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Dear God this was my life at a past employer. The biggest issue is that Get Shit Done usually turns to Get Shit Done exactly how I want even though I won't tell

Dear God this was my life at a past employer. The biggest issue is that Get Shit Done usually turns to Get Shit Done exactly how I want even though I won't tell you what it is because I'm "Getting Shit Done!". I know better now. If I see that at an interview now, I'll run, not walk, run away. People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. Then bitch about them not being good enough. It's like buying a sports car and putting shitty watered down gas in it and complaining about how the car doesn't perform like it should.

danielweber 13y ago
"No, you got the wrong shit done! What's wrong with you?!"
- smacktoward 13y ago
  "Ready, fire, aim!"
  - api 13y ago
    Also known as "iteration" and "failing fast" and "being quick to pivot." These are not bad concepts when properly understood. Unfortunately they are rarely properly understood. Hint: they do not mean "it doesn't matter whether what you do has any merit out of the starting gate," nor do they mean "quality doesn't matter, just fling shit and see if it sticks to the wall."
    - smacktoward 13y ago
      I wonder if this piece I wrote on one way for organizations to succeed without bureaucracy or heavy top-down management might not be of interest to those suffering from the "fail fast" syndrome: http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/how-winners-win-john-boyd-and-the-four-qualities-of-victorious-organizations/ http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/how-winners-win-john-boyd-... Not to say it's the only way to do things, of course, but it's a hell of a lot better than "Get Shit Done" ... EDIT: Submitted the post to HN for discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6669129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6669129
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    Shit, I can't believe you took the time to ready.
- snorkel 13y ago
  "I got the shit done in a very shitty way."
- robertje 13y ago
  Define shit or I will define it myself... that's how it goes.
zende 13y ago
> People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. Then bitch about them not being good enough. It's like buying a sports car and putting shitty watered down gas in it and complaining about how the car doesn't perform like it should. Beautifully said!
bane 13y ago
To play devil's advocate, I've been in startups where it seems like very little ever gets done and dithering and playing around with cool code becomes the norm. Eventually, a "bull dog" personality has to be brought in to light some dynamite under the ass of engineering and get them focused on delivery. GSD works so long as it's focused on shipping.
- jaegerpicker 13y ago
  I'd argue that is rarely if ever works well. I think there is a world of difference between playing around with cool code and the GSD path. Controlled, focused, and communicative processes, driving towards building the best, most light weight piece of software/system you can works better than either extreme. Work hard, damn right but work smart also. It takes both IMO. Software developers are smart people by definition, enable them to use that for the benefit of the company. If someone is just scrambling to meet an arbitrary quota because they need to "GET SHIT DONE!" they aren't making smart decisions, and as a startup that will kill you.
- LaGrange 13y ago
  That’s not about what this article is about, at all. It’s about thinking that „get shit done” is somehow enough, not that being goal-oriented is bad. It’s about thinking that screaming that term around is somehow a valid management technique. In fact, you don’t need a bulldog, more like an elephant. Patient, but smart, and they’re gonna get there.
- EliRivers 13y ago
  GSD works so long as it's focused on shipping. What if shipping isn't the problem?
7Figures2Commas 13y ago
> People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. Notwithstanding the fact that the GSD mentality is often nonsense that comes from folks who don't know what they're doing, I would make the point that a lot of software jobs are "shitty" in the context of what many expect to find when they decide to become a developer. And that's life. Even at many of the biggest names in tech, a lot of developers are performing mundane tasks that are not nearly as interesting or sexy as one would imagine. If even the biggest companies in tech, which deal with some of the biggest problems, can't create more "good" positions than "shitty" ones, it shouldn't come as a surprise that smaller companies and startups can't either. Incidentally, it's like this in just about every profession that is glamorized in some fashion (i.e. investment banking, law, etc.).
- AsymetricCom 13y ago
  "That's life" what a load... no, that's a corporate job which doesn't give a shit about you. It's not really life. The only reason people put up with it is because they're told "that's life" or "that's just how it is." when that's meaningless bullshit.
  - acron0 13y ago
    This is a prime example of the attitude the author is warning against. This kind of anti-establishment ignorance comes from people with little clue as to how 99% of software is written...
    - fleitz 13y ago
      Which is why a small but vocal minority of us prefer not to work in overly structured corporate environments. No one really fucking cares that the implementation of the design is pixel perfect, they care whether it moves the needle whether it matches the design or not. Like anything there is an effective version of 'get shit done' and a cargo cult version, most are the cargo cult version where people are not actually empowered to make decisions. 99% of software is developed in shitty cargo cult conditions, half the world lives on less than $5 a day, I don't care to trend toward the average. If you want to hold up the average as something to strive toward knock yourself out.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
casual_slacker 13y ago
Half of the work at a startup, or in programming (and many other things) is figuring out what to get done next. GSD isn't a problem in itself, the people who have both vision and GSD are usually killing it and I love working with those people. What you describe is more like a PITA-client who picked up GSD as a buzzword.
alttag 13y ago
I had a previous job that was this way. Their informal mantra was "Do it now, scrape the blood off the walls later." In practice, this meant poorly communicated expectations, multiple conflicting reporting lines, non-specific project task ownership (everyone owned it, or someone else did and you were expected to as well), and best of all, no formal (or even informal) QA process. No surprise then, that between the various forms of attrition (whether from firing, as managers spread blame and scapegoated, or quitting from those capable and prescient enough to see it coming) the company lost nearly half of its IT staff in a 12-month period, which included a major software release.
- marrs 13y ago
  Yep, that pretty accurately describes where I once worked. But I don't think this is a bad thing from the perspective of the board of directors, only for the likes of you and me. Remember, the goal is to spend as little money as possible developing a product/service and then sell out in 5 years. So you want to hire inexperienced but talented drones who will do as they're told and give you value for money (i.e. work their evenings and weekends for free). Anyone with the sense to push back on that needs to be cut loose fast.
mathattack 13y ago
There's a spectrum. On one end are the large organizations stuck in analysis paralysis. On the other end are firms too busy getting shit done to fix root causes. You can put Google and Facebook at spots somewhere in the middle - where they are relative to each other says a lot about their culture. Neither extreme fits 100% of the solutions. When your company (or market) is on life support, you need to only worry about the present. When it becomes habit, you can't move from saving the company to rebuilding it. And as others say, too much GSD is terrible for morale. It's good for 6 months to save a company. It's bad for 2 years of floundering.

danielweber 13y ago

"No, you got the wrong shit done! What's wrong with you?!"

smacktoward 13y ago
"Ready, fire, aim!"
- api 13y ago
  Also known as "iteration" and "failing fast" and "being quick to pivot." These are not bad concepts when properly understood. Unfortunately they are rarely properly understood. Hint: they do not mean "it doesn't matter whether what you do has any merit out of the starting gate," nor do they mean "quality doesn't matter, just fling shit and see if it sticks to the wall."
  - smacktoward 13y ago
    I wonder if this piece I wrote on one way for organizations to succeed without bureaucracy or heavy top-down management might not be of interest to those suffering from the "fail fast" syndrome: http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/how-winners-win-john-boyd-and-the-four-qualities-of-victorious-organizations/ http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/how-winners-win-john-boyd-... Not to say it's the only way to do things, of course, but it's a hell of a lot better than "Get Shit Done" ... EDIT: Submitted the post to HN for discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6669129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6669129
- dllthomas 13y ago
  Shit, I can't believe you took the time to ready.
snorkel 13y ago
"I got the shit done in a very shitty way."
robertje 13y ago
Define shit or I will define it myself... that's how it goes.

zende 13y ago

> People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. Then bitch about them not being good enough. It's like buying a sports car and putting shitty watered down gas in it and complaining about how the car doesn't perform like it should. Beautifully said!

bane 13y ago

To play devil's advocate, I've been in startups where it seems like very little ever gets done and dithering and playing around with cool code becomes the norm. Eventually, a "bull dog" personality has to be brought in to light some dynamite under the ass of engineering and get them focused on delivery. GSD works so long as it's focused on shipping.

jaegerpicker 13y ago
I'd argue that is rarely if ever works well. I think there is a world of difference between playing around with cool code and the GSD path. Controlled, focused, and communicative processes, driving towards building the best, most light weight piece of software/system you can works better than either extreme. Work hard, damn right but work smart also. It takes both IMO. Software developers are smart people by definition, enable them to use that for the benefit of the company. If someone is just scrambling to meet an arbitrary quota because they need to "GET SHIT DONE!" they aren't making smart decisions, and as a startup that will kill you.
LaGrange 13y ago
That’s not about what this article is about, at all. It’s about thinking that „get shit done” is somehow enough, not that being goal-oriented is bad. It’s about thinking that screaming that term around is somehow a valid management technique. In fact, you don’t need a bulldog, more like an elephant. Patient, but smart, and they’re gonna get there.
EliRivers 13y ago
GSD works so long as it's focused on shipping. What if shipping isn't the problem?

7Figures2Commas 13y ago

> People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. Notwithstanding the fact that the GSD mentality is often nonsense that comes from folks who don't know what they're doing, I would make the point that a lot of software jobs are "shitty" in the context of what many expect to find when they decide to become a developer. And that's life. Even at many of the biggest names in tech, a lot of developers are performing mundane tasks that are not nearly as interesting or sexy as one would imagine. If even the biggest companies in tech, which deal with some of the biggest problems, can't create more "good" positions than "shitty" ones, it shouldn't come as a surprise that smaller companies and startups can't either. Incidentally, it's like this in just about every profession that is glamorized in some fashion (i.e. investment banking, law, etc.).

AsymetricCom 13y ago
"That's life" what a load... no, that's a corporate job which doesn't give a shit about you. It's not really life. The only reason people put up with it is because they're told "that's life" or "that's just how it is." when that's meaningless bullshit.
- acron0 13y ago
  This is a prime example of the attitude the author is warning against. This kind of anti-establishment ignorance comes from people with little clue as to how 99% of software is written...
  - fleitz 13y ago
    Which is why a small but vocal minority of us prefer not to work in overly structured corporate environments. No one really fucking cares that the implementation of the design is pixel perfect, they care whether it moves the needle whether it matches the design or not. Like anything there is an effective version of 'get shit done' and a cargo cult version, most are the cargo cult version where people are not actually empowered to make decisions. 99% of software is developed in shitty cargo cult conditions, half the world lives on less than $5 a day, I don't care to trend toward the average. If you want to hold up the average as something to strive toward knock yourself out.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

casual_slacker 13y ago

Half of the work at a startup, or in programming (and many other things) is figuring out what to get done next. GSD isn't a problem in itself, the people who have both vision and GSD are usually killing it and I love working with those people. What you describe is more like a PITA-client who picked up GSD as a buzzword.

alttag 13y ago

I had a previous job that was this way. Their informal mantra was "Do it now, scrape the blood off the walls later." In practice, this meant poorly communicated expectations, multiple conflicting reporting lines, non-specific project task ownership (everyone owned it, or someone else did and you were expected to as well), and best of all, no formal (or even informal) QA process. No surprise then, that between the various forms of attrition (whether from firing, as managers spread blame and scapegoated, or quitting from those capable and prescient enough to see it coming) the company lost nearly half of its IT staff in a 12-month period, which included a major software release.

marrs 13y ago
Yep, that pretty accurately describes where I once worked. But I don't think this is a bad thing from the perspective of the board of directors, only for the likes of you and me. Remember, the goal is to spend as little money as possible developing a product/service and then sell out in 5 years. So you want to hire inexperienced but talented drones who will do as they're told and give you value for money (i.e. work their evenings and weekends for free). Anyone with the sense to push back on that needs to be cut loose fast.

mathattack 13y ago

There's a spectrum. On one end are the large organizations stuck in analysis paralysis. On the other end are firms too busy getting shit done to fix root causes. You can put Google and Facebook at spots somewhere in the middle - where they are relative to each other says a lot about their culture. Neither extreme fits 100% of the solutions. When your company (or market) is on life support, you need to only worry about the present. When it becomes habit, you can't move from saving the company to rebuilding it. And as others say, too much GSD is terrible for morale. It's good for 6 months to save a company. It's bad for 2 years of floundering.