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“Just remove the duck” (2013)
- wilwade 12y agoNPR had a story about this in graphic design where it has the term "Hairy Arms": http://www.npr.org/2014/11/17/364760847/whats-with-all-of-the-hairy-arms-in-graphic-design http://www.npr.org/2014/11/17/364760847/whats-with-all-of-th...
- hoopism 12y agoI've heard about this before. The person who was telling me about it said that in almost all cases the C-level person they were dealing with would choose the "hairy arm". Had an unintended way of backfiring frequently.
- wlesieutre 12y agoThe "hairy arm" in this case isn't an alternate version, it's an obvious error added to the design so that the manager can tell you to remove it. Though I've definitely also heard of people making a deliberately terrible alternate design and having a client pick it.
- hoopism 12y agoYes. That is where the term comes from... but it encompasses the practice of using an intentionally "wrong" option. From the linked article: "FREASE: Exactly. And it's funny I'm saying this but yeah. You know, it happens. Everybody does it. Like, for example, I worked with - 10 years ago - I worked - we did these logos for a famous musician. And they had a lot of people working for them and a lot of voices. And after working with them for a couple weeks, we realized that they hated the color blue. So if we showed them three logos, we would show the ones we loved. And then, we'd do one that they wanted, but we'd put it in the color blue."
- serve_yay 12y agoIn this scenario, the "hairy arm" could also be considered a way of "thinking out of the box", of trying something that's totally outside how you normally create. Maybe the novelty inherent in that was attractive to the clients, if the work really was considered "bad" and not just different.
- emodendroket 12y agoI guess this is probably the story she's referring to: http://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/
- agumonkey 12y agoSimilarly, always give options, subtly worse than the one you want to see picked. See Dan Ariely's books.
- kendallpark 12y agoCould backfire. I knew someone that presented a bunch of options to a PM with very clear worse options. PM ended up picking the three worst ones.
- icebraining 12y agoBernard Woolley: What if he demands options? Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, it's obvious, Bernard. The Foreign Office will happily present him with three options, two of which are, on close inspection, exactly the same. Sir Richard Wharton: Plus a third which is totally unacceptable. Sir Humphrey Appleby: Like bombing Warsaw or invading France. Yes, Minister - A Victory For Democracy
- mikeash 12y agoBut you have to be very careful not to overestimate the person, and end up having him command you to invade France. Giving an artificial bad option can be a great move, but it's dangerous.
- 12y ago
- robmcm 12y agoDilbert has this covered: http://dilbert.com/strip/2007-02-02 http://dilbert.com/strip/2007-02-02
- tormeh 12y agoReminds me of an application that models program states, looking for deadlocks and stuff. The program had a button which made the entire monitor go black until you pressed a key or something. No value or connection to the programs purpose whatsoever. I guess the author added it as an experiment.
- lotharbot 12y agoAn older Dilbert on the same theme: http://dilbert.com/strip/1997-07-12 http://dilbert.com/strip/1997-07-12
- polym 12y agoyounger
- michaelmior 12y agoBattle Chess was a great game. I believe I recall the rook eating the queen as well.
- jsight 12y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM3InfEH-cU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM3InfEH-cU
- moron4hire 12y ago>> "From the PC game Battle Chess (Enhanced) by Interplay. The reason I discovered I was into vore." I really, really shouldn't read even the descriptions on YouTube videos.
- a_bonobo 12y agoYes, only the queen, the others get boxed on the head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=iSnAiXKU7h8#t=343 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=iS...
- michaelmior 12y agoI believe there was some stabbing as well. I remember the queen flirting with the pawns when she captured them before knifing them.
- drpgq 12y agoAnyone remember Archon and Archon 2? They were similar although you actually fought a battle for each contact between pieces.
- mvdwoord 12y agoA story from the time recounts that Piero Soderino, the head of the powerful Florentine Republic, even told the famously irascible Michelangelo that David's nose was much too large. Michelangelo then hid some marble dust in his hand, climbed back up his ladder and pretended to do some more "chiseling" on the offending proboscis. While he did so, he let some marble dust fall from his hand. The pompous Soderino was fooled – he examined the unchanged nose and announced it was much improved and far more "life-like." http://www.globusjourneys.com/travel-stories/italy/michelangelos-david/ http://www.globusjourneys.com/travel-stories/italy/michelang...
- fizgig 12y agoOr how Hitchcock had the ratings board watch his famous Psycho shower death scene a second time unchanged and get the thumbs-up when it didn't pass the first viewing. I'm sure history is sprinkled with many such interesting stories.
- Eric_WVGG 12y agoTrey Parker and Matt Stone did the opposite with the South Park movie. Each time the MPAA objected to specific instances of curse words, they returned another version with those specifics removed but more added elsewhere. The final product was much filthier than even they intended.
- NickPollard 12y agoAnother version I've heard of this is with film censorship - apparently when Hitchcock made Psycho, the film censor (I think in the UK - the BBFC) wouldn't give the film a certificate because it was too extreme for the era - too much nudity, too much violence - and suggested a few cuts to just trim back some of the offending shots. Hitchock said of course he would, took the film back, and sat on it for a couple of weeks. He later sent back the 'fixed' version, and the censor was much happier with the 'changes' and certified it for release.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
- LanceH 12y agoThis is classic military when presenting anything to an officer for review. I've definitely read references of it going back to WWII (intentional, obvious oil smudge on otherwise pristine rifle). It was frequently stated that no officer could leave a document unedited after review, so an obvious misspelling or two would be added. It's a way of life on the military, really.
- Disruptive_Dave 12y agoClient services, as well. I was Director of a partnership marketing agency that had blue chip clients (IBM, FedEx, etc.). Any time we presented concepts/ideas to our clients we ALWAYS 1) included a few "easy no's" and 2) held back one or two good ones (most times). I have a quote hanging on my wall that reads: "Ideas are 1%, execution is 49%, getting people to own the idea is 25%, making those people heroes is 25%" (Chris Brogan). I think that's a positive way to spin this situation.
- AceJohnny2 12y agoZawinsky's classic quote "Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.", was apparently based on military humor where the serviceman thinks to ask an officer... http://regex.info/blog/2006-09-15/247 http://regex.info/blog/2006-09-15/247
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- JamesDLevine 12y agoI used to work with a very wise and experienced designer who referred to this as the "zinc" (after the "sacrificial protection" used on the hulls of ships)
- simonsquiff 12y agoThere was a similar story, that I can't now find a source for, of an advertising company that regularly added a 'helicopter' into their customer quotes for video shots. As well as being superfluous it was massively expensive. So the customers say 'we don't need a helicopter', strike that out and feel good that they've done their cost cutting. The rest of the plan makes it through unscathed.
- bmh100 12y agoThe "helicopter" may also be related to the "anchoring effect" [1], where adding such an expensive item with inflate the final cost of the project. That final cost will be the starting point, or "anchor", for clients to evaluate the true value and appropriate price of the project. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
- smcl 12y agoThis hooks nicely back into the world of software development, and the anecdote about the senior game dev deleting a secret static 1MB buffer when their team hit their memory ceiling - http://www.dodgycoder.net/2012/02/coding-tricks-of-game-developers.html http://www.dodgycoder.net/2012/02/coding-tricks-of-game-deve...
- wambotron 12y agoI worked at a deli during college, and people did this same type of thing on slices. By default, I'd always pick a pretty thin slice. Most people really like thinly sliced meats. The first thing you do is slice once and show them the slice, making sure it fits what they wanted. 99% of the time, people would say "thinner," I would pretend to fiddle with the knob, slice the same thickness, and they'd say "perfect!" I think it gives them some sort of feeling of control and ownership over what is happening.
- chestervonwinch 12y agoor maybe they don't want to appear rude or finnicky by pointing out that it looks the same?
- MarkyC4 12y agoThis was my thought too. I've already asked you to "fix it for me" once. I feel to do so again would just be rude (and wasteful as now 2 slices would have to be put aside for another person, or thrown out)
- swagasaurus-rex 12y agoBy extension, asking for a change in itself is presumptuous, so coming back with the same product is returning the favor.
- icebraining 12y agoMaybe for some, but even rude and abusive people do it.
- sharmi 12y agoQuite true. Or they may be hesitant to be push too much. Or they might just mentally note to not come this way again. All feedbacks need not be verbal.
- wambotron 12y agoI worked in a poor area. The people who live there, by and large, don't give a shit what you think of them.
- jauco 12y agoFunny how she mentions dogs. In Dutch it is a common expression to say something like "And then of course he has to pee on it a bit". (Hij moet daar nog even een plasje over doen) to indicate exactly this behaviour.
- vezzy-fnord 12y agoThis is virtually the same as what is more often called "bikeshedding", though with a different (just as famous) story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law_of_trivialit...
- mdekkers 12y agono, it isn't bikeshedding at all.
- gknoy 12y agoIt's related, though -- it's a process you can do to help minimize the impact of bikeshedding by baiting it with something innocuous. E.g., you design your awesome nuclear power plant, and put a REALLY ugly bikeshed, so that the reviewers will feel compelled to expend their change-requesting energy on that, rather than on changing something that might affect the important stuff.
- xigency 12y agoI think this tends to happen a lot.
- amikula 12y agoNice story. I'm disappointed that it didn't end with some helpful tactics for ducks you could put in your own projects, though. I also would be interested to hear the real story of what happened to the author to inspire this writeup.
- asgard1024 12y agoSimilar thing was often done by writers in the Eastern bloc to fool the censors. They left some obviously bad things in the material to be censored, so the censor could complain about something, and they would leave more subtle references intact.
- johntaitorg 12y agoCommonly known as a 'red herring'.
- pithon 12y agoSounds like the duck is a fingerprinting honeypot.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- hok 12y agoI heard a similar story (a joke from the communist era) around 1995 from a Czech colleague. It was about an artist whose works were never censored. When the other artists asked him how he did it, he replied: "I always add a little white dog in my paintings. When the censor asks 'What is this dog?' I quickly remove it and he's satisfied."
- TallGuyShort 12y ago>> The sacrificial duck kept the meddling manager away from the stuff that was important. The territorial dog analogy is perfect. I've seen parks where they put fake fire hydrants and other features in the dog area so they can feel satisfied without leaving their designated area.
- agumonkey 12y agoI'd love a exhaustive course on this kind of fakery.
- TallGuyShort 12y agoYou would probably enjoy watching Leverage :)
- ars 12y agoHow about buttons by crosswalks that don't do anything?
- agumonkey 12y agoCan't say, my driving instructor told me to pay attention to people near them because it does affect traffic lights (and even sequences of them). Other than that, it's pretty possible it's just a decoy to trigger pedestrians patience because they think lights are about to switch.
- mattdlondon 12y agoIt is called bikeshedding. People have been using "bike sheds" in software development for years to get project managers off their back about the important stuff.
- mattmanser 12y agoNo, bikeshedding is something completely different. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law_of_triviality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law_of_triviality This is about how some managers feel they have to suggest a change, any change, to justify their position. Bike shedding is excessive discussion in committees/group emails about trivial matters because everyone feels they understand the issue, unlike more complex issues up for discussion.
- korethr 12y agoCorrect, but a similar cause underlies both. From PHK's email on bikes-heds, "somebody will seize the chance to show that he is doing his job, that he is paying attention, that he is here." The project manager needs to show that's he's here and actually doing things, and so decrees changes like getting rid of the duck or changing the color of the buttons from taupe to mauve. In bikeshedding, all the people commenting need to prove that they're there and contributing, so now everyone is suggesting color changes. It seems to me that the main difference is the number of people involved.
- mattdlondon 12y agoYep - you offer up a sacrificial bikeshed/duck for management to meddle with, whilst the important stuff is left alone. Could be one person or a committee/group - its the same thing.
- mc32 12y agoOr, as Thomas Jefferson did, you overwhelm them with excessive preparation, so that they are reduced to making minor suggestions and your vision goes through. http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/03/03/thomas-jefferson-meetings/ http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/03/03/thomas-jefferson-me...
- moron4hire 12y agoI've never intentionally added something that I used as a distraction from the rest of the work, but I have added requested features--that I thought were poor design--in a way that would be very easy to remove. Later, when the client finally agrees that it is a bad feature, it's no trouble to remove it. I've also just hidden things that the client has asked removed if I thought they would eventually ask for it again, once they got to using the software. They usually do, and they think I'm a "genius" when I can make these "big" changes in such short periods of time. Hell, I even tell them I'm going to do it. I'm always very forthright with my clients. But they never remember. They always think I do everything from scratch. I guess because their own developers do, they think we all work the same way.
- realrocker 12y agoI think most freelancers do this. I have done it my time.
- realrocker 12y agoI think most freelancers do this. I have done it my time.
- realrocker 12y agoI think most freelancers do this. I have done it my time.
- mcmatterson 12y agoThis is also great parenting advice. Give your kid the feeling of having chosen to eat their vegetables, and they'll devour an entire plate of them.
- vidarh 12y agoAgreed. Our son always "decides" what he's having for dinner and what to do during the weekends, for example. Only he decides by choosing between 2-3 options we've selected in advance to match what we want the outcome to be. Similarly it's always bedtime before his actual intended bedtime so he can negotiate some extra time. It avoids so many conflicts when he smugly believes he has gotten exactly what he wanted out of us. I think works on pretty much anyone, you can just be more blatant about it with some people than others.
- codesuela 12y agosounds like elections in America
- mod 12y agoI like giving him different veggie options for the illusion of choice. I don't like letting him "get one over" on bedtime. When he's old enough to know the difference, then what? You'll have to take away those wins. Same goes for basically everything else he'll want from you. At least he'll (hopefully) negotiate well!
- vidarh 12y agoI figure when he's starting to realise that the wins are not really wins, he will also realise he's not been "getting one over" on us. At the same time, there are always things you can negotiate on. E.g. I don't care if he's up until 10pm if he can prove to me that he will consistently get up on time and do well at school despite staying up late. We're already playing that with him: We point out in the mornings if we notice he's tired that he seemed to have gone to bed too late, and we "trade" going to bed earlier on school nights against staying up later during the weekend. As a result he sometimes tells us he wants to go to be before the agreed bedtime. And I'm willing to be flexible about all kinds of things as long as he's giving us something reasonable in return. E.g. he gets weekly home work, and so I'm willing to skip on doing it one evening if I can trust that he will stick to an agreement of more than making up for it the following evening (and if he doesn't, he knows the consequence is much less freedom for a long time). I've no doubt I'll still have plenty of challenges down the road.... And he is already a master negotiator, though sometimes he's trying to be too wily for his own good and sometimes ends up talking himself out of a good deal because he doesn't yet understand all the options well enough. So he gets maths lessons this way too...
- myth_buster 12y agoI'm guilty of doing this quite often. My boss wants to make some amends everytime we review my task. Earlier I used to try to make the result as perfect as possible which resulted in him asking me to make significant changes which are unwarranted. Now I intentionally leave a minor correction which I'm sure he will notice. So now he gets the satisfaction of finding something in review while I still get to maintain the application the way I wanted it to be. Win-win?
- cmpb 12y agoThis reminds me of "How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell" [1] by The Oatmeal. It's a different moral, of course; basically, don't trust the client more than you need to. [1] http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell
- KoulMomo 12y ago>It's almost like they want to be able to point at any given part and say "I'm the reason that happened". I suspect this is done by people that feel like they will need to justify their job later. Having something to say when your manager (or others) inevitably ask "So, what exactly is it that you do here?" This seems to be also prevalent in the movie and tv industry. (Though I wouldn't COMPLETELY disparage the usefulness of studio/executive notes; see: Star Wars)
- ryandrake 12y agoI've always thought the "just remove the duck" story was a condemnation of the artist, not the manager. If your work is so crappy that you know you have to add something even crappier to distract the reviewer, what does that say about your competence? Maybe I'm just jaded from years of reviewing awful code. But if someone put an obvious compiler error into their code in hopes that it would distract me and keep me from seeing their memory leaks, off-by-one errors, and mis-spelled variable names, I'd be wondering if they're qualified to be on the project.
- Eric_WVGG 12y agoRough judgement. But given how clunky and janky that animation is, even by the standards of its day (oh yes I was gaming when Battlechess came out), I think in this case you’re right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM3InfEH-cU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM3InfEH-cU
- myth_buster 12y agoI think you missed the spot. "Just remove the duck" is a pattern not an anti-pattern. What it addresses is the urge of some supervisors to ask for some change just to show that they have done a thorough review, while the said change are actually detrimental to the product. > memory leaks, off-by-one errors, and mis-spelled variable names The above don't fall into the review comments that are being avoided as these are valuable suggestions.
- ryandrake 12y agoNo, I get the _intended_ meaning of the story, putting a decoy in for that meddlesome boss. But I think it can be interpreted both ways. For every manager out there who, out of hubris, needs to "leave their mark," you can find an artist or craftsman who, out of the same hubris, believes their work is beyond criticism.
- myth_buster 12y agoI agree with your above comment while the previous comment was leaning towards one side. > story was a condemnation of the artist, not the manager
- chrisbennet 12y agoAn electrical engineer I worked with told me about a similar situation he had encountered at a previous job. He would design a circuit only to have another engineer (responsible for cost cutting), remove or modify a component. The resulting design would not work as well. To get around this, he would add some sacrificial extra component like a resistor. The cost cutter would remove this leaving the original design intact.
- stevewilhelm 12y agoI have routinely left known performance optimization tasks to be done after the initial review of a product's MVP features. It just seemed better to get the first cut out to people to review in case significant refactoring occurred in response to the first round of feedback. The unintended consequence of this approach is that changes in response to feedback appeared to have much more impact on the overall UX experience. It increased reviewers' feeling of ownership of the product and they were more likely to become product champions and evangelists.
- flarg 12y agoI hate this story. I think it's important to differentiate between people who have the right knowledge to request a change and those that think they have the right solely because of seniority; but it's also rather disrespectful to 'cheat' and make fake changes just to make the someone happy. No-one deserves to be treated like a 'mark' for our tricks. My experience has been that being honest, polite and knowledgeable is a much better approach.
- fallinghawks 12y agoI would guess you've never browsed through clientsfromhell.net. Being honest, polite, and knowledgeable doesn't change the fact that the person who hires you may be ignorant, too busy, dead set on cheating you, or needs to assert his/her sense of control by insisting on changing something you considered finished.
- SonicSoul 12y agothat may be so, but tricking them into making the right decision is not a good long term decision. If they can't respond to reason perhaps changing teams and companies is a better approach.
- NegativeK 12y ago"Quit your job" is not a reasonable solution to intractable problems. The duck isn't either, but the change jobs mentality is even more damaging than a duck.
- appleflaxen 12y agoBut why does it sound like cheating? If the manager is not susceptible to this phenomenon, then they will let the duck stay. Why does it matter either way? It just makes any revisions easy if the manager is prone to this effect.
- flarg 12y ago"If it walks a like duck ..." ;) We none of us are perfect, we all have our flaws, but being tricky is not something we need to do; at the very least, it's not something I would wish to spend any time in my life doing.
- brogrammer90 12y agoIn the SCRUM shop I used to work, I did this all the time for our QA dept when the sprint was fairly trivial. If I didn't the PMs and the BAs would start breathing down their necks like they weren't working.
- tonyedgecombe 12y agoI'm sure I've been on the receiving end of this from the guy who does my graphics work. I mostly find it amusing but a it is bit annoying when there is a deadline. I won't let on that I know though.
- john_butts 12y agoThis is the origin story of Richard Stabone (RIP) also. Originally named to be used as a sacrificial bargaining chip with the standards board, he was somehow never cut, leaving Kirk Cameron stuck with a Boner for four years.
- loudmax 12y agoWe, as engineers, should also resist the temptation to leave our own mark when we're reviewing products designed by others. I don't work in management, but I've been in review meetings and I have made suggestions that worked their way into the final product. I like to think that my own suggestions were helpful, but it is gratifying to see one's own suggestion implemented. The temptation to leave one's mark just for its own sake is something we should all be aware of.
- mcfunley 12y agoAnother version of this story that I love uses the Russian Navy: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2005/05/12/417064.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2005/05/12/417064.aspx
- blawson 12y agoI think a lot if this effect is just that people think differently from each other. Eventually, someone is going to see something you did, where they would have done it a different way. If that person is your manager, not only do they see lots of things you are doing (and thus plenty of things they might have done differently) they also have the power to compel you to do it their way. If you're the boss, presumable you think you are the boss because someone higher up still thinks you do a good job, which is a sort of implicit endorsement for you doing things your way, instead of your subordinates way.
- bitL 12y agoYou'd be surprised how many standards are made like this. Companies adding useless stuff due to political reasons, appending obfuscating things so that somebody can claim credit for that part of the standard, hiding the real agenda they want to pass, proposing exact opposites to what they want so that others stop their (ridiculous) idea in order not to give them any advantage that sometimes backfires and ends up in the standard anyway (but they would do it even for reasonable idea as they don't want to make life easy for a competitor), other companies blocking anything they consider a strategic threat to the way they do their business, and you'll end up with a horrible standard full of ducks and hairy hands... Add to it occasional groupthink and dyslexia and then wonder why most software standards are so horrible...
- teddyuk 12y agoI wonder how much refactoring is done in this vein!
- krylon 12y agoI once talked to an SAP consultant, and he told me he would often make some part of his code painfully slow on intention. So during review meetings, rather than endlessly discuss minute details and demanding arbitrary changes, people would complain about how slow it was. "I'll see what I can do", the guy would sigh, go to his office, remove the offending code, and voila - everyone was happy. I haven't had the opportunity to try this technique, but I have been waiting ever since for the moment where this might come in handy.
- chrisvoo 12y agoWonderful game, I played it on Amiga. Beautiful post.
- vijayboyapati 12y agoReminds me a little of the Declaration of Independence where the famous line would have been "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" if Thomas Jefferson hadn't been "touched" by Benjamin Franklin with his edit to "self-evident".
- jaydles 12y ago[Here's the link to the Stack Exchange post](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/122009/developing-a-feature-which-sole-purpose-to-be-taken-out http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/122009/develo...) (on the Programmers site) that's reverenced in the blog post.
- sidcool 12y agoMore amusing than the article itself are several stories recounted here.
- picks_at_nits 12y ago“Too many notes."
- tfederman 12y agoMy company just doesn't have product or project managers and it's wonderful. Fewer meetings, no intermediaries, more agility. It could only work in practice, it could never work in theory.
- bgroins 12y agoAs someone who is responsible for 10-15 concurrent IT projects across numerous teams, many of whom I don't manage, this sounds terrible. I think the "no PMO' approach may work for homogenous groups whose focus is one project, but for a large organization, effective project management is a must.
- tfederman 12y agoThat's maybe true, and also a good reason I wouldn't work for a large company again.
- Flemlord 12y agoPutting on my client/product manager hat for a moment, this is incredibly annoying. You are putting me in the position of either (a) fixing the obvious ducks and not looking closely at the real problems, or (b) having to micromanage you and scheduling another review to make further changes. Maybe you get your desired result (a), but my opinion of your work is going to be much lower since you are making obvious duck-sized mistakes. If you are a developer who takes this approach, you may want to consider whether the short-term benefit of avoiding criticism is worth the long-term downside of having me think you are incompetent.
- jimmaswell 12y agoThis isn't meant to apply to managers who actually know what they're doing and don't always have to make a change just to look like they're contributing. If you're competent then the developers probably won't feel the need to do this.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- damoncali 12y agoAKA the Gunny Hartman doctrine: "If it wasn't for dickheads like you, there wouldn't be any thievery in this world, would there?"
- slapresta 12y agoIf you interpret this to be about "avoiding criticism" instead of as a counter-reaction to meddling, clueless middle management eager to justify their job position at a cost on employee time and product quality, then you're likely to be part of the very problem ducks fix.
- Nacraile 12y agoI think you're missing the point. The point here is that some PMs feel that if they're not demanding changes, they are not necessary / not doing their job / etc. If there's nothing wrong with the completed work, such a PM will demand unnecessary changes, in order to justify themselves. The duck is a passive counter to the PM's pathological behaviour: ensure there's always some easily-fixed fault, so the PM can feel like they're doing something, without forcing unnecessary high-effort changes. Since the duck is obviously bad and easily removed, it shouldn't prevent the PM from noticing real issues, or detract from fixing real issues. If you feel the need to add ducks, the real problem is that you have a bad PM. But if you're a dev and have no good way to solve the real problem...
- jbroadusii 12y agoGreat story. even better game...i miss it :(
- mendelk 12y agoThis reminds me of some contracting work I did for a company that billed the Federal government. I was told that the final invoices sent to them had some obvious and intentional accounting errors such that these would be "caught", thus satisfying whomever was in charge of approving the invoices on the government's end.
- disillusioned 12y agoI just want to point out that yes, the rook eats the queen, but at some point, some piece has its manhood removed in a most grisly fashion. Surprised the PM didn't have any feedback on that bit.
- swagasaurus-rex 12y agoIf this were reddit, somebody would already have the video link handy
- sstradling 12y agoI'm reminded of a blog post by an old govvie that hated this approach. His argument was that every time we work around a problem in our process, whether it was a bad system or an incompetent co-worker or manager, we became the problem. Every time we added a duck or built a workaround we were building frameworks that would hold a bad policy in place for longer than if we just stopped and said "that's stupid". Adding the duck binds your co-workers and successors to a life of misery. There's a real risk (of course) to killing the duck. Your client or your boss may hate you, and that's never healthy in the short run, but they also may come out of the interaction a wiser and better person. Or you may find yourself not working for an idiot, and be happier in the long run anyways. Keeping the duck alive is a bigger long-term risk for everyone. Kill the duck.
- damoncali 12y agoPut more simply, sometimes you are the idiot. Don't make it worse for everyone by acting like it. Edit: that's a generic 'you', in case it's not obvious, not a reference to the parent.
- sstradling 12y agoEven if you specifically aren't the idiot (though I often am), never spend your time working around the idiot. Any time you work around an idiot, you've done more work and the idiot will still be there...
- damoncali 12y agoI agree 100%. We are all idiots now and then, even when we're not purposefully trying to be by adding ducks.
- sstradling 12y agoAgreed (although there are few things funnier than a well-placed duck)
- lmkg 12y ago
- larrys 12y agoIt's not uncommon, in business dealings or in legal contracts, to put things in that you know the other side will remove just in order to make them feel as if "money hasn't been left on the table" or that they have done their job for their client. You almost have to do that as part of negotiation to get what you want and to satisfy all parties many times.
- chrismbarr 12y agoI've heard of (but never tried) a similar thing done when showing design concepts to a client. Usually several variations are prepared, and if you're any good they will all be viable options. When presenting to a client they will normally want to try and critique something regardless of how good the designs actually are. The story goes that you are supposed to make an obvious mistake, like a spelling error, on purpose. This will fulfill the clients' need to provide a critique and allow good designs to remain an option.
- smacktoward 12y agoThe variation on this that I'm familiar with relies on our perception of three as a magic number for choices: two options doesn't feel like a real choice, four feels like too many choices, but three is perfect. So when you're presenting design concepts, you show three: the one you want the client to pick, another that's very similar to the one you want the client to pick but with some obvious glitch in it, and a third that's so atrociously ugly nobody would choose it. The client goes for the one you want them to go for every time.
- swagasaurus-rex 12y agoAh, the apple pricing model
- samf 12y agoI have thought about the same tactic if you are selling your house, and the potential buyer is bringing an inspector. "Break" three things in your house, e.g., remove the cover from a bathroom exhaust fan, loosen a faucet so that it rattles, and remove all of the light bulbs from an overhead fixture. The inspector will find these, the buyers will require that they be fixed, and it will be easy for you to do so. If you don't do this, the inspector will find three other things. Of course this would only work if your house doesn't need any significant work done in the first place.
- pflats 12y agoIt'll only work if your buyer hires a terrible home inspector. The last time I bought a house, the inspector worked for hours. In the end, I got a 14-page write-up, plus accompanying photos of any major defects and/or code violations.
- sstradling 12y agoThis brings up the other problem I have with adding ducks (yes, I'm anti-duck). Humans tend to fixate on the obvious - the more obvious problems you have, the more we'll fixate on them. That's great if people are just meddling, and you want to keep them occupied, but it's horrible if there might actually be flaws of consequence in your work. Given that we often tend to think we're more competent than we actually are, trying to game the review process may keep real, serious problems from being fixed. With my work, a lot of reviewers do love to hear themselves talk, but every so often they'll come back at you with really good, insightful stuff that I totally missed. I don't dare game them because I don't want to be putting out garbage. Except for CH. We totally owe her a duck.
- omegaham 12y agoJust to provide a counterpoint, I had a master sergeant who would flip the fuck out if he saw obvious problems. The idea was that if he could find obvious problems, then his juniors don't give a fuck at all, and there are going to be a lot more not-so-obvious problems. This was a cue for him to go on a rampage through the section and cause pain and hardship for everyone.
- dctoedt 12y agoFor lawyers drafting contracts, there's a quite-legitimate, signaling-related reason for "doing the duck." By giving the other side's contract reviewer something to object to and revise, it lets her demonstrate to her boss that she did her job competently. For example, she can then report to her boss (or client), "they wanted net 15 days payment terms but I made them change it to net 30; otherwise it was an OK contract." That in turn can help get the contract out of legal review, and into the signature process, more quickly. This is sort of related to the story about Van Halen's concert contract that required a bowl of M&Ms in the dressing room with all brown M&Ms removed. [1] [1] http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp
- enlightenedfool 12y agoHumans or animals, it's natural to want to leave a mark. The article is pointless.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- kyberias 12y agoThere's a certain tone in this article that bothers me a bit. At least in software engineering, the idea of reviews is to find errors in code or design how ever small they are. When inspecting any code, we almost always find at least something, regardless of the level of quality. It's not about being fair, it's not personal, and it probably isn't even dependent on the reviewers personality. It's just that when the goal is to find deviations, that's what happens. It's just a process. The errors may be small or big, it doesn't matter, we just need to find them. Some inexperienced developers often find the code review process intimidating and unfair. They take it personally. That's a wrong attitude.
- kevinskii 12y agoAbout a year ago I had the misfortune of working with a program manager. He asked me to create a PowerPoint presentation on something totally unimportant and irrelevant. After failing to explain this to him, I decided to accommodate him figuring that he would become more reasonable once he knew a bit more. After emailing him the presentation, he called and asked me to switch the 2nd and 3rd bullet on one of the slides and then send him the revision. Our relationship went downhill from there. Finally I had no choice but to marginalize him. I don't think the author of the article had code reviews in mind; she's alluding to this sort of nonsense when you sense her negative tone.
- kyberias 12y agoYou're probably right she didn't have code reviews in mind. Perhaps I was just worried that someone takes this as an example and will do some crazy unnecessary tricks in software. Also, I don't have any experience of such absurd situations despite my experience working with dozens of teams. Maybe that's because I'm from Northern Europe where professionals don't take such bullshit from anyone. Oops... perhaps slightly strong wording. Well, I guess you get the point.
- stefs 12y agoit's real. it usually happens when i working on mobile apps for big companies. apps are comparably new (compared to websites, desktop apps or server software) and for a lot of customers these are the first apps they launch. so new and exciting! they want to be part of it, they have to be part of it. another reason is they're afraid of getting downsized if they're not working on (contributing to) N projects at once. on a technical level they don't have to add anything to it, so it's mostly visual tweaks they're demanding; usually something they've seen in other apps (no matter if it was something that made sense on ios in a different context and we're working on android). that's called bikeshedding. if the project bombs they didn't really have anything to do with it (apart from that one minor change) - if it's a success they were an integral part of the team. one project, we needed a notification sound. the product owner begged us to keep our mouths shut, take one of the default notification sound files and tell the others custom sounds aren't possible - because if the marketing department got wind of it we'd have to test a boatload of different files for different managers and wait another month for the notification-sound-committees final decision.
- doki_pen 12y agoIt's not about leaving your mark, it's about posturing. I used to work in a kitchen. At the end of the night the manager would do a walk through and always find something not to their liking that needed to be finished before you went home. Sometimes it would be simple, sometimes it took a long time. I got in the habit of leaving something simple and obvious, like a splotch of mayo on the counter, and it resolved the issue.
- TylerH 12y ago"What is the difference" I could go on for days about the differences between dogs and humans, if only the author had permitted comments to be left on the page.
- Gravityloss 12y agoHow much of our work in this business is just useless theater? I couldn't stand working in a place where it was a significant portion of work. But it is probably unavoidable to some degree. I see that code reviews for newcomers' commits often have these elements: First review: "you did X. That's not smart. Do Y instead." The new employee goes back to rework their commit. Second review: "you did Y. That's not smart. Do X instead." After a few weeks / months it starts getting reasonable. It's not as extreme, and it's well disguised in friendly demeanor, but there's still some similarities to what it was like in the army "boot camp".
- amckenna 12y agoDoesn't this become self reinforcing? As long as the developer keeps adding silly things to his work the PM will be forced to ask for them to be removed, thereby reinforcing the developer's mindset that the PM always asks for changes. The PM is put in a position where he has to okay something unusual in order to stop the Dev from adding little unusual things.