Deming Paradox: Operationally Rigorous Companies Aren't Nice Places to Work

Re:Deming Paradox: Operationally Rigorous Companies Aren't N... by 88913527 on Monday April 24, 2023 @10:39PM (#35695953)

Operationally lax companies aren't a panacea either. Constantly answering 2AM pages because you can't reliably ship working software wears people down. Am I understanding what is meant by operational rigor correctly? Life is easier when you eat your vegetables than eating cake everyday. It's not exciting to practice rigor but it's better than the alternative. You can have processes and reasons for doing things a particular way, and still be nice to your colleagues -- these are not mutually exclusive concepts. I doubt the real reason these places mentioned aren't great places to work is primarily due to operations.

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Re:Deming Paradox: Operationally Rigorous Companies Aren't N... by dclowd9901 on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @01:32AM (#35696849)

It’s almost like the best thing is somewhere in the middle. What a surprise.

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Re:Deming Paradox: Operationally Rigorous Companies Aren't N... by regularfry on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @08:46AM (#35699717)

No, "somewhere in the middle" is the wrong lesson to take. They're on different axes. You can have an operationally rigorous, pleasant place to work. You can have an operationally terrible, awful place to work. You can have somewhere that's mediocre at both.

The false belief in a dichotomy is exactly the problem.

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Re:Deming Paradox: Operationally Rigorous Companies Aren't N... by MichaelZuo on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @09:13AM (#35699981)

Isn't the point of the article that 'operational rigour' implies a certain, significant, degree of unpleasantness?

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Re:Deming Paradox: Operationally Rigorous Companies Aren't N... by regularfry on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @09:57AM (#35700542)

Not really. It's the point that one might take from the title alone, but the article doesn't substantiate it.

> And from anecdotal evidence I also know that Western companies with sufficient operational rigour tend to be rather … unpleasant places to work. “Is that not the price of excellence?” a friend said, after I told him of this conundrum. “What, you expect such operational excellence to come for free?”

> An obvious point in retrospect;

It's not an obvious point at all, and the author doesn't try to back it up. The point the article makes is that:

1. Deming himself didn't hold the two in opposition; and

2. It's unclear from any evidence that they need to be, in practice.

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Re:Deming Paradox: Operationally Rigorous Companies Aren't N... by _blu on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @01:46AM (#35696909)

you should read Cameron & Quinn. It's about work culture. IF you have a very rule based culture, it could be completely wrong if you want to create and be adaptable. You will simply not have good relationships then and people will be miserable. That kind of culture is more suitable to work that is all about ensuring rules are followed, like a controlling organ. For software dev, it's poison.

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Re:Deming Paradox: Operationally Rigorous Companies Aren't N... by sswezey on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @12:41PM (#35702963)

Do you have a link?

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