logoalt Hacker News

goosejuicetoday at 5:42 PM2 repliesview on HN

> The avoider, the reducer, the recycler.

As this kind of person, it can be alienating in some teams / companies.

What I've found works best is to convey how the added complexity will affect non-engineers. You have to understand the incentives and trade offs though, and sometimes it's better to take the loss.

If you have the fortune of sticking around with the same leaders for awhile, a few rounds of being vocal, but compromising, will work in your favor. When that complexity comes back around to bite them in the way you described, you will earn some trust.

In my experience the solution proposed will rarely result in a less complex solution. Quick MVPs have the tendency to stick around. As soon as a customer starts using some product or feature, the cost of pivoting goes up. If you wish to experiment, do it on a segment.


Replies

empath75today at 9:02 PM

My experience with avoiders and reducers and recyclers is that they want to avoid _my_ idea and do _their_ idea instead.

bob1029today at 6:08 PM

The best strategy is to frame your argument from the perspective of the customer:

> This will allow for us to deploy the feature in only X days supporting Y use case with Client W who has been complaining about this shit for Q months now.

Arguments like:

> We should do Z because it would provide future extensibility.

> Z could eventually enable some novel platform capabilities.

> Z is easier to unit test.

Are much less likely to succeed in the business contexts that I have experienced so far.

show 1 reply