Wrong Way to be Right
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The document discusses concepts from agile software development including Scrum, Conway's Law, and habits. It references ideas from books on emotional intelligence, conscious business practices, Buddhist teachings, and effective communication. Key thinkers mentioned are Ken Schwaber, Chogyam Trungpa, J. McCarthy, and Patrul Rimpoche.
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Wrong Way to be Right
- 1. THE WRONG WAY TO BEHACKERT| ENGINEERING MANAGER RIGHT JEFF
- 7. KEN SCHWABER: SCRUM TECHNOLOG Y REQUIREME NTS ✘ PEOPLE A project with certain technology and agreed upon functionality is now categorized as complicated
- 8. Organizations which design systems … are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations LAW CONWAY’S
- 9. RIGHT public static void main(string[] args) {
- 10. RIGHT public static void main(string[] args) { RIGHT public static void main(string[] args) {
- 11. ONTOLOGICAL ARROG NAÏVE REALISM FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIB
- 12. REBOOT + HABITUATION COG PHYSIOLOGY
- 13. Things get very clear - CHOGYAM TRUNGPA RI when you’re cornered.
- 14. RIGHTN ESS The right to be right is irrelevant; it's only the right to be wrong that makes you free. - Peopleware
- 15. RIGHTN ESS The right to be right is irrelevant; it's only the right to be wrong that makes you free. - Peopleware
- 16. SELFAWARENES EMPA S THY MINDFUL NESS ONTOLOGICA L HUMILITY I will never do anything dumb on purpose. – J. McCarthy
- 17. As human beings, we are basically awake and we can understand reality. we can uplift ourselves in order to work with reality in a dignified and humorous way …we can handle our universe R - CHOGYAM TRUNGPA properly and fully…
- 18. BOOKS Emotional Intelligence – Dan Goleman Conscious Business – Fred Koffman Words of My Perfect Teacher – Patrul Rimpoche Peopleware – Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister Way of the Bodhisattva – Shantideva Software for Your Head – Jim McCarthy Search Inside Yourself – Chade-Meng Tan Difficult Conversations – Douglas Stone @jhackert jhackert@riotga mes.com
Editor's Notes
- 2) Hi, my name is Jeff. I'm an Engineering Manager here at Riot. For those of you who don’t me or my back ground; I have been working in technology for roughly two decades sys admin, systems engineer, software engineer, and people manager. As engineers, developer, artists and business people our ability to develop, manage, and maintain complex systems depends on our knowledge, intelligence, and creativity. Being right is central to our perception of value. So, I guess that's important for you to know about me. But what I really want you know is that **I have the potential to be kind of a dick**. You know the type… hold
- somewhat bright, very passionate, super talented, with striking good looks and a nearly **pathological** attachment to being right. I have struggled with the personal aspect of the that work we do. Hard to imagine, I know :) But the truth of our trade is that miscommunication, contention, and misalignment are every bit often as brilliance and innovation. Dealing with conflict and contention as it arises can be difficult. The causes can be subtle. We may not be fully aware of the root source of the issue.What I am hoping to give you in the next 15 minutes or so are some of the tools it took me nearly a decade to learn..
- What is tough about work?5) In "Agile Software Development with Scrum" 3 sources of variation in a project are addressed. They are (in no particular order):
- Technology
- Requirements
- And people. Individuals and individuals working on teams
- . It’s the third source, that Schwaber says, "has the power to raise the 'noise' level of any project by an order of magnitude. So that's encouraging… We show up each day ready to do our best and quite often the expression of our most valuable assets are transformed into a source of unwanted variation, friction, and noise.
- Conway's law: the way people interact impacts what we createOur external output is relative to our internal stateIn it's simplest form, Conway's law is saying that the way we communicate with each other impacts what we create together. Which is another way of saying that your external output is reflective of your internal state. I'm not sure if Mel Conway intended his observation as social commentary. But, it's hard to deny the sociological side of his law. It reflects a simple truth about the effects of our communication patterns, cognitive biases, and the impact of a sometimes neurotic workplace on our work product.We look to process for solutions to complexity and variation.Agile and lean processes are helpful tools for exposing hidden work, giving developers space to focus on delivery, and allowing the business to react quickly to customer demands, but process cannot force you hear your colleagues or to connect with their valuesin an authentic or meaningful way. That is left to us, and let's be clear, whether it's at the level of individual, team, or organization the inability to understand definitions of quality, expediency, value, and quality can create debilitating friction.At the heart of the matter is contention. It’s tough to do any thoughtful, serious work without contention arising. Contention is defined as both an ‘assertion’ and as heated disagreement. Navigating the gap between the two can be dicey territory, to say the least.
- Maybe consistency is really what we are after?
- Psychology: I'm surrounded by idiots. 6) Ontological arrogance - my personal experience defines reality.It is the belief that you have a unique lock on reality that is validly established and knowable. My perception is objectively real and knowable, unchanging, and correct. So people that do not see your view have the problem. Coupled with naïve realism So if you fail to see things my way you are just being belligerent (naive realism) Your failure to share my views arises because you are belligerent, lazy, irrational, or otherwise unable or unwilling to be reasonable or that you are biasedby ideology, self-interest, or some other distorting personal influenceWhatever the case though, the problem is clearly on your side.Fundamental attributionThe inability to recognize situational causes and to instead attribute individual personality or ability as the cause. So if you do not agree with me, it is likely due to a character or personality defect. Of course when I am in error or am the source of a mistake, I expect other to understand our circumstances as the cause.I am right. How do I know I'm right? Because I'm right. If you weren't wrong you would know that I am right. You must just like being wrong! The assigning of motive and intent to the actions of others is a particularly dangerous form of arrogance because it goes beyond the belief that what we experience is 'the' reality into the realm of like super powers. Somewhere on the spectrum between the belief that we are awesome at guessing what motivates others to "I can read minds!".I am not my workI have heard talented, self aware people proclaim “I am not my code”. I have seen those same folks melt down when their idea is misapplied, misunderstood, or rejected. The compartmentalization at work here is subtle. I may not be my code, but I am definitely my ideas. So the code that passes a pull request may be rewritten or may disappear from the code base and this is no problem, but my idea that is being actively rejected in the present moment is very much 'who I am'. And can definitely prevent us from accepting valid feedback. So this is contention, right? We have different ideas about how to proceed and they appear (or actually are) mutually exclusive. Here’s where our physiology steps in…
- Physiology - The range of choice available when the amygdala is in control is quite small8) Long before I am consciously aware of contention or disagreement I am aware of changes to in my body. A tingling at the base of my neck. A tightness in my chest. I am leaning forward. Here's how it works: Stimuli (wrong, suck, fail) enters in from the eyes or ears and goes immediately to the thalamus and it then goes right to amygdala before a signal reaches the neocortex. Let's break down what happens; I'll use my hand to model the brain My wrist is the spinal chord My thumb covers the brain stem and is itself the limbic system which includes a little almond shape doohickey called the amygdalaWhen the amygdala is active in this way, the neocortex goes dark. Full brain reboot. Habituation takes over over and hilarity ensues. You are in a cognitive blackout. Ever find yourself in an argument? How did I get here? Well, I was just having some cereal…
- I can be a difficult dude. A stickler for detail, I often push for clarification or will pursue communication beyond the place where it is comfortable for anybody in search of understanding. My wife says I run down the hall ahead of whoever I am arguing with closing doors and windows, blocking off escape routes. I have been described as passionate, smart, and engaged frequently throughout my career which is awesome until you realize that there is a pejorative sense for each of those attributes.Disagreement = threat" formulaThe relationship between my sense of identity, the role of my own ideation in reinforcing that sense, and the 'disagreement = threat" formula results in complete disconnection.Authenticity and vulnerability How can we be authentically known when we are paralyzed with fear about what people might see?
- So what is it that we are defending?My good friend and kind teacher often refers to the 'rule of the hole'. Succinctly stated, the rule is as follows: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Often, in my case, the 'hole' is my attachment to a particular view.Reification is taking something abstract and making it concrete and this is typically where the shovel meets the soil. Who am I if I am not the expression of my intelligence, beliefs, preferences, interests, and understanding?
- So what is it that we are defending?My good friend and kind teacher often refers to the 'rule of the hole'. Succinctly stated, the rule is as follows: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Often, in my case, the 'hole' is my attachment to a particular view.Reification is taking something abstract and making it concrete and this is typically where the shovel meets the soil. Who am I if I am not the expression of my intelligence, beliefs, preferences, interests, and understanding?
- So to stop digging I have to change my mind, literally. I have to choose not to get hooked. Neurotic behavior is intentionally self undermining. It is confused behavior masquerading as intelligence and awareness. Getting to the why : I was not a dick because it is hard for teams to jell and communicate, or because my amygdala made me, or because my sense of self was too tightly held. I was a dick because when I recognized these things active in others I used it against them. People shut down when they hear that they are the problem. The classic one, two punch of I am wright and your are fail. By behaving in this way, I actively undermined my desire to connect with others.For me this meant acknowledging that value could exist even if I could not directly perceive it. The idea that Inferential understanding could be relied upon was really hard to accept at first, but where there is smoke we understand that fire can be present and working on the basis of that understanding can save our lives. This is the basis for ontological humility, right. The idea that there can be more to ‘reality’ than what I perceive. This helps with the psychology.Mindfulness is required to understand what is happening in my body, in my environment, and in my mind. This is really key to stopping the amygdala highjack. This one cognitive hack may be enough to turn someone around from belligerent and aggressive to open and welcoming. Seriously. Empathy/Vulnerability the ability to be wrongAuthenticity the ability to **be who you** are in the presence of others
- How can we be authentically known when we are paralyzed with fear about what people might see? To the extent that the 'how' of 'what we do' is governed by kindness, we are in good shape. The role of a teammate is to act as a base of support for the other members. I have another friend, a Buddhist monk, who likes to say that knowing who we are is the starting place not the goal. To not know who you are is to be like a cork on the ocean, he says. And in my life I have found this to be true on every level. Self awareness opens the door to becoming 'other' aware. Knowing what is happening with me at each level and I have clues as to how my language and behavior affects others. -> Self awareness is the willingness to improve or onboard change.Change is hard, but infinitely possible. What is required is to be authentic and open. To expose who we are as opposed to who we think we need to be. Thank you very much :) Be awesome to yourselves and to each other.
- Resources