As said in one comment, PART2 (link at the bottom of the page), is where this begin to be added value compared to the existing theory.
That being said, very great article that describe well and nicely what I have personally experienced in a sme company that was bought by a big tech group at some point:
- when I arrived, the core team was already there with some having personal ties. A few beginners that took the mediocre manager as mentor, that took himself his manager as mentor
- they learnt by themselves, mostly there, they were responding to diverging opinion with anger.
- over the years, a few 'outsiders' arrived and try to change things by showing the problems and explaining that outside world do differently.
- but each of them had to face the seniority argument reinforced by the group effect to justify that they can't be wrong.
(Listen, we are 3, you are 1, it means that we are right and you are a pain in the ass to think otherwise. Doesn't count that you say that out of the company are unanimous on the subject...)
The worst (almost funny) case I remember was that:
- Person 1 (p1) and person 2 (p2) have a disagreement on how something has to be implemented.
- p1 is the boss favorite, so he is always right... so his solution will be implemented. No one listen to p2 that says that it is an inefficient idea, possibly problematic and that is why no-one does it this way outside.
(No-one? In fact they found one case over 100 of outside projects that did that, so that gave them confirmation that they were right...)
- p1 engine solution is implemented and p2 has to do a component working with that, but that does not work well at all, very slow for basic operations, lots of unexpected deadlocks and issues like that. Another manager complains about the issues.
- P2 decides to give a try reimplementing the engine with his solution. That is completed is no time and it is excellent: performance x1000, no lockup, no more issues with basic operations.
- results are shown to mediocre manager. But instead of accepting and going this way, he blocks the thing and can't accept that his favorite was wrong. So says that there should be a bug in P1 implementation and give him as much time as needed to test and look at it.
- after 1 months, P1 did everything he could with his solution to fix it without using the solution of P2. He comes proudly with his engine is now 10x faster than initially.
- but so, 10x vs 1000x is a no match, and P1 solution was still rigged with issues. So it is finally P2 solution that is used 'out of choices'. BUT... as manager still does not accept that he and P1 were not right. He said: ok we use P2 solution, but you will have to embed and support P1 implementation in the final product. Not to be used but maybe one day...
- conclusion of the story? Evaluation time arrived. Did P2 got a good eval? That would be logic, he saved the product, gave an important perf and stability boost to the solution. But no, he got the worst! Manager said that P1 had to take depression pills because of P2... Not because his solution was wrong and couldn't accept, learn and improve from it. Buuuut: P1 got the maximum grade!
That being said, very great article that describe well and nicely what I have personally experienced in a sme company that was bought by a big tech group at some point: - when I arrived, the core team was already there with some having personal ties. A few beginners that took the mediocre manager as mentor, that took himself his manager as mentor - they learnt by themselves, mostly there, they were responding to diverging opinion with anger. - over the years, a few 'outsiders' arrived and try to change things by showing the problems and explaining that outside world do differently. - but each of them had to face the seniority argument reinforced by the group effect to justify that they can't be wrong. (Listen, we are 3, you are 1, it means that we are right and you are a pain in the ass to think otherwise. Doesn't count that you say that out of the company are unanimous on the subject...)
The worst (almost funny) case I remember was that:
- Person 1 (p1) and person 2 (p2) have a disagreement on how something has to be implemented.
- p1 is the boss favorite, so he is always right... so his solution will be implemented. No one listen to p2 that says that it is an inefficient idea, possibly problematic and that is why no-one does it this way outside. (No-one? In fact they found one case over 100 of outside projects that did that, so that gave them confirmation that they were right...)
- p1 engine solution is implemented and p2 has to do a component working with that, but that does not work well at all, very slow for basic operations, lots of unexpected deadlocks and issues like that. Another manager complains about the issues.
- P2 decides to give a try reimplementing the engine with his solution. That is completed is no time and it is excellent: performance x1000, no lockup, no more issues with basic operations.
- results are shown to mediocre manager. But instead of accepting and going this way, he blocks the thing and can't accept that his favorite was wrong. So says that there should be a bug in P1 implementation and give him as much time as needed to test and look at it.
- after 1 months, P1 did everything he could with his solution to fix it without using the solution of P2. He comes proudly with his engine is now 10x faster than initially.
- but so, 10x vs 1000x is a no match, and P1 solution was still rigged with issues. So it is finally P2 solution that is used 'out of choices'. BUT... as manager still does not accept that he and P1 were not right. He said: ok we use P2 solution, but you will have to embed and support P1 implementation in the final product. Not to be used but maybe one day...
- conclusion of the story? Evaluation time arrived. Did P2 got a good eval? That would be logic, he saved the product, gave an important perf and stability boost to the solution. But no, he got the worst! Manager said that P1 had to take depression pills because of P2... Not because his solution was wrong and couldn't accept, learn and improve from it. Buuuut: P1 got the maximum grade!