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“Just try it”? How NOT to sell a controversial idea

Alas: when it comes to pitching a controversial idea, many of us in technology fail miserably. We often fall reflexively into extreme “oversalesmanship” of a pet idea. We tend towards the binary: we seem to find it next to impossible to see the idea’s downsides, or to imagine how other people might be viewing it and how we could usefully, effectively, and without condescension counter their various objections (i.e., barriers to the “sale”) of our idea. 

Instead, here’s how we often react. We “flip the bozo bit” all too readily on anyone who criticizes our baby: such folks are clearly clueless, we think; we rant that they must not be technical; they’ve “probably never written software at all” and “possibly can’t work their <expletive> email”; they’re a PHB; they’re a troll; they’re a dinosaur; we can’t wait for them to die out so we, the enlightened wizards, can take over. (Actual examples of such declarations are easy to find).

None of this attitude is inevitable or unfixable. A start at combating this weakness when selling others on a controversial idea is to heighten our own awareness of the problem. Inspect and adapt, after all. So let’s focus here on one particular tactic of such bad salesmanship, as frequently employed by the (yes, very controversial) #NoEstimates movement: the “just try it” taunt. [Read more…]

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Deconstruction of a #NoEstimates presentation

It’s been over three years now since I published a lengthy dismantling of the very bizarre “No Estimates” movement. My four-part series on the movement marched methodically and thoroughly through the issues surrounding NoEstimates — e.g., what common sense tells us about estimating in life and business, reasons why estimation is useful, specific responses to the major NoEstimates arguments, and a wrap-up that in part dealt with the peculiar monoculture (including the outright verbal abuse frequently directed by NoEstimates advocates at critics) that pervades the world of NoEstimates. I felt my series was specific and comprehensive enough so that I saw no reason (and still see no reason) to write further lengthy posts countering the oft-repeated NoEstimates points; I’ve already addressed them not just thoroughly, but (it would seem) unanswerably, given that there has been essentially no substantive response to those points from NoEstimates advocates.

However, the movement shows little signs of abating, particularly via the unflagging efforts of at least two individuals who seem to be devoted to evangelizing it full-time through worldwide paid workshops, conference presentations, etc. Especially at conferences attended primarily by developers, the siren song that “estimates are waste” is ever-compelling, it seems. Even though NoEstimates advocates apparently have no answer to (and hence basically avoid discussion of) the various specific objections to their ideas that people have raised, they continue to pull in a developer audience to their many strident presentations of the NoEstimates sales pitch.

So here’s my take: the meaty parts of the topic, the core arguments related to estimates, have indeed long been settled — NoEstimates advocates have barely ventured to pose either answers or substantive (non-insult) objections to the major counterpoints that critics have raised. For the last several years, then, the sole hallmark of the NoEstimates controversy has actually not been the what, but rather the how, of how the NoEstimates advocates present it: its tone, rhetoric, and (ill)logic.

With that in mind, it’s time to deconstruct a NoEstimates conference talk in detail. There are several such talks I could have done this with (see the annotated list at the end of this post), but I decided to choose the most recent one available, despite its considerable flaws. And by “deconstruct”, I’m going to look primarily at issues of gamesmanship and sheer rhetoric — in other words, I won’t take time or space to rehash the many weaknesses of the specific NoEstimates arguments themselves. As I’ve stated, those weaknesses have been long addressed, and you can refer to their full discussion here.

I’m arguing that at this point, the key learning to be had from the otherwise fairly futile and sadly rancorous NoEstimates debate is actually no longer about the use of estimates or even about software development itself, but really more about the essence of how to argue any controversial case, in general, effectively and appropriately. It’s an area where IT/development people are often deficient, and a notable case example of that is the flawed way that some of those people argue for faddish, unsupportable ideas like NoEstimates.

The NoEstimates conference talk that I’ll deconstruct here, given at the Path To Agility conference in 2017, is characteristic: in particular, it starts out setting its own stage for a “them against us” attitude; then, it relies on:

  • straw man arguments and logical leaps
  • selective and skewed redefinitions of words
  • misquoting of experts
  • citing of dubious “data” in order to imbue the NoEstimates claims with an aura of legitimacy.

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Filed Under: Estimating, Industry trends, People Tagged With: , , , , ,
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Stop letting people “just wing it” at work

I wrote last time about some cringeworthy comments overheard from developers talking to stakeholders, and I promised a follow-up that did some exposure of the “other side.” So here goes: rather than focus specifically on cringeworthy comments from stakeholders (I’ve covered some of these here and here), let’s talk a bit more generally, about ways that I’ve see stakeholders contributing to overall dysfunctionality in the workplace.

The anecdotes below are, of course, taken from real life. I should hasten to add that I have a self-imposed moratorium on writing about my clients. I’ll wait a minimum of two years, usually more, before I’ll mention a real-life incident or even general issue in a blog post here. And when I do, I change key details to avoid finger-pointing, while still using the overall incident to make the key point.

At one large client a few years back, I came to see some clear commonalities (dysfunctionality) in the culture of how people worked together. It started by observing various day-to-day behaviors that were enormously impacting overall productivity and results. These dysfunctional behaviors came chiefly from business stakeholders, but I also observed IT people feed right into them and perpetuate them by playing along. I’m talking about behaviors like these, taken verbatim from my notes at the time: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Communication, General, People, Process
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Cringeworthy comments overheard in the IT trenches: the developers

IT developers and PMs: have you ever heard a colleague say something to a stakeholder that just made you cringe, knowing how the stakeholder is likely hearing it and reacting negatively? I have.

Heck, I’ve even been that developer, especially early in my career. But fortunately, enough of getting smacked upside the head (usually metaphorically, thank goodness) by one or more irate constituents tended to clear my thinking on these matters, particularly over time. But yet, I continue to overhear such cringeworthy remarks on a regular basis in IT circles, and I wince in sympathy with the stakeholders when I do. So let’s do some smacking. Metaphorically.

First off, I should note that communication skills always need work. Always, and for all of us. We all can improve. And of course, I know that none of the examples I provide here is usually said with any ill will (and I do recognize that many of them often have certain grains of truth behind them), but that still doesn’t make them defensible. It’s pretty important that none of them ever be heard by a stakeholder.

As I go through some concrete examples, try to hear each of them through the stakeholder’s ears. Anticipate what the stakeholder might be thinking, feeling, and perhaps assuming from your words, from the situation, and even influenced by what they’ve experienced before from you or your brethren. And if you hear one of these gems dropping from the lips of a colleague, pay it forward: say something.

Here are among the worst things a developer/PM can say to a stakeholder. And yes, these are real-life examples; I’ve heard every single one of them, usually many times. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Communication, General, People, Process, Stakeholders
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Three IT behavior patterns seen in the wild

Assumed Omniscience, Chooser’s Remorse, and Fixation

With all due respect to the many fine folks I’ve worked with in the career I’ve spent decades pursuing: we IT types can be an idiosyncratic, even odd, bunch.  That’s actually well known to us all, and it generally makes great fodder for this blog.

I find the sociology of the profession—how people interact with one another—as fascinating as everything else about it.  Here are three interesting behavioral syndromes I’ve observed over the many years of IT projects and teams I’ve been a part of. And as with most of my observations of this nature, I’m not presenting them from “on high”: no, I’ve been at times as susceptible to these behaviors as anyone. They’re common, and easy to fall into, but all of them are things I strive to avoid. And all of them have a common thread, as you will see.

Filed Under: Anecdotes, People
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One CIO’s “lessons learned” in managing others

Here’s a shocker: none of us has failed to fail at times.

We’ve all screwed things up on occasion, and I’m no exception. And that’s especially true when it comes to managing others, which I believe is very much a learned skill. In that spirit, there are a number of things about people management (call them reminders, admonitions, lessons) that I’d especially want to tell my younger self if I had a time machine. Each one arises from a situation where I’ve learned a lesson the hard way over the years, either from mishandling something myself, or from watching a peer, colleague, or my own manager mishandle it.  As the saying goes, “Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.”

So here are a few things to keep in mind when managing others.  These lessons have arisen from (largely) IT situations, but their scope and impact is hardly limited to IT.  They’ve become a capsule summary of how I want to manage, and how I like to see people around me manage others.  In fact, when I encounter an instance of “bad management”, or think back on my own missteps, I can almost always point to a deficiency in one or more of these specific areas as the underlying root cause.In no particular order:

Filed Under: Anecdotes, People, Personal, Pillars of Purview, Role definition, Top 25 posts
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Bears, hedgehogs, and Gladys Knight: parables of IT leadership

For years, I’ve had two framed items hung on my office wall throughout my various stints as CIO, CTO, etc.  I like to think of them, both individually and together, as reflecting certain truths or ironies I encounter as a technology executive, particularly in the realm of leading others.  They serve as cautions to me of leadership potentially gone awry.  So let’s talk about what they show.

The bear and the hedgehogThe bear and the hedgehog: “Vielleicht kannst du auch mal was machen”

The first is a decades-old cartoon taken from a German calendar, preserved from the years I lived in Berlin.
Two animals are playing on a seesaw. One is huge and bear-like, the other a small critter like a hedgehog.  As you’d expect, the bear outweighs the hedgehog, who dangles on the high end of the seesaw. The large one says to the small one, “Now make yourself heavy.”  The little one says “OK”, and voilà: the next panel shows the seesaw reversed, contrary to gravity and logic, where the hedgehog is now outweighing the bear.

The bear says, “You see? It really does work.  Now make yourself light again.” Whereupon the hedgehog quietly retorts, “How about you doing something once in a while?”

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Filed Under: Communication, Humor, People, Personal, Pillars of Purview, Role definition
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More astounding IT utterances

A few months back, I wrote a post on various “Astounding Sayings” that I’ve encountered in my career in information technology.  It turns out that it’s been one of the more popular posts I’ve written, judging from page views, so in true Hollywood fashion, it must be time for a sequel.  I am retitling it slightly, though, to distinguish it from the Peterisms I post from time to time.  The point of writing about the “astounding” sayings was that they usually reflect misguided energy (or, to put it bluntly: wrong-headed thinking); the point of the Peterisms, on the other hand, is to distill and communicate absolute, undeniable, sublime truth and wisdom at every possible turn. (Hopefully it’s unnecessary, but just in case, <insert smiley face here>.)  Hence, I’m now going to call these non-truthful, unwise sayings “astounding utterances” instead.

Here are two more such utterances, with moral-of-the-story observations for each.  Note: as before, these are true stories.  I may have changed some of the facts, lightly, to make them less identifiable.  They also always come from at least several years in the past, to provide a healthy amount of distance for everyone.

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Filed Under: Anecdotes, People, Personal, Pillars of Purview
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