Comments on: Inarticulate Instincts

By: Giant Communist Robots » How I See Software Systems

Giant Communist Robots » How I See Software Systems — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:16:23 +0000

[...] “sibling” objects that form a circular relationship. Thar be dragons. And no, I’m completely incapable of articulating why. If cornered, about the best I can do is mumble some incoherent bullshit about how it offends my [...]

By: dyna

dyna — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:17:59 +0000

Oddly enough, I started that book this morning on the bus. Coincidence!

1. I think you’re right about experience…if you are asking for advice from this person, it’s because you feel that they may have an insight into the situation that you don’t/can’t quite see. You are asking for their advice based on their past experiences, and you know that you generally like/agree with decisions they have made in the past.

2. The advice you’re giving is probably an accumulation of things you’ve learned on your own or through the experiences of others you trust. It is possible they are only asking for insight into the one part you see, not a definitive answer for what to do (which is a whole other ball game, and that sort of advice probably should have at least a little data). So I guess it’s partially knowing what they want from your advice and limiting your advice to that part.

But in your business example…if all three solutions are equally unknown in the results, then all the data you could show anyway is essentially made up. (I know, probable based on past behavior…but still made up).

But then, I’m bad at articulating my reasons behind things, too.

By: tadan

tadan — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:05:13 +0000

For the first question, I usually rely on some notion of trust, like you were saying. I don’t trust all good friends. I do trust good friends who tend to think like I do, though. This probably reinforces narrow-mindedness. I guess the assumption is that, if I’m going to completely accept what someone else says without question, I want to at least be familiar with the context of the advice and type of thought processes that went into it. On the other hand, I’ll listen to advice from very different types of people, but want some explanation for their advice so I can contextualize it in my own mind somehow.

For the second, I usually don’t. I always explain why, because I assume people will always be skeptical. If I know someone is really trusting of me anyway, I’d prefer to give them advice about what things to think about in making their decisions rather than what decisions to make.

I agree with what you say about agile teams, but having too much trust in groups can also cause some problems, I think. Unless you have a really well-structured team with reliable methods for communicating ideas, making decisions, and dealing with conflict, you can end up with people with stronger personalities or more powerful positions calling all the shots.