Re:Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone ...
by candiodari on Sunday September 24, 2017 @06:03AM
(#15324131)
What disturbs me about that argument is the implied "consensus builds better products" axiom. And yet, over 15 years in software I've seen time and time and time again:
1) every last big company fires people until everyone "believes" this to be true, because not doing so would incite rebellion internally. Are you not a team player ?
It is also what every product manager always goes for, mostly because it allows them to deflect responsibility for the inevitably mediocre (at best) product that comes out of it. Usually, they also succeed in angering "small" subgroups of users while doing this at an absolutely enormous cost in bad PR.
2) it is most definitely not true at all. A vision by a single mind that really works at it (and is thus by necessity someone who is both technical, knows the code AND uses the software AND talks to the users) will blast any consensus product out of the water.
The thing is, small failures by a single person's vision will have an outsize impact on their career. Total failure in a consensus product is not just not punished, it is actually rewarded : Aside from the obvious "you don't need maintenance for a failure" there is the fact that there aren't any users to actually criticize the failure. Therefore the internal feedback for participants is going to be about how they "successfully" organized a large effort by a large group and fought heroically to keep it going. Promote this failure NOW !
1) every last big company fires people until everyone "believes" this to be true, because not doing so would incite rebellion internally. Are you not a team player ?
It is also what every product manager always goes for, mostly because it allows them to deflect responsibility for the inevitably mediocre (at best) product that comes out of it. Usually, they also succeed in angering "small" subgroups of users while doing this at an absolutely enormous cost in bad PR.
2) it is most definitely not true at all. A vision by a single mind that really works at it (and is thus by necessity someone who is both technical, knows the code AND uses the software AND talks to the users) will blast any consensus product out of the water.
The thing is, small failures by a single person's vision will have an outsize impact on their career. Total failure in a consensus product is not just not punished, it is actually rewarded : Aside from the obvious "you don't need maintenance for a failure" there is the fact that there aren't any users to actually criticize the failure. Therefore the internal feedback for participants is going to be about how they "successfully" organized a large effort by a large group and fought heroically to keep it going. Promote this failure NOW !