[HN Gopher] Warm Handoffs
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Warm Handoffs
Author : mooreds
Score : 193 points
Date : 2024-10-07 11:59 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (luckymike.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (luckymike.dev)
| mushufasa wrote:
| things like these may individually be Very Good Ideas. That said,
| no organization goes through all of these little practices for
| onboarding every single new person. And when a firm has a Policy
| it just sits somewhere and people don't read it.
|
| Oral tradition would work for these things, but even then it is
| fragile to team turnover.
|
| Part of the appeal of hiring people with work experience at
| similar companies the expectation that they have all these bits
| of culture. That's a real value.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Nah, sorry but it's literally not my job to redirect someone's
| question that went to the wrong spot. "Hey, not familiar with
| that, I'd ask X" is fine. This sounds like extra messaging on my
| part that the person with the question or request is perfectly
| capable of handling themselves. It's unneeded chatter or noise.
|
| However, if I do think it falls under my responsibilities but
| then I find out for some reason it's not after learning new
| information or hitting a wall, then yes, I'll absolutely fill in
| whomever it's supposed to go to.
| backbeginning wrote:
| Concur. Leaning into learned helplessness is not the solution
| to these problems. At some point, we need people to take
| accountability and responsibility for themselves. I'm done
| being developer IT.
| immibis wrote:
| If it's official workplace policy, then it literally is your
| job
| seqizz wrote:
| Honestly I am not convinced. If someone comes to sysadmins
| channel to ask "hey I randomly get a bluescreen, what should I
| do?" the solution is to answer "well you can ask #officeit
| channel". Holding their hand and asking to office IT myself +
| explaining this to the person who asked the question does not add
| any extra value, not to mention the extra time it needs.
| williamdclt wrote:
| You're right that there's regularly cases where the problem
| really objectively is "not my job" and a cold redirect is more
| efficient.
|
| However, personally I found that it is incredibly useful to use
| these sort of things as opportunities. The main opportunity is
| learning: I'll learn something about BSOD, and about our
| specific IT setup, maybe some troubleshooting or windows stuff,
| and all this knowledge builds into strong mental models and
| often comes in useful even if it's years from now.
|
| It's also an opportunity to build relationship (with the asker,
| with the IT person). It's a tiny interaction but it makes a
| difference, you are now seen as "helpful" (and if you didn't
| know the person at all, you got from 0 to 1 which is huge).
|
| It's also an opportunity to help (sometimes): as a SWE I have a
| breadth of knowledge, maybe I can help the IT person to have a
| better config to avoid BSODs, maybe I can help the asker with
| their specific setup that the IT person is confused about...
|
| There's no question that a warm handoff can be a waste,
| absolutely. But do it a hundred times and you get so much back
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| For me its a numbers problem. You help one person and they
| will tell everyone that you are 'the guy who does stuff'. 2
| weeks later people are showing up at my desk acting offended
| that I did not answer the phone (i was already on the phone
| with a different process dodger and my line is not integrated
| with any queue system because I am not a CSR) demanding to
| talk to my supervisor about how terrible I am.
|
| That company had a really strict 'just help anyone' policy
| and I'm really glad I do not work there anymore.
| hitekker wrote:
| This is quite key. Performing a service more than once,
| creates a new role, and with it a new responsibility.
|
| Doesn't matter if my intention was just "I'm just being
| helpful" gesture. Doing it repeatedly becomes an
| expectation from others that people rely on. It will be
| assessed in your performance, and in the bad case, it will
| become a standard that your team (but not others) are held
| to.
| kqr wrote:
| When governments and related agencies implement this it is called
| _no wrong door_.
|
| I like it. It doesn't have to take any effort. When you hit reply
| on an email sent to the wrong person, add the correct email to
| the field with recipients. That's it!
|
| In something like Slack, you write the answer in the correct
| location for the question. That's it.
|
| These are tiny changes that don't cost anything but can decrease
| friction a lot, because the nobody has to repeat themselves any
| time someone has gone through the wrong door.
| fudged71 wrote:
| I'd love to see a list of all these services-related best
| practices. Another one I saw recently was "computational
| kindness"
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| https://lawsofux.com/postels-law/
|
| is another, all somewhat circling around the same issues
| __float wrote:
| It's also been called that in a software engineering
| context[0], though it looks the post didn't get much traction
| on HN when it was submitted[1].
|
| [0] https://lethain.com/no-wrong-doors/
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40450485
| jcoder wrote:
| That blog is simply saying the same thing as GP--that it's a
| term from gov agencies, and musing about applying the same
| ideas in their work.
| neilv wrote:
| I often try to practice something like this, but context affects
| how actively helpful/meta I am.
|
| Someone who's new, or seems overwhelmed, or has shown some
| effort... might get more hand-holding help... than someone who
| seems to be, say, ignoring the single-source-of-truth-for-most-
| all-things wiki that was impressed upon them, and just trying to
| knock off a task as easily as possible, with no consideration for
| others' time.
|
| A suspected former is more likely to get my best customer
| service, team player help. "Have you met Jane? I think she's
| started a new product feature for that, but there's also a
| related tailoring that Sales has been doing. Let me introduce you
| to Jane, and we can see which thing you should be you should be
| working with today. I'm curious myself." (Goals are to unblock
| this person, have everyone on the right tracks, and set the
| culture for team-orientedness.)
|
| A suspected latter, I'll play it by ear, for exactly how to see
| whether they checked the wiki (or did whatever is the thing
| everyone should know from onboarding they're supposed to do
| first), and try to nudge them into the right meta thinking if
| they need it, while also _not_ sending the cultural message to
| _not_ be very helpful.
| withinboredom wrote:
| For the latter, I try to be helpful as if they were the first
| type. Everyone sometimes forgets shit (myself included).
| Basically, if I can search the docs and find the answer
| immediately, I will just share that with them. If they keep
| being "forgetful" or time-wasting I will have a 1:1 with them
| to discuss the behavior ("don't take my kindness for weakness"
| type of thing). I will also have a 1:1 with their manager who's
| job is to deal with that sort of thing. This usually has the
| intended effect -- eventually removing them from the
| organization, or teaching them how to use search functions to
| solve problems themselves.
| Retric wrote:
| There's also a 3rd option. When something is a critical
| priority leveraging other people's time and expertise may be
| considered completely appropriate by the organization. As in
| not getting something fixed is costing 6+ figures per hour.
|
| Obviously the frequency of such events should be watched
| closely, but sometimes it's a good idea to drop what you're
| doing and get more directly involved.
| yuliyp wrote:
| Yeah there are lots of reasons to go into the warm case: in
| addition to genuine effort on the asker, urgency,
| criticality, or relationship building can all tip the
| balance.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| And then on the other end of the spectrum you have Ice-cold
| Handoffs as practiced by Microsoft.
|
| Good luck to any poor soul caught in the spider-web of microsofts
| online support as they play hot-potato with you while denying
| culpability, and forcing you to do all the legwork. Sending you
| through multiple github repos / discord / support forums where it
| becomes increasingly obvious these teams do not get along and
| want little to do with each other, let alone you.
| riffic wrote:
| I was gonna ask how do you do this whole thing if you have a
| workplace that uses Teams instead of Slack, but I guess you
| answered in a way.
| satisfice wrote:
| This feels nannyish to me. And what's with this "enforcement"
| crap?
|
| If your social policy needs to be enforced, then it didn't
| succeed in the marketplace of ideas.
|
| If you like this, then do it. It will catch on if it catches on.
| Meanwhile, there is work to do.
| immibis wrote:
| Corporations aren't marketplaces of ideas - they're
| dictatorships.
| satisfice wrote:
| Yes, so is a family if you are a parent. But IF you are a
| parent, you know that ACTING like a dictator backfires on you
| pretty hard.
|
| You think this policy is worth alienating your tech workers
| for? No. No, I don't believe you do. Certain other policies
| might. This is unenforceable and a bit insulting.
| krisoft wrote:
| > You think this policy is worth alienating your tech
| workers for?
|
| Why do you think this policy would be alienating your tech
| workers? Or rather what do you think the "policy" is which
| would be causing this alienation in your opinion?
|
| As far as I see they recommend that if you see someone
| struggling and "knocking on the wrong door" help them reach
| the right door and add what context you can add to their
| situation. That just feels common sense to me. What do you
| find "insulting" about it?
| culcapb wrote:
| I think they're more democracies since usually more than one
| people own all of the stock. Workplaces can't also
| arbitrarily do anything they want, it must be within the the
| agreement made previously with the employee. And that
| doesen't come even close to intangible asset management like
| perception. Bad optics can destroy a company from within even
| when everything should be okay on paper.
| mcherm wrote:
| > If your social policy needs to be enforced, then it didn't
| succeed in the marketplace of ideas.
|
| > If you like this, then do it. It will catch on if it catches
| on.
|
| I have often met the kind of entrepreneur who thinks that just
| building a better product is enough and that no effort should
| be spent on marketing.
|
| They are wrong. Practices often will be taken up by users at a
| higher rate if the policies are made "official" and at a vastly
| higher rate if they are "marketed" via a reminder.
| culcapb wrote:
| Constantly reminding someone of something they wouldn't do by
| themselves is perceived as nagging. It gets people to do
| stuff at the cost of growing resentment, it's not free
| ascendantlogic wrote:
| The responses here are definitely indicative of who has good
| relationships with their coworkers and who doesn't. I feel like
| the point of this exercise is to foster better relationships
| overall.
| notatoad wrote:
| i think that's a pretty good indicator of how useful this is
| though - we don't need communication strategies for dealing
| with our helpful co-workers who are good communicators.
|
| if you've got an office full of people who have good
| relationships with their co-workers, don't start adding new
| policies to your slack. just keep doing whatever is already
| working.
| yuliyp wrote:
| Sometimes a cold handoff is appropriate. If the team initially
| asked has nothing relevant to offer besides a guess at who owns
| it, having the extra person around in the discussion is just
| wasted effort and attention. If it's a related team, then sure do
| the warm handoff to get to a solution more effectively.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| > "If someone asks you a question you can't answer, take them to
| someone who can answer it. If you don't know who that is, help
| find someone who can."
|
| Isn't this just ordinary politeness?
|
| I can believe that it's not as common as it should be but it's
| what I usually try to do when asked a question I can't answer. Of
| course the amount of effort I put in depends on how important I
| think the question and answer might be.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| Definitely one would think. Some people are busy, and don't
| take that extra time, or just aren't that polite like you and
| I.
| chrsig wrote:
| Some people have taken the extra time and not gotten it in
| return, or otherwise been met with negative consequences for
| helping people.
|
| Bad experiences when trying to be benevolent really take a
| tole on some people.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| I try and do it once per person.
| hansvm wrote:
| If you haven't explicitly thought about the second-order
| consequences, something like "I'm almost certain Jane from
| accounting knows best how to handle that sort of thing, and if
| not then she definitely knows who to talk to" would seem plenty
| polite. It solves the asker's problem as best you're able, and
| it's proactive and friendly.
| DowagerDave wrote:
| it also indirectly (and unlikely unintentionally) increases
| your personal value. Triple win!
| travisjungroth wrote:
| What takes it beyond ordinary politeness is the "take them".
|
| Putting it into physical space, if someone walked into the
| wrong office and you told them what the right office was and
| how to get there that would generally be considered polite.
| Just telling them they're in the wrong office is probably
| impolite. The warm handoff is the equivalent of walking them
| down the hall and telling the people in the other office why
| you brought them there.
|
| Having worked at a high-end hotel and on software teams with
| high support standards, this is very natural to me. It isn't
| for others.
| allknowingfrog wrote:
| When I have this problem, it's usually via a private Slack
| message. I'm happy to direct people to the appropriate channel,
| but there's really no good way to link to the original question,
| even if I wanted to be "warmer". Asking someone to copy-and-paste
| into an appropriate channel has always worked for me, and I'm not
| so sure that that isn't the best approach in general.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| This is the biggest issue I have with Slack. Often I'll have
| like 5 different conversations involving different people all
| around the same thing, and the only way to bring them all
| together is to start a channel which then either sits around
| forever or eventually gets archived and disappears. There's no
| way to move messages from one channel to the other to collect a
| history of comments, so it's not terribly useful for advancing
| a concern from one group to another as it collects receipts.
| Instead, the old thread with the old receipt dies completely
| and the context has to be rebuilt for every new group of people
| you are talking to.
| rdoherty wrote:
| I hate DMs in Slack for this and many reasons. One thing I do
| try is to ask people to move to a public channel unless it's
| a personal issue. Copy/paste their question and cc their
| handle.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Ya there is a simpler solution to OP's problems. Stop using an
| awful, slow piece of software like Slack.
| theamk wrote:
| Would other chat systems do it better somehow? Which ones?
|
| I'd imagine that "system supports private messages; I cannot
| link to them in public channels, copy-paste is the only way
| to share" is pretty universal. Even IRC and ICQ operated this
| way.
| allknowingfrog wrote:
| I used Zulip at a previous job some years ago and was
| pretty happy with it. I honestly don't remember whether it
| had a better strategy for DMs in particular, but the
| general policy of "everything is a thread" seemed to solve
| a lot of problems.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Software is rarely the solution for bad process.
| dustincoates wrote:
| Depending on whether it is a single message or not, Slack now
| allows you to embed messages from private channels or DMs and
| have them shown to people who don't have access to those areas.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I do this when it's appropriate. Where I'm not sure it applies is
| in the very common scenario of someone asking a question that
| doesn't really make a ton of sense. If I do a warm handoff, I'm
| implicitly endorsing their question, even if it's needlessly
| hostile or poorly formed or based on a misunderstanding. (I could
| take on the responsibility of fixing every bad question that
| comes to me, whether or not I'm the right person to ultimately
| answer it, but then I wouldn't have time to do my job.)
| cck9672 wrote:
| This is one of the foundational tenants of Apple culture. I never
| knew there was a word or phrase that identified it.
| boxed wrote:
| Slack should really implement a "move" feature.
| chambers wrote:
| Hand-holding colleagues needing help is a nice sentiment. Even
| better: when leadership rewards that support and when coworkers
| quietly pay-it-forward. It's heartwarming to see it in action.
|
| That said, I don't think the author's main rule scales:
|
| > "If someone asks you a question you can't answer, take them to
| someone who can answer it. If you don't know who that is, help
| find someone who can."
|
| Setting an expectation of hand-holding a request across channels
| would be quite unpopular with most if not all, the technical
| support teams I've worked with. It can be quite a bit of effort
| when you're getting 10+ redirects a week, especially when the
| requestor hasn't done their due diligence. If my own team tried
| this, we would quickly become the "goto" for any domain adjacent
| problem. A real recipe for burn-out.
|
| A lot depends not on the process he's advocating for but on the
| environment which he doesn't seem to analyze. IMO, there's no
| results, costs, mistakes, or trade-offs shared, so I'd be
| inclined to chalk this up as marketing.
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