Process, People, and Tools - where do you place your trust?
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
Marc Clifton wrote:
Process: do you have processes that you trust?
No.
Marc Clifton wrote:
People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently
Yeah, pretty much.
Marc Clifton wrote:
Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems?
There are tools we use that i don't think too much of, but to the extent that i understand them i trust them to behave reliably.
----
You're right. These facts that you've laid out totally contradict the wild ramblings that I pulled off the back of cornflakes packets.
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
A little trust and a little doubt in all. I personally don't like fully automated completely because it takes the human out of the equation. I prefer semi-automated guns, I mean processes, because you can kill, I mean check, intermittently what's going on.
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
Marc Clifton wrote:
Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments?
Yes. Some are there to compensate for mistakes, usually they are put in place to replace repetative tasks (which also helps with reducing mistakes)
Marc Clifton wrote:
People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc?
Yes, although people make mistakes. I've added processes to assist with that. Some are manual, such as completion check-lists.
Marc Clifton wrote:
Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful?
I trust some tools. I've added processes to check others that mostly work, but sometimes fail (without any obvious indication). Cheers, Drew.
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
Processes: I place limited trust in processes I have personal experience with (or the ones I create). I tend to trust other processes less, unless I trust the person responsible for it. People: I generally trust my coworkers' competence. The amount of trust varies with each, based on my experience with them. Each of us has our limitations; I try to be mindful of that. Tools: Trust isn't quite the word that comes to mind. It's more an 'expectation of predictability'. I expect the tools we use to behave predictably. If something worked yesterday, and it works today, I expect it to continue working tomorrow under the same conditions. If it's broken today, and it starts working tomorrow, I start looking for the new thing that's now broken. So... why are you asking? Feeling betrayed lately? The System got you down? That smug bastard down the hall stabbed you in the back? The nightly backup job just wiped a year's worth of data?
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
I trust people to develop process and use my intuition to evaluate the process and the people against each other. For big business I would trust process over people, except for key players. Tools do not entire into the equation.
Need software developed? Offering C# development all over the United States, ERL GLOBAL, Inc is the only call you will have to make.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway
Most of this sig is for Google, not ego. -
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
People. If I don't trust People, I can't trust Process and Tools since basically it's the People who make these two.
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to take away Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery
-
Processes: I place limited trust in processes I have personal experience with (or the ones I create). I tend to trust other processes less, unless I trust the person responsible for it. People: I generally trust my coworkers' competence. The amount of trust varies with each, based on my experience with them. Each of us has our limitations; I try to be mindful of that. Tools: Trust isn't quite the word that comes to mind. It's more an 'expectation of predictability'. I expect the tools we use to behave predictably. If something worked yesterday, and it works today, I expect it to continue working tomorrow under the same conditions. If it's broken today, and it starts working tomorrow, I start looking for the new thing that's now broken. So... why are you asking? Feeling betrayed lately? The System got you down? That smug bastard down the hall stabbed you in the back? The nightly backup job just wiped a year's worth of data?
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^]Gary R. Wheeler wrote:
So... why are you asking? Feeling betrayed lately? The System got you down?
Because my client has broken (or actually no) processes, people have proven to be untrustworthy, and the tools don't work, probably because of the lack of processes and the inept people. Marc
-
People. If I don't trust People, I can't trust Process and Tools since basically it's the People who make these two.
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to take away Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery
Mawi Ramos wrote:
If I don't trust People, I can't trust Process and Tools since basically it's the People who make these two.
That's a very good point. :) Marc
-
Mawi Ramos wrote:
If I don't trust People, I can't trust Process and Tools since basically it's the People who make these two.
That's a very good point. :) Marc
Thanks. I hope I've somehow helped you in your dilemma :)
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to take away Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
Full Trust: no one Partial Trust: on everyone
Proud to be a CPHog user
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
I trust only myself. :~
-
Gary R. Wheeler wrote:
So... why are you asking? Feeling betrayed lately? The System got you down?
Because my client has broken (or actually no) processes, people have proven to be untrustworthy, and the tools don't work, probably because of the lack of processes and the inept people. Marc
That's been my experience too - if one of the three is broken, all three tend to be. Good luck. Is this your chance to be a knight in shining armor?
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
In my business, I trust process first, then people, then tools. If we make a mistake, people can die and property burns. Every action is preceded by writing a process, called a switching procedure, then all of our staff review it. It's called a "tailgate" meeting. The newest apprentice is entitled to object or question any step, and everything stops until that question is answered. I, myself, when I was two weeks on the job asked a question about a switching action, and everyone listened. It turned out that I'd caught a step missed by my boss, who has 30 years' experience doing what I'd never done at the time. They listened, corrected the procedure, and thanked me for catching the mistake. Tools can always fail, however simple. We use insulated hotsticks for switching, but we wear gloves rated for 30kV when using them, because sticks can fail and you don't live through it usually. There's nothing we can do about multiple failures, but we never fail to take every precaution available, just in case. I deviated from the intent of your question just to illustrate the wide range of possibilities. I know you're talking about other circumstances. In general situations, I trust the people who know how to get the job done. Policies and procedures are just shortcuts to avoid thinking, and having to evaluate all situations individually. All policies and procedures need exception mechanisms that allow people to make the final decision; things come up that the standards didn't anticipate. Both tools and procedures also become obsolete, and need to be re-evaluated once in a while. Those that no longer fit should be abandoned without remorse. One of the best books I've ever read is called "Sacred Cows Make The Best Burgers" and I commend it to your reading list. From it I learned ways to objectively view policies and procedures that have been in place forever and to unemotionally determine whether they really fit the way we do business today. Those that no longer work need to be dumped, and new ways defined. Similarly, people who will not give up doing things "the way we've always done it" need to be dumped. They only impede the progress of the rest of the organization. Overall, to function efficiently you must be able to trust all three - Processes, people, and tools. Any that don't function must be put to pasture or the company is doomed.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
Marc Clifton wrote:
So, where do you place your trust
In me.
My Blog: http://cynicalclots.blogspot.com
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
Processes? We sort of have a process; you write the code, you test the code, somebody else tests your code. This generally finds coding mistakes. It doesn't really coordinate anything though. People? I don't really trust my coworkers. I've been given far too many of their projects that they screwed up and I have to fix. They all follow the process though. Tools? We have one tool that causes a lot of problems: SourceSafe. For most of our coding projects, we all have to edit the same project file. Thanks to SourceSafe we can't all edit the file at the same time so we end up doing a lot of check-out, edit a little, check-in so somebody else can check-out, edit a little, then check-in. We recently had a disaster where someone's changes got overwritten by somebody else and we lost a week of work that had to be made up in one night as we were doing a version release that night. Like several others before me have mentioned, I have learned to trust only myself.
My mind is like an aluminum trap. Some things get caught in the trap, and some things bend the trap and get away.
-
Processes? We sort of have a process; you write the code, you test the code, somebody else tests your code. This generally finds coding mistakes. It doesn't really coordinate anything though. People? I don't really trust my coworkers. I've been given far too many of their projects that they screwed up and I have to fix. They all follow the process though. Tools? We have one tool that causes a lot of problems: SourceSafe. For most of our coding projects, we all have to edit the same project file. Thanks to SourceSafe we can't all edit the file at the same time so we end up doing a lot of check-out, edit a little, check-in so somebody else can check-out, edit a little, then check-in. We recently had a disaster where someone's changes got overwritten by somebody else and we lost a week of work that had to be made up in one night as we were doing a version release that night. Like several others before me have mentioned, I have learned to trust only myself.
My mind is like an aluminum trap. Some things get caught in the trap, and some things bend the trap and get away.
FyreWyrm wrote:
It doesn't really coordinate anything though.
If there's no feedback, the process is worthless. Coders learn nothing from errors they never hear about. Software development is iterative; code evolves as requirements are defined with each buld. If your people don't get feedback from the testers they're doomed to repeat past mistakes. Coordination is critical, and if it doesn't take place you badly need a new system. Your people have got to be in "the loop" to be effective.
FyreWyrm wrote:
I have learned to trust only myself.
That gets lonely, and leaves you exposed. You're working for a seriously dysfunctional company if you have to resort to that sort of defensive thinking. It's time to reorganize things, or get out.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
-
In my business, I trust process first, then people, then tools. If we make a mistake, people can die and property burns. Every action is preceded by writing a process, called a switching procedure, then all of our staff review it. It's called a "tailgate" meeting. The newest apprentice is entitled to object or question any step, and everything stops until that question is answered. I, myself, when I was two weeks on the job asked a question about a switching action, and everyone listened. It turned out that I'd caught a step missed by my boss, who has 30 years' experience doing what I'd never done at the time. They listened, corrected the procedure, and thanked me for catching the mistake. Tools can always fail, however simple. We use insulated hotsticks for switching, but we wear gloves rated for 30kV when using them, because sticks can fail and you don't live through it usually. There's nothing we can do about multiple failures, but we never fail to take every precaution available, just in case. I deviated from the intent of your question just to illustrate the wide range of possibilities. I know you're talking about other circumstances. In general situations, I trust the people who know how to get the job done. Policies and procedures are just shortcuts to avoid thinking, and having to evaluate all situations individually. All policies and procedures need exception mechanisms that allow people to make the final decision; things come up that the standards didn't anticipate. Both tools and procedures also become obsolete, and need to be re-evaluated once in a while. Those that no longer fit should be abandoned without remorse. One of the best books I've ever read is called "Sacred Cows Make The Best Burgers" and I commend it to your reading list. From it I learned ways to objectively view policies and procedures that have been in place forever and to unemotionally determine whether they really fit the way we do business today. Those that no longer work need to be dumped, and new ways defined. Similarly, people who will not give up doing things "the way we've always done it" need to be dumped. They only impede the progress of the rest of the organization. Overall, to function efficiently you must be able to trust all three - Processes, people, and tools. Any that don't function must be put to pasture or the company is doomed.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
How are your processes reviewed and improved? That is the key problem I have with most process systems. They start well but do not evolve and people become dependent on antiquated process which ends up killing them (or the project if there is no 30kV supply involved. Crikey.)
cheers, Paul M. Watson.
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
"So, where do you place your trust?" I place my trust in : "trust nothing, question everything." best, Bill
"The greater the social and cultural distances between people, the more magical the light that can spring from their contact." Milan Kundera in Testaments Trahis
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
It's quite shocking the number of people who only trust in themselves. This really doesn't do you any favors in the long run. For a start it kinda suggests you need to work a little your social skills! I once felt exactly the same. Then I realized that my dreams were far to big to become a reality relying only on myself! I came to the conclusion that unless I code up an intelligent being, I'm not going to get very far by myself. Trust is earned you don't have to trust everyone, be frank if they don't do it to standard then tell them. Processes above tools any day thats an easy one. AS for people, they should be trusted to develop the processes with you. The guys following the process should feel responsible for improving and maintaining them with support from their managers. The guys doing the work should also be working on how they do it! Managers should facilitate this, they should get their hands dirty and understand things from the bottom up. This rarely happens how many times have you had to follow a really dumb process? But don't moan too much the coding world is far more advanced in terms of processes and standards than many other industries. This comes with the job a good coder secretly get all excited by the idea of standards.
Steve O'Brien A successful person isn't necessarily better than her less successful peers at solving problems; her pattern-recognition facilities have just learned what problems are worth solving. - Ray Kurzweil www.newicon.net
-
Let me explain. Process: do you have processes that you trust? Are the processes there to compensate for mistakes people make, or to facilitate the work they do and facilitate coordinating work among people and across departments? People: do you trust your coworkers to do their work competently, to follow the processes, etc? Tools: Do you trust your tools, or are your tools causing problems? Are they causing problems because the process of using the tools is broken? The people using the tools don't use them appropriately or haven't configured them to actually be useful? So, where do you place your trust? Marc
Marvellous question! The first port of call is whether you trust the people. People have to earn trust and prove their competency not just to their employers, but also to their co-workers. I don’t have trouble trusting someone who has demonstrated their competency. If you are surrounded by people who have sufficiently proven their competency and are trustworthy, then you can look at the process. The processes are (in my humble opinion) both a way to catch and compensate for mistakes and a way to improve coordination and effectiveness in the team. Bad processes can ruin good developers and good teams, but I believe that good teams will naturally gravitate towards good processes. Processes are only as trustworthy and effective as the whole team. I always view a process with a little suspicion and I always question the processes’ effectiveness and the steps involved in it: is it as good as it can be? If the team is good I have less suspicion about the process but if the team is bad I have great trepidation about the process. This leaves tools... there are some good tools out there and some bad ones. If a good team with good process is using a bad tool then you will get bad results, but the good teams will again naturally gravitate towards good tools. Like processes, I always regard tools with suspicion: does this tool really help me in my work? If it doesn’t or I can find a better tool, then I use a better tool. Even if a tool is spectacular, it will not solve the problems of a bad team or a bad process. I've been doing some research about this area recently and thought I'd share a little of what I've learned. Ciarán