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Good article. The part about figuring out your boss' motivations is the best part. This is really the key to any interaction with another human being whether w
by JohnBooty 14y ago
Good article. The part about figuring out your boss' motivations is the best part.
This is really the key to any interaction with another human being whether we're talking about speaking to an overseas technical support person, your boss, your mom, or your partner.
0. Realize your non-technical boss isn't some cartoonish, mustache-twirling villian with a fetish for poor technical solutions. He or she is picking them for a reason, possibly a misguided reason.
1. Figure out their motivations. Tricky, because most people are unwilling or unable to articulate what they want, even to themselves. Generally, your boss probably just wants things to run smoothly, make money, and look good to their boss. If they're choosing poor technical solutions, it's because they (correctly or mistakenly) believe those poor technical solutions are the best way to get to #2.
2. Figure out how both your goals and theirs can be met.
3. Communicate #2 to them.
None of those steps are easy, even though there are any a few of them. But it can be done. I'm not always successful at it, but here's an example of a time I did it right.
My boss employed ahem, "affordable" contractors who were basically "Dreamweaver jockeys" - they constantly sent us tangled 1990s-style HTML that I essentially had to re-write from scratch, taking me longer than it would than if I'd simply done it from scratch.
Instead of just telling him how that was a poor technical idea, I took the time to sit with him and show him (in a text editor) the difference between modern HTML5 and the horrible Dreamweaver spew, and how much more quickly I could change the modern code in order to respond to client requests. His eyes lit up at that point, because I was solving a real challenge he had - being responsive to change requests.
The icing on the cake was when I showed him some of the online galleries where we could purchase pre-made, high-quality HTML templates. Not only were they better-designed than the crap our contractors were sending us, they were easy to work with and were a fraction of the cost.
So I didn't just say, "Dreamweaver sucks! Everybody knows that!"[1] I demonstrated the wins a technically cleaner solution would give him.
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[1] I realize it's probably possible to just use Dreamweaver in a disciplined way, and create very clean markup with it if you wish. No offense to anybody making good stuff with it.
- gadders 14y agoGood advice. The only thing I would say is that your boss, generally, has access to information about the wider department/company issues than you do. Even if their advice is the incorrect technical solution it could still be in the best interests of the company.
- JohnBooty 14y agoYes, totally. The most usual case is when the "technically superior" solution takes longer and there is looming work beyond the current project that the in-the-trenches person doesn't know about. Clients/customers pay for results, not for technical excellence. When management picks "fast and dirty" over "solidly built" (not always wrong!) all we can really do is make sure they at least have an accurate understanding of the trade-offs and sacrifices they are asking for. I am getting better at this all of the time, and at my current pace I expect to have this skill completely mastered by the time I am several centuries old!
- gadders 14y agoYeah. Start talking about technical debt. And factor "fixing the release n-1's technical debt" into the plans for Release n.
- aroberge 14y agoExcellent point and, furthermore, not only figuring out your boss's motivation is essential, but finding an effective way to communicate is just as crucial. What you did by sitting down with him and showing the difference in a text editor is an excellent example of finding the lowest common denominator as a starting point for a demonstration. Well done.
- dpiers 14y ago| Realize your non-technical boss isn't some cartoonish, mustache-twirling villian with a fetish for poor technical solutions. He or she is picking them for a reason, possibly a misguided reason. I believe Hanlon's Razor applies here: | Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
- gknoy 14y agoAlso, it's probably better to think of one's boss's choices as due to ignorance rather than stupidity. The former is something you can help correct, and the latter is a poisonous (and usually incorrect) opinion which will often taint your feelings (and actions) towards them. edit: How do I do italicized/blockquoted text? I've seen it done, but haven't found docs on how.
- joshuacc 14y agoYou can add italics by putting asterisks around your words.
- cobrausn 14y agoNow if only 'we' would figure out that non-technical does not mean stupid.