Faking Coherence for Engineers

Chefconf 2017 session

Transcript

1. Faking Coherence for Engineers Yvonne Lam (@yvonnezlam) 24 May 2017
2. Me (@yvonnezlam) • Release Engineer at Chef (Engineering Services) • CI infrastructure, packaging, internal tools • (really) meta
3. What is coherence? • “Getting the right amount of information into the available bandwidth.”
4. Q: Why talk about coherence at all?
5. A: Coherence makes working together easier; lack of coherence creates friction.
6. A. Coherence as (invisible) infrastructure.
7. How does lack of coherence create friction?
8. Like what? • Inefficient message passing between humans. • Skewed perceptions of knowledge, authority, or capability (our own or others’). • Being legible/visible is tied up with value.
9. Q. Why *faking* coherence?
10. A: I don’t think incoherence is fixable for once and for all.
11. Why not?
13. (Perception of) Coherence depends on conditions of labor.
14. Other people are incoherent too.
15. Nature of craft fields.
16. So what can we do about it?
17. Tactics and techniques for faking coherence
18. Psst! You don’t have to adopt these tactics/ techniques all the time!
19. Finish your sentences.
20. Limit repetition.
21. Use canned responses.
22. What are canned responses? • Documentation! • “That’s interesting…” • Conscious use of heuristics.
23. Corral your conversation.
24. How to corral conversations? • Sticky notes are your friend. • Invite specific responses.
25. Invite specific responses. • “This is a sketch of a new feature to do X.” • “I would like feedback about content, not spelling or punctuation.” • “Is what I’m saying making sense to you?”
26. If all else fails, reset the conversation.
27. Tactics fall into two classes • Don’t go there. • If you find yourself going there, stop and turn around.
28. Strategic questions
29. Who are you talking to? What do they want from you?
30. Are you having the right conversations with the right people? (http://www.thechangeagency.org/circles-of- commitment/)
31. Is there a different conversation you need to have?
32. Some different kinds of conversations • Historical: “Why *did* we switch from X to Y?” • Speculative: “What would be the reason to switch from X to Y?” • Deep technical: cf Julia Evans’ “How to ask good questions” • Affective: “I am unhappy about …”
33. How much conversational space do you tend to occupy?
34. Situate yourself.
36. That’s it!