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Dickerson rules: "Rule 1: "The war room and the meetings are for solving problems. There are plenty of other venues where people devote their creative energies
by pella 13y ago
Dickerson rules:
"Rule 1: "The war room and the meetings are for solving problems. There are plenty of other venues where people devote their creative energies to shifting blame."
Rule 2: "The ones who should be doing the talking are the people who know the most about an issue, not the ones with the highest rank. If anyone finds themselves sitting passively while managers and executives talk over them with less accurate information, we have gone off the rails, and I would like to know about it." (Explained Dickerson later: "If you can get the managers out of the way, the engineers will want to solve things.")
Rule 3: "We need to stay focused on the most urgent issues, like things that will hurt us in the next 24--48 hours."
"
- wil421 13y agoThis! Rule 2. I sit in meetings weekly with mangers discussing issues that I know about the most but I can never get them to hear me out.
- baseten 13y agoRule #1: Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!
- lutusp 13y agoI wonder how many readers will recognize this famous quotation and its source. (long pause ...) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove
- sehr 13y agoA lot, I hope! Strangelove is pretty well known for the most part across the internet. Fantastic movie
- saraid216 13y agoI watched it. I wasn't blown away. I don't remember it with enough detail to recognize random quotations.
- lutusp 13y ago> I watched it. I wasn't blown away. Like many films, it hasn't aged very well. It relies on the atmosphere that existed at the height of the Cold War, and a certain atmosphere of darkness and paranoia that's less popular as a plot device in modern times. Also, for a modern audience it would have required better special effects, using methods that didn't exist at the time.
- sp332 13y agoRule 3 is what managers are for. The engineers will want to work on cool features or challenging problems, not the most urgent ones.
- watwut 13y agoOnly if you employ bad or only junior engineers. If you can not deal with priorities, then you have no right to call yourself senior. Especially when it comes to urgent. Good engineers are able to finish work even if you do not babysit them.
- supercanuck 13y agoWhoever said there was no true scotsman is a liar!
- quickpost 13y agoAwesome rules. Posting on my wall right now.
- smacktoward 13y agoRule 3 could be dangerous, though. It makes sense when you're in crisis mode, but when you're not focusing exclusively on things that could jump up and bite you tomorrow can lead to strategic tunnel vision -- missing opportunities for big wins because you were too busy chasing small ones. Not really an issue for them since healthcare.gov sort of became the dictionary definition of "crisis mode," but worth keeping in mind if you're on a project with a more normal trajectory.
- josephlord 13y agoYes rule 3 should be a bit looser when not in crisis mode. It can be adapted to what can we actually decide now rather than to discuss possible future paths (the more speculative discursive stuff can happen in other meetings).