Whenever I raise concerns about production after being explicitly asked to do so, they are always downplayed and promptly ignored. No matter who asks. Product managers, bosses… Why even ask? It’s like they expect that there is nothing to worry about and it’s some sort of rethorical question aimed for us to collectively smell their assess.
This stance always bites us in the ass not long after production starts in ways I and others have predicted, and always generates much bigger costs than if the errors wouldn’t have been produced in the first place.
It really makes me think they are trained to do so on purpose. Maybe starting those fires makes them less likely to get fired, since somebody had to put them out? Maybe it’s easier to get a raise for swift crisis management using solutions that were proposed even before the fire started? No idea.
There usually is an unhealthy amount of “their small minds can’t comprehend the brilliance of my plan” involved certainly at the top of the pyramid. It’s the status that makes them feel better than the rest.
They’re also being incentivized to ignore small fires. Their boss will berate then for putting people on the small stuff (little fires) for no immediate gains and endangering the Holy Deadline. Of course the normal reaction is to ignore issues until it becomes a big problem on short term and then solve it.
There are many idiotic inefficiencies with the incentives in corporations but almost everything is run this way so it mostly evens out.
Whenever I raise concerns about production after being explicitly asked to do so, they are always downplayed and promptly ignored. No matter who asks. Product managers, bosses… Why even ask? It’s like they expect that there is nothing to worry about and it’s some sort of rethorical question aimed for us to collectively smell their assess.
This stance always bites us in the ass not long after production starts in ways I and others have predicted, and always generates much bigger costs than if the errors wouldn’t have been produced in the first place.
It really makes me think they are trained to do so on purpose. Maybe starting those fires makes them less likely to get fired, since somebody had to put them out? Maybe it’s easier to get a raise for swift crisis management using solutions that were proposed even before the fire started? No idea.
There usually is an unhealthy amount of “their small minds can’t comprehend the brilliance of my plan” involved certainly at the top of the pyramid. It’s the status that makes them feel better than the rest.
They’re also being incentivized to ignore small fires. Their boss will berate then for putting people on the small stuff (little fires) for no immediate gains and endangering the Holy Deadline. Of course the normal reaction is to ignore issues until it becomes a big problem on short term and then solve it.
There are many idiotic inefficiencies with the incentives in corporations but almost everything is run this way so it mostly evens out.