[HN Gopher] Enterprise-Fu
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Enterprise-Fu
Author : luu
Score : 69 points
Date : 2023-11-02 23:31 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mike.daless.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (mike.daless.io)
| burcs wrote:
| Is there a format I can read this all at once? Or watch a talk?
|
| Presentations don't work so well if nobody is presenting.
| fredrikholm wrote:
| Website doesn't link to a talk, and the slides are 10 years old
| by now: http://mike.daless.io/prez.html
| yodon wrote:
| Presentations aren't generally received well if the presenter
| just reads aloud the words shown on the slides, which seems
| like the only way one could present this.
| niam wrote:
| I feel it's the exact opposite.
|
| Reading this word for word would be pretty silly but
| presenting alongside it would be great.
| yodon wrote:
| The content seems like it might be interesting but the
| presentation is so pretentious that it's quite literally
| unreadable.
|
| I gave up after about a dozen "give me the next word" finger taps
| on my phone.
|
| Just post the prose. Better writers and worse writers have done
| so, and people have read them.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Come on, it's obviously a slide deck.
| yodon wrote:
| The comment predates the author's arrival in the the thread.
|
| I did consider the possibility that it was a slide deck, but
| as a slide deck it appears designed for the presenter to read
| aloud the words the audience is seeing on the screen.
|
| Presenting in that way is generally a much greater sin than
| simply making a pretentious web page, because the audience is
| generally trapped when faced with that sort of presentation.
| I "assumed the best" and assumed it was a web page rather
| than a slide deck.
| skrebbel wrote:
| You know the author is in this thread, you weren't there
| when this was presented, and you call "presenting it that
| way a much greater sin". Why? What do you hope to
| accomplish with such a dismissive attitude?
|
| You're making a whole lot of assumptions man.
| yodon wrote:
| > You're making a lot of assumptions
|
| That's the whole point of the previous comment.
|
| The author wasn't in the thread originally. Lots of us
| hit the page and said WTF? You responded. I explained
| why, prior to the author's arrival, I assumed this was a
| web page not a presentation.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| That's valid. I think familiarity with Takahashi style
| presentations
| (https://presentationpatterns.com/glossary/#takahashi)
| helps. These are admittedly less common in corporate
| settings, though I have given one or two.
| notabennett wrote:
| It's pretty readable on a desktop, just tap the arrow key.
| eatonphil wrote:
| I was hoping this was something about how to survive (and thrive)
| in large organizations. And it is. It's a little bit cynical but
| still well done.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I had to close this after the 10th click the next slide for a
| single word to appear "Like Ninja" No "Like a Samurai!" No "Like
| a ninja samurai". Yeah can't handle this.
| nness wrote:
| It's hard to be critical of the content -- if you take it from
| the perspective of a mid-senior developer within a non-Big Tech
| role who is starting to see into the leadership decisions being
| made or pathways available to them, it's probably true to their
| experience.
|
| But I would caveat that the "hell is other people" and "learn to
| not-obey" section are recommending behaviours that at best the
| organisation's people managers, and at worst leadership, would
| recognise as "career limiting" -- and would end that person being
| stuck in place or on a performance plan. The stance is
| confrontational and not collaborative -- somewhat myopic.
|
| "Business has a short memory. take advantage of it." -- Very
| true, but only when it is adventitious to do so.
| flavorjones wrote:
| I can see how the slides might come across as confrontational
| or not-collaborative; but when I gave the talk in person I
| think the message was much more positive.
|
| One of the core ideas is to identify -- and even search out! --
| people who you can collaborate with. For the people who will
| put obstacles in your way, either find a way to work around
| them, or find a way to align them to your team's goals.
| Avoiding open conflict is a big part of the message, and I'm
| sorry it didn't come through in the slides.
|
| On the topic of "career-limiting" moves, that might be true,
| but I think there's some nuance. If you know what is the right
| thing to do for your employer, and you're afraid to do it
| because you might get fired, you're gonna have a bad time. My
| advice is to get past your fears and do the right thing and
| take some risks, or else buckle up for a career of quiet
| desperation that is likely limited by your avoidance of
| responsibility and the absence of meaningful successes.
| ookblah wrote:
| made it 5 slides in before closing. this kind of stuff is like
| early 2010s level marketing lol.
|
| edit: which now makes sense! didn't see the date.
| constantly wrote:
| Wouldn't it be cool to write something that is ostensibly
| interesting and then spend a bunch of time obscuring it through
| an annoying click-for-each-word presentation?
| jsty wrote:
| > what is "enterprisey"?
|
| > documentation over working software
|
| In the spirit of no true Scotsman, you're not truly enterprise
| until there is a combination of barely working software and
| aggressively wrong documentation working in perfect harmony
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| And that's the modernized system!
| charles_f wrote:
| If you use Firefox it seems to be a single text page in the
| reader mode.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Not sure if I trimmed too many elements, but this should be the
| gist of it: https://pastebin.com/C6VjB341
| cmcconomy wrote:
| Misses a lot of the content imho
| flavorjones wrote:
| :wave: Hey all. I'm the author. This content is over ten years
| old now (2013), as is the slide tech backing it.
|
| Hopefully it's obvious that the click-to-advance is a style that
| suits my presentation style, and I would have made different
| choices if I intended it to be consumed online.
|
| In any case, I've learned a lot since this talk and have on
| occasion considered updating it. I'm pretty surprised it's
| trending, TBH.
| Blaiz0r wrote:
| Please do, I was pleasantly surprised that I agreed with most
| and indeed practice quite a bit of it without being able to
| identify it.
|
| It's nice to see these patterns and thoughts written out.
| trillic wrote:
| Is there a public recording of you presenting the deck? Would
| love the full context.
| flavorjones wrote:
| No video, sadly. The Enterprise Agile 2013 conference didn't
| record the talks, and otherwise I've only given it at a
| lunchtime "tech talk" for my co-workers.
| texodus wrote:
| Not that you asked for this, but as a @flavorjones admirer I
| figured I'd post anyway, my favorite actually recorded talk
| of theirs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOutXbz_7Ns
| ewuhic wrote:
| Hi! What does "A.B.D." stand for? I might have missed it from
| the prez.
| kqr wrote:
| I'm going to guess Always Be Delivering -- it's indeed in the
| slides!
| bombledmonk wrote:
| This is waaaaayy easier to read if you Print this to PDF.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Have any of your opinions changed in the last 10 years on this
| topic?
| flavorjones wrote:
| Hmm. I don't think my opinions have changed too much.
|
| I would _definitely_ present these ideas differently today;
| the language we all use to describe problems and solutions
| has changed quite a bit in the meantime.
|
| And how I _apply_ these tactics and strategies is much less
| confrontational than when I was in fintech, mostly because
| I'm older and more patient.
|
| But the essence of the advice in here is still a big part of
| how I work: having a technical roadmap to match the product
| roadmap; getting small wins on the path to long-term goals;
| talking about what you've built and showing it off; taking
| responsibility for product and design decisions if nobody
| else is; building a team who will share ownership; diagnosing
| dysfunction with Vaillant's defense mechanisms; using
| estimates to pay off technical debt and experiment with new
| technology and approaches. All of these tactics and
| strategies are still valuable in my opinion.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| A lot of this sounds like "You can make bad to okay money
| doing other people's jobs while they collect a salary
| working 1 hour a week." Enterprisy indeed.
|
| Anyway, has it ever been the case that someone asks Pivotal
| (1) to do something well-specified (2) that they really,
| truly can't do themselves (3) but actually makes sense to
| do, like is positive ROI? If those three things align, you
| are _never_ hiring a contractor!
| no_wizard wrote:
| I don't want to take away from the content or anything, however
| Firefox is giving me an SSL certificate does not exist on the
| site.
|
| Only mentioning for fidelity
| jroseattle wrote:
| Trying to summarize what I'm reading here.
|
| "Enterprise-y" appears to be a catch-all term for an
| organizational culture built on a foundation of lack-of-trust
| where interactions among people need to be gamed in order to
| accomplish...well, anything. And the presentation covers
| strategies of how to be effective in that kind of environment.
|
| I like some of the tactical suggestions, which apply in any
| organization trying to get things done. I dislike all the actions
| that are based in hidden agendas or ulterior motives, no matter
| the intent.
|
| As always, your mileage may vary.
| notabennett wrote:
| "Working code always beats vaporware" is very good advice. I got
| a lot better at engineering when I realized I could just... stop
| trying to convince people of things and start shipping instead.
|
| You do have to be working on a long enough timeline. I've seen
| vaporware beat working code over the scale of a couple of years,
| when it's the current exec team's pet vaporware, but eventually
| execs rotate.
| sukruh wrote:
| > you know you're "enterprisey" if ... you don't know that you're
| a software company
|
| That hit hard. I've seen so many companies that defined
| themselves as something else, despite employing more than 1000
| programmers. In denial of being a software company - a bad one.
| Limping along due to strong brands or regulatory barriers to
| market entry.
|
| Every day I'm getting more and more convinced that this attitude
| will get their lunch eaten by a company that can software.
|
| Companies like Stripe and Rippling have so much potential
| displacing "enterprise", it's disgusting.
| sukruh wrote:
| "Fintech" only exists because the banks can't develop software.
| Change my mind.
| maliker wrote:
| Here's a low-effort attempt at putting this all in a single page
| for everyone complaining about clicking through it:
| https://rentry.co/iudx6
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(page generated 2023-11-03 23:01 UTC)