Comment by al_borland
3 days ago
I’m constantly arguing for more slack in the system. Too many managers treat knowledge work like it’s a factory.
I ran a team for about a year and was constantly pushing them to do less. The team were the ones trying to pile on more work, a force of habit I think.
I noticed that when we planned less, people finished faster (probably due to greater focus and a quick finish in sight), then they pulled more into the sprint and ended up getting more done. We actually went faster when we tried to do less. I’m hoping that being told to slow down all the time meant it wasn’t actually stressful for them either. I always wanted to have slack in the system so we weren’t having to perform heroics and pull all-nighters to meet arbitrary deadlines. If something came up, we could fit it in, because we weren’t overloading ourselves. And when nothing came up, we flew.
I stepped back into an IC role, as I didn’t really enjoy running things. The person who took over was skeptical of how I had done things, but was told to try going with it, since we had been so successful. Overtime there was some regression. After a couple more management changes, we are the polar opposite. Everyone is stressed and it seems like very little actually gets done, because everyone is stretched so thin on too many projects at once. Everyone looks really busy though, I guess that’s all that matters anymore.
> Everyone looks really busy though, I guess that’s all that matters anymore.
This is a dangerous tide incoming. I once had a conversation with a new exec as to why a certain team doesn't "look busy". In their mind people are just "coasting" and need to pull up their socks and improve delivery. The concept of being proficient and streamlined about your work simply didn't strike a chord. That place went downhill pretty fast.
Yeah, I’m already seeing it. Firefighting is rewarded, while actual planning and proactive work that avoids the need to firefight is viewed as lazy and people not doing anything.
People who write code with a lot of bugs end up looking like heroes, because they are always jumping in to fix their breaking code, while someone who takes the time to properly test and write solid code is seen as slow and less capable.
The house of cards just keeps growing, and everyone is on the verge of walking out.
COVID and WFH pumped the volume on this. I had very senior person tell me all about the coasters and slackers.
It was in the bar of a beach hotel at 11AM on a Tuesday, of course. I think he was on two Teams meetings the whole time as well.