The problem is not the problem
Building shared context is
You see a problem at work and you think you have a solution. Some people you have spoken to in hallways agree with you. So you go ahead and try to solve it but suddenly start getting pushback from everywhere and eventually things don’t work out as you had thought they would. You are left bitter and frustrated at “them”.
How many of you have been in this situation? I know I have, and today I want to talk about what I have learned from those failures. This is an idealized version of how I now think about orchestrating high-impact changes. There are many “real-world” details that you will have to fill in based on yourself, your team, and your organization.
As an engineer, I have often had a somewhat reductive point of view of the organization’s problems. My mind jumps straight to what system can I build to solve a problem. This tech-centric perspective told me that those who couldn’t see that building this type of system will solve the problem just “didn’t get it”. Sometimes, I believed that even if I couldn’t convince “them” (my manager, my PdM, other engineers in my team, etc), I would do it my way and they would thank me later.
