Notices by Ruth Malan (ruthmalan@mastodon.social), page 5

“Hypothesis: people think code is a better boundary object than it often is” — @yvonnezlam

Source: https://x.com/yvonnezlam/status/1350959871919845376

Helps me notice where i am increasingly uncomfortable … Notions like “IQ amplifier” are still … hewed…

“Architects mustn't be the smartest person in the room dictating to others. Their role is to help others make better decisions, for example by viewing problems from different perspectives, by better understanding trade-offs, or by considering additional options. That’s how architects are IQ amplifiers for the team: they make everyone else smarter.”

— Gregor Hohpe

Source: https://www.infoq.com/articles/thinking-like-architect

But so great that this dimension of the role is getting more emphasis:

“help others make better decisions, for example by viewing problems from different perspectives, by better understanding trade-offs, or by considering additional options.”

It takes investment of attention in sustaining understanding of *system context* (for various contexts, including strategic, but also ecosystems of use, operation, development) and *system* (as contexts for teams and technical context) at least.

“need to re-educate designers in the ways in which designers design, the ways in which design is ontological, even at a human product scale, because it creates worlds, habits, dispositions. A designer is never just designing an app, never just designing a product, never just designing the communication: they are reinforcing particular models of the human, and that’s why they need to understand where those models come from, and how to constitute different models of the human”

— @camerontw

“common ground is what makes joint activity and coordination work (although each joint action, in turn. serves to change common ground)”
— Gary Klein, Paul Feltovich, Jeffrey Bradshaw and David Woods

Importantly:

"requires continuing effort to sustain, extend, and repair common ground."
— Richard Cook

Image: from notes by @RoelJacobs
https://twitter.com/_RoelJacobs_/status/1402718371360161799

Common Ground and Coordination in Joint Activity

“Joint activity depends on interpredictability of the participants' attitudes and actions. Such interpredictability is based on common ground — pertinent knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions that are shared among the involved parties.”

— Gary Klein, et al

Pdf: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David-Woods-19/publication/227992178_Common_Ground_and_Coordination_in_Joint_Activity/links/5ba284c892851ca9ed15cdc0/Common-Ground-and-Coordination-in-Joint-Activity.pdf

“The most important thing to remember about unity is — that there is no such thing. There is only unifying. You cannot get unity and expect it to last a day — or five minutes.”

— Mary Parker Follett, Co-Ordination

Whenever I think of the process of creating common ground, this marvelous page of @nsousanis Unflattening is close to mind:

@inthehands @CptSuperlative

That is… humility, as [implicated in] interpersonal sensitivity/awareness, has been a long time coming?? [actually, i’m sure it has always been there…] :)

@inthehands @CptSuperlative

You might like this, from Steinbeck, then:

“Receiving, on the other hand, if it be well done, requires a fine balance of self-knowledge and kindness. It requires humility and tact and great understanding of relationships. In receiving you cannot appear, even to yourself, better or stronger or wiser than the giver, although you must be wiser to do it well.

It requires a self-esteem to receive — not self-love but just a pleasant acquaintance and liking for oneself.”

@inthehands uummmm… I thiiiink it is used (and I have used it) in the sense of “in this company, i find myself in wonderment at my inclusion; it makes me all the more aware of my respect for these people I have been included with, and by; and i feel my lacks in the contrast even more keenly!”

@inthehands so… used like “imposter” but … and … any humility is “complicated”… by who benefits from being humble and who is penalized…

I learned a lot from @abebab’s essay
https://abebabirhane.wordpress.com/2018/12/16/humility-is-a-luxury-the-privileged-can-afford/

Technical Leadership Masterclass: July 16 and 23, 2024, 12pm-3pm Eastern Time (US/Canada)
***still seats***
Info/enroll: https://ti.to/bredemeyer/technicalleadershipjul2024

System Design and Software Architecture Workshop: Oct 21-23 and Oct 28-30
*** early bird discount ***
Info/enroll: https://ti.to/bredemeyer/system-design-oct-2024

Preview material: Decisions for Technical Leaders (pdf): https://ruthmalan.com/Leadership/20240220TechnicalDecisions.pdf

<looks at Recall> keep it at ‘roadmaps just say “something with ai”’ for as long as possible, and then longer than that!!

“There’s an always-on assumption that there are still yet more efficiencies to be found, if we go looking for them, still yet more ways to hone the team’s focus, to turn laser-eyed onto whatever it is the executive team has deemed most necessary”
— Mandy Brown, https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/against-optimization

Brown quotes @debcha :

“Optimization is intrinsically brittle, because it’s about closely matching the output to the conditions, which means it’s vulnerable if those conditions change.”

Via @aredridel — 🙏🏻

Realizing that I get really squirmy when I see "optimize" used in the context of the organizational/team work we do. Even within our technical systems, we're working within a design space that is complex enough that "optimize" is... well, I don't know but... hm. A stretch. But for our teams, we need to shift the managementese away from notions that optimizing... is something to strive for... It's people, people! We're working on messy -- wicked -- problems.

There’s “choice overload” and there’s consequences overload? Which doesn’t mean the answer is to ignore consequences and power through, until the consequences can can’t be kicked down the road any longer…

Now thinking again of John Cutler’s “Perils of Being a Systems Thinker” oh no wait it’s called “20 Things I've Learned as a Systems (Over) Thinker”
https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/20-things-ive-learned-as-a-systems

Illustrated (and not on substack):
https://www.viktorcessan.com/20-systems-over-thinker-tips/

We’re not just being crushed by work(loads). It’s a feeling of being swallowed by it all… Rights inched forward over decades and centuries, being ripped away in moments. The vicious cruelties we humans are capable of. Climate catastrophes.

And then I see:
‘When it's your job to find cohesive, nuanced truth and someone calls that very concept "devisive" or "political," you Keep Doing Your Job.’
— @Wolven https://ourislandgeorgia.net/@Wolven/112570548804370803

And it reminds me, hope is work we do.

We value confidence, because it signals clarities to act on… but hubris is confidence that’s … “overclocked” … (lack of self-awareness*/ humility/respect for others…)

* awareness of impact on others, awareness of fallibilities, …