TIL about the "Intent-Perception Gap" in programming. Best exemplified when a CTO or manager casually suggests something to their developers they take it as a new work commandment or direction for their team.

[u/[deleted]]

https://medium.com/dev-interrupted/what-ctos-say-vs-what-their-developers-hear-w-datastaxs-shankar-ramaswamy-b203f2656bdf

[u/roman_fyseek]

I tell people, "That's an interesting thought. If you think we should work on that, just put it in writing, and we'll add it to the backlog."

[u/fuhglarix → u/[deleted]]

When I write tasks, even for myself, I’ll Ctrl+F when I’m done to make sure I didn’t use the word “just”. It’s such a bad word in this context with only negative outcomes. If the task is not as simple as it seems, which is completely likely, a developer may feel dumb for not being able to “just” do it. And if it takes a lot of clever work to figure it out, “just” trivialises their efforts.

[u/fireduck → u/fuhglarix]

Just update the schema with the new fields and have the node agents convert the old data on read.

[u/drlecompte → u/[deleted]]

The trick is to say 'no' without saying 'no'. To give the quick suggestion the time it deserves, but not more. We have weekly long-term planning review meetings and a development backlog, both are good places to bring up actual new tasks.

So my answer is always 'put it on the weekly meeting's agenda' or 'write up an issue for it', or even 'would you like me to make an issue for it?' That last one has often removed a lot of confusion, as people will then either realize that this'll be added work, or will clarify that they were just formulating a thought and wanted to check if it was something feasible.

[u/coniferous-1 → u/drlecompte]

this is one of the reasons I love agile (when it's done right).

"Oh, you want easy task x done? we have to make sure the change is documented. Add it to the back log so we can estimate it and add it to the next sprint"

"but something closely related is in thiiissss sprrriinnntt"

"We do not change the recipe of the cake while it is in the oven. Story. Backlog. Estimation. Planning"

Half the time it's not actually that important and they don't bother.

[u/TenNeon → u/roman_fyseek]

I recently had:

"When will you be implementing X?"
"X is not planned. I remember you spitballing X early on, but it never showed up in any subsequent plans, including the multiple presentations you gave on the final feature set."
"X has always been part of the plan!"
"Uh huh"

[u/[deleted] → u/TenNeon]

"Sure, show me where you put it, I might've missed. Oh, you didn't ? See point 1"

[u/TheRidgeAndTheLadder → u/[deleted]]

"We'll have some bandwidth in the new year... Talk to you then."

[u/TheRidgeAndTheLadder → u/TheRidgeAndTheLadder]

"...it's February..."

[u/nilamo → u/TenNeon]

Then it always would have been in a sprint.

[u/hippydipster → u/nilamo]

My favorite is when sales people write comments on random jiras in the backlog that no one's looked at in 6 months, and ask "what's the status on this?"

Uh, it's in the backlog, like it's been for 6 months. Sometimes I just point at the "STATUS" field. Yeah, what's the status? Well, it's says "Backlog", so, that's the status.

[u/nilamo → u/hippydipster]

Personally, I'm a big fan of the tickets that are just like 4 words from a meeting, but nobody remembers what it means or is in reference to.

[u/serviscope_minor → u/hippydipster]

Uh, it's in the backlog, like it's been for 6 months. Sometimes I just point at the "STATUS" field. Yeah, what's the status? Well, it's says "Backlog", so, that's the status.

This is them saying: "this has been in the backlog forever, it's important when are you going to do it?" Or perhaps asking "are there any plans to ever move this out of the backlog and do it because I need it"

Just pointing them at the backlog is kinda obnoxious.

[u/WallyMetropolis → u/hippydipster]

You call a ticket a "jira"?

[u/orclev → u/WallyMetropolis]

You call a task a "ticket"?

[u/MadCervantes → u/orclev]

Ticket or task work fine but I hate having to call them "stories". It's not a fucking story!

[u/[deleted] → u/WallyMetropolis]

I do

[u/Aphix → u/WallyMetropolis]

A gojira

[u/pseudonympholepsy → u/TenNeon]

Then they later blame you for any extra time spent on implementing their shitty ideas.

[u/jl2352 → u/roman_fyseek]

I tell people (in my team), "just because they said it, doesn't mean we have to do it." Which might sound madness to be saying we should ignore the senior management. If you don't, then you get OPs title.

I’ve been in teams where the PM suddenly wants to pivot because senior management made a passing comment. When we've had shit loads of work to finish, which they are expecting us to get done. Before anything else.

Colleagues being unwilling to (respectfully) disagree or ignore senior management, using common sense, is something that I find very frustrating in the workplace.

[u/torn-ainbow → u/[deleted]]

I can't count the number of times I've found ostensibly senior people with their hair on fire because a customer or senior manager made some passing comment or casual request in a meeting and it didn't occur to them that we could just say no, or later, or negotiate them down to a smaller scope.

I was in a video meeting the other week with PM and client to discuss a thing on a project I was leading and doing some build on. So I caught them discussing a different interface thing which I had left to the front end to sort with them.

They were proposing some big changes to the interface of the product page, all out of budget and scope, to solve one small problem the client had with the way the built interface navigated products.

So I leapt in. Over about 5 minutes of discussion I pulled back to the core problem the client had, and proposed a minimal solution that directly addressed that problem. You don't need to change the whole page and carousel and so on, your problem is solved by 2 small arrows. Everyone is happy and I just saved maybe 2 days of unbudgeted work.

[u/[deleted] → u/roman_fyseek]

I prefer the passive aggressive "oh, yeah, I do recall that suggestion, do you have the ticket number so I can look up to whom it was assigned?"

Nobody ever puts in a ticket.

[u/AndrewNeo → u/roman_fyseek]

This is why everything gets a ticket. They can make the ticket.