Low Context – Software's Silent Killer(staysaasy.com)
staysaasy.com
Low Context – Software's Silent Killer
https://staysaasy.com/software/2022/07/06/Context.html
4 comments
This is one of the better posts on a blog that is consistently great - I recommend reading the whole thing.
Feels like the tldr of this is "keep your old people around, cos they know stuff."
This article clearly borrows from the concept of context in communication, but seems to invert the meanings (and doesn't use the word "communication" at all in the article).
Low or high context indicates how much context is required for the interlocutor to understand an utterance. Low context would be something like a text book (it has all the answers and does not require the reader to fill in the blanks); high context would be "They don't know what to do with it" (you can only understand that utterance if you already know "them", "it", and why "it" requires something be done with it).
The article refers, however to "high-context" or "low-context" individuals. I would expect a "high-context" individual to require someone else to fill in all the blanks (just the opposite of a text book). However, the article means that a "high-context" person is knowledgeable about the work context, not that you have to show them where the power outlet is and why you need to plug in the computer.
If we simply replace "high-context" with "knowledgeable", then all the article is trying to say is "Make sure to have your knowledgeable teammates dispersed and training others". Not a blinding insight? But then, you wouldn't have much of a blog post because you wouldn't have to build up a silly explanation of what a "high context" individual is in the first place.
Low or high context indicates how much context is required for the interlocutor to understand an utterance. Low context would be something like a text book (it has all the answers and does not require the reader to fill in the blanks); high context would be "They don't know what to do with it" (you can only understand that utterance if you already know "them", "it", and why "it" requires something be done with it).
The article refers, however to "high-context" or "low-context" individuals. I would expect a "high-context" individual to require someone else to fill in all the blanks (just the opposite of a text book). However, the article means that a "high-context" person is knowledgeable about the work context, not that you have to show them where the power outlet is and why you need to plug in the computer.
If we simply replace "high-context" with "knowledgeable", then all the article is trying to say is "Make sure to have your knowledgeable teammates dispersed and training others". Not a blinding insight? But then, you wouldn't have much of a blog post because you wouldn't have to build up a silly explanation of what a "high context" individual is in the first place.
While the ideal might be a well-structured team wiki where decisions and their context are recorded in full, in practice those tend to end up de-prioritised and poorly-maintained. They just don’t reflect the way people actually work.
With the growth of remote work, the mass adoption of the context-free Slack model of team chat feels like one of our biggest problems. The threading model of apps like Quill (now gone), Zulip and Twist (and even email) feel like a better solution because they explicitly place context next to decision. They’re not perfect, but they’re much more likely to stay relevant than a wiki.