[jdlshore]

When you have more than a few people, “talking about things and doing what needs to be done” breaks down. You can end up in analysis paralysis (endless talking), wild west (everybody doing their own thing and not doing things that work together), wild hares (doing things that aren’t important) or even all three.

[TeMPOraL]

And 4) individuals engaging multiple people or multiple people's worth of org resources into their initiative, only to get bored with it half-way in.

And 5), which is why we called this pattern a "do-it-cracy" in our Hackerspace - someone might do something and get 90% done before other people notice, and when they do, it turns out >50% of them absolutely do not want it, and would've objected given the chance.

(Then again, we've found that "do-it-cracy" can arise as a rebellion against excessive bike-shedding, which is something groups of people love to do.)

[toyg]

I'm a newb PM and at the moment I feel like I have all three... It's hard to coordinate when developers are all headstrong seniors with big agendas. The best I can do at the moment is nudge some of them, occasionally, into doing some of the work I need, while hoping their goose-chasing eventually produces something I can sell to my bosses.

[hobs]

As a sr eng, they've also probably experienced a bunch of PMs before, some good, a lot less so, all with their pet projects and agendas that next year will be entirely new and innovative and in the bin in 12 months.

The best ones I have worked with are competent, they dont make me do their work, they keep their promises, they dont waste my time, they see organizational issues and take point on them, and they generally were unflappable in targeting organizational discomfort about tackling an issue or talking to so and so.

This is really hard for someone jr to the space, but humility in the face of everyone's priorities is a great start.

[toyg]

> next year will be entirely new and innovative and in the bin in 12 months.

Yeah but my problem is that they are the ones with grand visions that may or may not ever come to fruition, and I am the one left with half-baked features that the business clearly needs to fix right now but are seen as unfashionable to work on.

Recently I was at a point where I've suggested to onboard a junior resource to mop the metaphorical floor. I'm starting to think that, next time, I should ask to have different degrees of seniority in the team to make it more balanced.

[hobs]

Honestly it sounds like you have a bit of a management problem if your engineers are building random stuff you don't need. I spend a decent amount of my time behind the scenes with the PM folks making sure the things we are building are the things we want to build, and then convincing people (often in a face saving manner) that what the business wants is what we all want (since they pay us.)

This generally works because I target the smaller companies and so actually making money is at issue, in a large enough org you can go half a decade before anything shakes up dumb stuff.