Starting to believe that “moving fast” in professional environments is actually just “delay this problem for someone else to deal with in the future”.
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Starting to believe that “moving fast” in professional environments is actually just “delay this problem for someone else to deal with in the future”.
Context: I’ve been helping oversee an email service provider (ESP) migration for an enterprise org (1,000+ people).
Every other day we find unexpected issues that were caused by someone trying to save time and move quickly in the past. And we have to spend the time those people supposedly saved in the past by fixing their issues now, in their future.
No time was actually saved, folks. It was an illusion.
#work #tech #ESP #emailMarketing #marketing #enterpriseIT #workCulture
@mariyadelano And all that for emails nobody ever will care to read.... just to "have, to read later".
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What doesn’t vary is that at some point someone decided to save time and meet a short-term deadline.
They implemented a solution in a way that worked for them in the specific context they needed back then, didn’t consider how it would ripple out for other departments and programs, or how it could snowball into creating technical debt over time.
I used to valorize moving fast and breaking things, completely taken by Silicon Valley’s mythos around itself.
I remember thinking that enterprises were incompetent because they spent so long doing even simple tech migrations and tool implementations.
I get it now. Time isn’t saved when issues are ignored. It’s just put on other people’s plates.
It’s not your problem if you run a quick thoughtless fix, but it will be the problem of future teams and employees. (Or future you, potentially)
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@mariyadelano And all that for emails nobody ever will care to read.... just to "have, to read later".
@waldschnecke that’s the other problem we’re addressing - I don’t want the org to be running emails nobody wants to read.
But change there is also a slow and uphill battle, for many of the same reasons.
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Starting to believe that “moving fast” in professional environments is actually just “delay this problem for someone else to deal with in the future”.
Context: I’ve been helping oversee an email service provider (ESP) migration for an enterprise org (1,000+ people).
Every other day we find unexpected issues that were caused by someone trying to save time and move quickly in the past. And we have to spend the time those people supposedly saved in the past by fixing their issues now, in their future.
No time was actually saved, folks. It was an illusion.
#work #tech #ESP #emailMarketing #marketing #enterpriseIT #workCulture
@mariyadelano I find handling these things as #TechnicalDebt is a better way. Sometimes it’s better to accept the risks rather than solving the actual problem right away.
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@mariyadelano I find handling these things as #TechnicalDebt is a better way. Sometimes it’s better to accept the risks rather than solving the actual problem right away.
@rollspelosofen you’re right, that’s a totally fair approach! I think the difference in what you’re describing is it’s a conscious choice and risk assessment. Especially if it’s actually recorded somewhere for the org, maybe even with some timeline of when it should be returned to…
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Starting to believe that “moving fast” in professional environments is actually just “delay this problem for someone else to deal with in the future”.
Context: I’ve been helping oversee an email service provider (ESP) migration for an enterprise org (1,000+ people).
Every other day we find unexpected issues that were caused by someone trying to save time and move quickly in the past. And we have to spend the time those people supposedly saved in the past by fixing their issues now, in their future.
No time was actually saved, folks. It was an illusion.
#work #tech #ESP #emailMarketing #marketing #enterpriseIT #workCulture
My favourite article about that topic is this one
:https://jgefroh.substack.com/p/yagni-and-dry-the-kiss-of-death-for
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@rollspelosofen you’re right, that’s a totally fair approach! I think the difference in what you’re describing is it’s a conscious choice and risk assessment. Especially if it’s actually recorded somewhere for the org, maybe even with some timeline of when it should be returned to…
@mariyadelano @rollspelosofen The problem with this approach is that the debt is very tempting and ease to make but quite often not paid back. It just accumulates because management gets used to the velocity "yes, yes, yes, debt and all that, but we need to release now!" until it becomes an entangled, barely maintainable mess that slows you down to a point where there's barely any movement at all.
It takes so much discipline from engineers to prevent tech debt and it is so easy and tempting to create more of it, that I personally believe, avoiding tech debt must be one of the highest organisational goals. All engineers must be committed towards it. If there's no consensus on that, just a few people who don't care as much will be the ones who are celebrated for delivering fast but ruin it for everyone else.
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@rollspelosofen you’re right, that’s a totally fair approach! I think the difference in what you’re describing is it’s a conscious choice and risk assessment. Especially if it’s actually recorded somewhere for the org, maybe even with some timeline of when it should be returned to…
@mariyadelano Yes, you are correct in spotting the difference.
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@mariyadelano @rollspelosofen The problem with this approach is that the debt is very tempting and ease to make but quite often not paid back. It just accumulates because management gets used to the velocity "yes, yes, yes, debt and all that, but we need to release now!" until it becomes an entangled, barely maintainable mess that slows you down to a point where there's barely any movement at all.
It takes so much discipline from engineers to prevent tech debt and it is so easy and tempting to create more of it, that I personally believe, avoiding tech debt must be one of the highest organisational goals. All engineers must be committed towards it. If there's no consensus on that, just a few people who don't care as much will be the ones who are celebrated for delivering fast but ruin it for everyone else.
@f09fa681 @mariyadelano That’s why it’s important to document and own a TechDebt. When the debt becomes a hassle it then becomes easy to point to why development is taking x hours longer per engineer. Eventually the latency in delivery justifies the cost of solving the debt. This is a management decision.
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Starting to believe that “moving fast” in professional environments is actually just “delay this problem for someone else to deal with in the future”.
Context: I’ve been helping oversee an email service provider (ESP) migration for an enterprise org (1,000+ people).
Every other day we find unexpected issues that were caused by someone trying to save time and move quickly in the past. And we have to spend the time those people supposedly saved in the past by fixing their issues now, in their future.
No time was actually saved, folks. It was an illusion.
#work #tech #ESP #emailMarketing #marketing #enterpriseIT #workCulture
@mariyadelano We started to “move fast” at my last company. But I don’t think things were pushed out with greater speed, just with a lack of prioritization and prep.
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Starting to believe that “moving fast” in professional environments is actually just “delay this problem for someone else to deal with in the future”.
Context: I’ve been helping oversee an email service provider (ESP) migration for an enterprise org (1,000+ people).
Every other day we find unexpected issues that were caused by someone trying to save time and move quickly in the past. And we have to spend the time those people supposedly saved in the past by fixing their issues now, in their future.
No time was actually saved, folks. It was an illusion.
#work #tech #ESP #emailMarketing #marketing #enterpriseIT #workCulture
@mariyadelano
Tech debt -
Starting to believe that “moving fast” in professional environments is actually just “delay this problem for someone else to deal with in the future”.
Context: I’ve been helping oversee an email service provider (ESP) migration for an enterprise org (1,000+ people).
Every other day we find unexpected issues that were caused by someone trying to save time and move quickly in the past. And we have to spend the time those people supposedly saved in the past by fixing their issues now, in their future.
No time was actually saved, folks. It was an illusion.
#work #tech #ESP #emailMarketing #marketing #enterpriseIT #workCulture
@mariyadelano@hachyderm.io i worked in a dodgy accounting company for a few months once (quite due to them being too sus to work for) and my boss was exceedingly dumb. I found a lot of problems in previous years accounts and ask them if i should fix them, they said yes and then ask "how come the accounts took you longer to do than the last person?" (when i had done not only the current year, but without mistakes, and also fixed 3-4 previous years' mistakes)
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I used to valorize moving fast and breaking things, completely taken by Silicon Valley’s mythos around itself.
I remember thinking that enterprises were incompetent because they spent so long doing even simple tech migrations and tool implementations.
I get it now. Time isn’t saved when issues are ignored. It’s just put on other people’s plates.
It’s not your problem if you run a quick thoughtless fix, but it will be the problem of future teams and employees. (Or future you, potentially)
@mariyadelano I always remember this, it is just how I am made. Everything that is not fixed right, right now while I have eyes on it, will take multiple times longer to find and fix in the future.
A problem for my future self or other people I do not want thinking poorly of me.
Needless to say I am not popular at work and am considered slow and not focused on priorities.
I wish I could just focus on fixing systems in the background, permanently, all the time and without notice.
Autism!
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Starting to believe that “moving fast” in professional environments is actually just “delay this problem for someone else to deal with in the future”.
Context: I’ve been helping oversee an email service provider (ESP) migration for an enterprise org (1,000+ people).
Every other day we find unexpected issues that were caused by someone trying to save time and move quickly in the past. And we have to spend the time those people supposedly saved in the past by fixing their issues now, in their future.
No time was actually saved, folks. It was an illusion.
#work #tech #ESP #emailMarketing #marketing #enterpriseIT #workCulture
@mariyadelano
Heh. *Their* time was saved. No consideration was given for future people's time. -
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