I haven’t finished reading this but I am commenting because of the form. Lead with the conclusions, table of contents, and then sources? This is someone who is confident in what they write. I wish more writing trusted the audience to decide if the writing were important instead of stringing the audience allow. Keep up the good work.
Your example about this hinge is nurturing behaviour. This is exactly what people should be doing- identifying issues and also at least suggesting they be fixed before proceeding if not offering a fix themselves.
There is more to your reputation than what sounds like a genuine growth mindset.
This is infuriating. However, for those in this situation, know this: it works if the document or spreadsheet is in OneDrive. I just wish Copilot told you this instead of asking you to upload the doc.
The book that changed the game for me is “Leadership and Self-Deception”. The thesis being that the root of resentment is self-betrayal, where self-betrayal is denying your impulse to do right by others.
Ever since I read it, I’ve been more aware of when I am fixated on I and me.
It’s amazing. You can be completely “right” about a situation, yet still be fixated about the self. Escaping the box - terminology from the book - doesn’t change what’s real, but absolutely changes how you feel, and how your situation progresses.
Whether it is self help or blame or resentment, they are all in the box activities. There is another world- a better world.
The post you’re r replying to gets this right- lead time is everything. The fast you can iterate, the more likely that what you are doing is correct.
I’ve had a similar experience to what you’re describing. We are slower with AI… for now. Lean into it. Exploit the fact that you can now iterate much faster. Solve smaller problems. Solve them completely. Move on.
This is my focus protocol. Whenever I find myself having trouble trying started on a task, I create a new desktop and open windows related to the task only. DnD on. Pick a next step. Execute.
The biggest mistake is accepting controls that they cannot manage. I mentioned automation earlier for this reason. If your controls place undue stress on the business then you’ve just created more work instead of enabling success.
Compliance can be a business enabler if done correctly or a burden if treated like a side project.
Tone at the top is most important - if this is not valued at an organization level, it will be tough sledding. Next is knowledge - you don’t know what you don’t know. However, one you learn - usually through a gap assessment with an audit firm - you are now going to remedy and get into the audit. This is bad because you will miss point three. Automation is a must. Automated compliance monitoring, automated rituals (document reviews scheduled by a tool, etc), automated rituals whatever you can. Without this, you will create a ton of work for yourself.
This process is hard because there is tension between ticking boxes and being effective. The most well meaning people will get caught in a box ticking exercise if a critical contract depends on it.
It doesn’t have to be this way, but if you want it to be easy, start before clients start asking. Focus on being effective and automated so that you don’t feel pressured to tick boxes.
I’ve seen this pattern play out before. The pushback on simpler alternatives seems from a legitimate need for short time to market from the demand some of the equation and a lack of knowledge on the supply side. Every time I hear an engineer call something hacky, they are at the edge of their abilities.
I feel like this ‘cloud-first’ strategy will only get worse now that AI assisted development is common. I notice my personal AI assisted C# projects get far more complex than when I use some JS framework.
If it’s not the colleges and universities, you can bet the AIs are better trained on JS/TS.
jyn’s advice here is spot on, however it misses an important point: jyn you are exceptional because you do these things. This is what excellence looks like.
Out of curiosity, why does this have to be a left-leaning initiative? I personally don’t use these political labels as I’m often confused by how they are used.
This is on the engineers. Asking for time to refactor is like a painter asking for time to prime. It’s part of the job so just do it. When brought out in discussion, it sounds as if it is optional and its value dubious. That’s where the feeling of “wasting time” comes from.
Additionally, a lot of refactoring is about predicting the future rather than adapting the code to present expectations while keeping things easy to change. The only metric that your future self cares about is time to feedback. Refactor to adapt to present expectations while keeping the code easy to change in the future, and don’t ask for permission to do this- it is your job.
Snark aside, this is the main topic of Eli Goldratt's "The Goal" - one of my favourite books. Output of the business is constrained by some bottleneck. Improving efficiency away from the bottleneck is just waste. Said differently, enhancing individual productivity has no effect on the business output unless doing so elevates the bottleneck. Sadly, most business don't know what their constraints are or are otherwise blocked from elevating them due to politics and other factors.
There is something to this. I believe that if you cannot feel, you also cannot reason. It’s almost as if intellectual ability is an application of emotionality rather than something separate. For example, when something makes sense to you, what does that really mean? In my experience, when something “clicks”, that is not intellect. The intellect kicks in to retroactively explain the feeling. The “clicking” itself- that’s the feeling.
This is a well written article that points the tension between talent building and improved output. Although focused on design it gives me some ideas on how to build an effective engineering org.
What strikes me as an opportunity is creating a training program for engineers aimed at getting proficient at writing code in as short a period of time as possible so that the engineers can move onto the other more dynamic parts of the job.