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by BlackFly 1250 days ago
Honestly, some people are just detail oriented.

One thing I hate about performance reviews is their perverse need to point out your weak point and suggest fixing that, disregarding whether it makes broader sense for the individual's career and whether it may undermine their strengths.

During recruitment I have been looking for big picture oriented people lately, but most of my colleagues are detail oriented and do not recognize nor appreciate it in potential hires.

The big picture is the business. Big picture thinking is being told to do X but convincing everyone that Y is better--but at the business level, not the technical level.
1 comments
karmakaze 1250 days ago
Being detail oriented is not at odds of big picture thinking. In fact people with only the big picture can cause a lot of wasted cycles as there's not a clear translation to implementation.

I think better terms than big picture people are ones that think abstractly, conceptually, or analytically. These are the folks who are good 'at naming things'. That means they understood both the business aspect of what areas to separate and iterate upon, as well as isolating technical factors that minimize code quantity and maximize flexibility. If they can do this with a minimal amount of abstract machinery/metaprogramming, that's golden.

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lytefm 1250 days ago
> I think better terms than big picture people are ones that think abstractly, conceptually, or analytically. These are the folks who are good 'at naming things'. That means they understood both the business aspect of what areas to separate and iterate upon, as well as isolating technical factors that minimize code quantity and maximize flexibility. If they can do this with a minimal amount of abstract machinery/metaprogramming, that's golden.

This is what I aim for, too. Seems to be working fine for me. Some tips for OP:

- Try to get a lot of informal chats with relevant departments. Being in the office or at events s.t. you can join conversations + talk face to face helps.

- Be a „yes man“ whenever other departments have some technical issue that needs to addressed. Or even if it's nothing technical.

- Think more from a business perspective during technical planning and implementation. Does it really create value to code more than the most basic MVP here? Do we really need that fancy technology and scalability?

- Get good at communication and soft skill in general. If you're smart but „difficult to work with“, you'll end up doing mostly specialized work.

- Get good at note taking and knowledge management. Where was that link to the product roadmap that was shared two months again? What was the context for that design decision two years ago? It's useful if you're able to answer questions like this with your notes.

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karmakaze 1250 days ago
> smart but „difficult to work with“, you'll end up doing mostly specialized work

Describes 3/4 of my career. I've improved with aging.

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BlackFly 1248 days ago
Time spent thinking about the big picture automatically detracts from time thinking about details. I tend to agree with you that being a jack of all trades and knowing when to apply which strategy will work best, but not all people can master knowing when to apply which strategy.

Having people around with specific biases together with people who can intermediate (another type of skill) can still make a fantastic team is my overall point.

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