the day-to-day of project work and customer service?
> We will be lean. We will NOT ignore problems, and we will swarm when issues arise.
What if this directly means it will cut into another customer's work because you need all the right bees swarming on that problem? Does solving those problems take priority over new projects or not?
> You are an adult. You will manage your own machine and tools.
I thought I wouldn't have to do boring grunt work, how about YOU provide me with a nice, lean, modern workstation so all I have to do is sit down and code?
- bjourne 14y agoI think most of your objections can be countered with "don't work with idiots." That none is hired should be managements top priority in every workplace.