planning
The Thing-deadline calculus
The best-laid plans
But bulldozers move mountains
Good design is redesign
Obsessed with absolute numbers
A warning against the limitations of my own prescriptions
The plan must anticipate all that is needed
Many a corner office
Individuals matter
Driving engineers to an arbitrary date is a value destroying mistake
The value-destroying effect of arbitrary date pressure on code
An Article by Gandalf HudlowThe mandate from above is clear, just get it done! Avoid everything that's in the way: all advice, all expertise, all discovery efforts that detract from hitting the Date™!
What these organizations don't realize is that all software change can be modeled as three components: Value, Filler and Chaos. Chaos destroys Value and Filler is just functionality that nobody wants. When date pressure is applied to software projects, the work needed to remove Chaos is subtly placed on the chopping block. Work like error handling, clear logging, chaos & load testing and other quality work is quietly deferred in favor of hitting the Date™.
Hofstadter's Law
An Idea by Douglas HofstadterIt always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
Planning doesn't make for better software
A Fragment by Robin RendleMy own time in a Silicon Valley startup has proved this much to be true; planning doesn’t make for better software. In fact today our design systems team doesn’t have sprints, we don’t have tickets or a daily standup. Each day we come to work, figure out what’s the most important thing that we could be doing, and then we—gasp!—actually do it.
Watching so many other teams slowly flail about whilst they plan for quarter 3.2 of subplan A, whilst our team produces more work in a week than they all do combined in a quarter has been shocking to me.
After four years of working in a large startup, I know what I always assumed was true: you don’t need a plan to make a beautiful thing. You really don’t. In fact, there’s a point where overplanning can be a signal of inexperience and fear and bullshit. The scrum board and the sprints and the inane meetings each and every day are not how you build another Super Mario 64.
Instead all you have to do is hire smart people, trust them to do their best work, and then get the hell out of their way.
Yagni
A Definition by Martin FowlerYagni originally is an acronym that stands for "You Aren't Gonna Need It". It is a mantra from Extreme Programming that's often used generally in agile software teams. It's a statement that some capability we presume our software needs in the future should not be built now because "you aren't gonna need it".
Managing Oneself
Only from strength
Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are not good at—and even then more people are wrong than right. And yet, a person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weaknesses, let alone on something one cannot do at all.
Feedback analysis
The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations.
Taking pride in ignorance
First and foremost, concentrate on your strengths. Put yourself where your strengths can produce results.
Second, work on improving your strengths.
Third, discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing disabling ignorance and overcome it...First-rate engineers, for instance, tend to take pride in not knowing anything about people. Human resources professionals, by contrast, often pride themselves on their ignorance of elementary accounting or of quantitative methods altogether. But taking pride in such ignorance is self-defeating. Go to work on acquiring the skills and knowledge you need to fully realize your strengths.
But bulldozers move mountains
A planner may find that his beautiful plans fail because he does not follow through on them. Like so many brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains. But bulldozers move mountains; ideas show where the bulldozers should go to work.
Waste as little effort as possible on low competence
One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence. It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.
How do I perform?
For knowledge workers, How do I perform? may be an even more important question than What are my strengths?.
A few common personality traits usually determine how a person performs:
- Am I a reader or a listener?
- How do I learn? Writing? Taking notes? Doing? Talking?
- Do I work well with people, or am I a loner? And if I do work well with people, in what relationship?
- Do I produce results as a decision maker or as an adviser?
- Do I perform well under stress, or do I need a highly structured and predictable environment?
- Do I work best in a big organization or a small one?
To improve the way you perform
Do not try to change yourself—you are unlikely to succeed. But work hard to improve the way you perform. And try not to take on work you cannot perform or will only perform poorly.
The mirror test
In the early years of this century, the most highly respected diplomat of all the great powers was the german ambassador in London. He was clearly destined for great things...yet in 1906 he abruptly resigned rather than preside over a dinner given by the diplomatic corps for Edward VII. The king was a notorious womanizer and made it clear what kind of dinner he wanted. The ambassador is reported to have said, "I refuse to see a pimp in the mirror in the morning when I shave."
This is the mirror test. Ethics requires that you ask yourself, What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning?
Your organization's values
Organizations, like people, have values. To be effective in an organization, a person's values must be compatible with the organization's values. They do not need to be the same, but they must be close enough to coexist. Otherwise, the person will not only be frustrated but also will not produce results.
Values vs. strengths
There is sometimes a conflict between a person's values and his or her strengths. What one does well – even very well and successfully – may not fit with one's value system. In that case, the work may not appear to be worth devoting one's lift to (or even a substantial portion thereof).
Values are and should be the ultimate test.
Successful careers are not planned
Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person – hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre – into an outstanding performer.
The best-laid plans
It is rarely possible – or even particularly fruitful – to look too far ahead. A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months and still be reasonably clear and specific. So the question is most cases should be, Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half?
The second half of your life
Today, most work is knowledge work, and knowledge workers are not "finished" after 40 years on the job, they are merely bored.
There are three ways to develop a second career. The first is to actually start one. The second is to develop a parallel career. Finally, there are the social entrepreneurs.
There is one prerequisite for managing the second half of your life: You must begin long before you enter it. If one does not begin to volunteer before one is 40 or so, one will not volunteer once past 60.