Objections are goals

https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/objections-are-goals-9c9c2f27069

by KentBeck • 8 years ago

67 45 8 years ago

mlthoughts20183• 8 years ago

I love this post, even though it gives even more evidence that the original TCR proposal is unworkable in practice. Namely, because all the bullet points at the bottom define different conditions that all have to be satisfied for TCR to be workable (and many more are omitted), you end up needing your unit test situation to be the intersection of a huge number of special cases that are almost never true in practice.

You need (TCR doesn’t fragment commit history && tests are fast && confidence of test accuracy is high && ....). As you AND more things in there (and there are many more things to AND into the list of conditions necessary for TCR), the probability that it all applies to your working situation is going to drop rapidly except for some extremely isolated cases, and then one might question if it’s a good idea to adopt an extreme practice like TCR even when the heroic assumptions are satisfied, because it will mean mixed development practices in cases when the assumptions are / are not satisfied, and that inconsistency itself costs you, especially in a team setting.

But the idea of reversing objections into statements of conditions is brilliant and I plan to practice thinking this way for sure!

iainmerrick3• 8 years ago

I have the opposite reaction, I’m skeptical that the abstract “objections are goals” rule has significant value. But the concrete points about TCR are interesting.

To address the objections about fast and trustworthy tests, you could limit its use to code that already has good tests. To address the version history objection, you could use “git commit --amend” to limit it to a single commit. So in some situations TCR may actually be usable (and in fact it’s not too far away from the process I often use! Frequent small commits with --amend)

mlthoughts20183• 8 years ago

I envy your ability to use that workflow. Across three enterprise jobs over the last 7 years, all places using git and GitHub, I’ve never worked on any sections of code where this could be tractable, except maybe for the process of using —amend in some rare cases where we wouldn’t want this history of those commits to be well separated for later purposes of bisecting to find regressions and bugs.

myWindoonn• 8 years ago

As the author admits, this isn't how logic works. Next time, use the Law of Contrapositives, which at least works when the Law of Excluded Middle is assumed.

Suppose, for example, I object to cats; I might say, "If cats are in the house, then they will bring me mice as tribute." The contrapositive is, "If I am not being brought mice as tribute, then there are not cats in the house." Plural logic aside, this is pretty close! And now we can turn it into a goal: "If I want mice to exist in my house in non-dead states, then I should avoid cats." Now we've managed to refactor this into a goal: "I should get cats if I want fewer mice."

I'm not sure if anything was gained from this exercise.

iainmerrick3• 8 years ago

Huh, I was bullish on “log-driven programming” (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18165472) but this one strikes me as fairly obvious common sense. Is it any more than “try to respond to objections in a positive way”?

If someone objects “I can’t use this TCR process because it will mess up version control history” it seems pretty clear that either TCR or version history will have to change.

slavik81• 8 years ago

The stated goals are not tied to any business value. This is putting the cart before the horse. TCR is a means to an end, not an end itself.

Dale's essay on "Resistance as a Resource" is very good, but this is not how I would apply it.

AstralStorm• 8 years ago

Indeed, specifying alternatives and business impact is important.

Sample comparable (not exclusive) technique would be design by contract with automatic verification. Likewise just not testing or limiting scope of tests or prioritizing tests differently for different modules.

If you say that writing tests first is superior, you have to show why and how much. And preferably with not anecdotal evidence.

asplake• 8 years ago

Right. I designed a workshop/coaching game 15-minute FOTO (from obstacles to outcomes) [1] which does a similar “flip” from the negative to the positive; however by construction the input obstacles are with respect to some kind of objective. 4-Oh if you like - objective, obstacle, outcome, more outcomes. See also the classic coaching model GROW (Whitmore)

[1] https://www.agendashift.com/15-minute-foto

pjc50• 8 years ago

Another way of looking at this is: all advice is conditional. It only works for people in certain setups and environments. People rarely specify their conditions, and may not even be aware of the other possibilities.

So when offering advice or suggestions for process improvement, always try to add at least a couple of sentences describing the context at the front. It'll reduce the amount of objections you get.

default-kramer• 8 years ago

I think it goes a little deeper. Kent's original post (test && commit || revert) describes the strategy as just a curiosity. "I’m not arguing for “test && commit || revert” nor even describing its trade-offs. I’m saying it seems like it shouldn’t work at all, it does, and I hope you try it (if you’re the sort of person who just tries new programming workflows)."

But the problem is Kent has probably never been on the wrong side of a CxO's dictum: "This company is using agile, starting now. Thank you." Programmers who have felt that pain want to make sure that a random musing from Kent Beck doesn't turn into a "movement" that ruins their work, so they try to shut down his idea hard. I don't blame them.

gfs787• 8 years ago

Then we complain about the sad state of the industry.

What about empirically proving that something works instead? Like in serious professions.

Imagine going to a doctor and the doctor saying: "The cure to your illness is eating a big warm turd every morning. I know you will object but turn it into a goal and you'll see its value".

Better to use guru status and force people to use an objectionable idea (turn objections into goals) until they are invested in it and hence start to find value in it. This is Machiavellism 101. Once you get invested you get emotional and you will defend it, no matter if its shit.

As another example go find the original scrum papers by Sutherland. Every claim is pulled from his rear end. No serious studies, metrics, none, whatsoever.

Luckily this people does not promote brain surgery procedures and techniques.

beat7• 8 years ago

I have empirically proven that empirically proving that things work is not sufficient to get past people's objections.

I'm serious. The idea that you can logic your way around feelings simply doesn't work in practice.

gfs787• 8 years ago

I have empirically proven that empirically proving that things work is not sufficient to get past people's objections

So? Proving that empirically proving something is not sufficient to get past people's objections does not prove that TCR or whatever is right. You first have to prove (but in a respected way) that say TCR works, and then you can discuss the objections.

jasode• 8 years ago

Imagine going to a doctor and the doctor saying: "The cure to your illness is eating a big warm turd every morning. I know you will object but turn it into a goal and you'll see its value".

Fyi trivia about your analogy and its coincidence with turd eating... This was recently coined the "bs asymmetry principle": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit#Bullshit_asymmetry_pr...

It takes much more effort to disapprove somebody's bad idea than for the crackpot to propose it.

(To be clear, citing that does not mean I think Kent Beck's TCR is bs or a bad idea.)

quantumhobbit• 8 years ago

Not really relevant, but if you have a recurrent c-diff infection, eating a warm turd is pretty close to the empirically proven treatment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant

sanderjd2• 8 years ago

I have a new baby. There is a metric ton of guesswork involved in figuring out what's going on with her health and well-being at any moment. The pediatricians have better more targeted hypotheses and ideas for things to try than us or our books or the internet, but I would not call what they're doing empirical in the sense you're using it. I honestly don't find it very dissimilar to the type of iterative hypothesis testing informed by past experience we do when building software. I think a similar thing is true for most (but perhaps not all) of the "serious professions" you're thinking of.

gfs787• 8 years ago

But this is a problem of magnitude. What would you think of your baby's pediatrician if he/she starting pushing his/her unproven ideas as good practices that should be followed by the medical community and writing about pushing against the objections when someone objects them?

coldtea4• 8 years ago

What about empirically proving that something works instead? Like in serious professions.

Imagine going to a doctor and the doctor saying: "The cure to your illness is eating a big warm turd every morning. I know you will object but turn it into a goal and you'll see its value".

What the doctor says is exactly "empirically proving that something works" -- that's what "you'll see its value" means.

And one can only suppose that the doctor has already proved it in other tries, which is why they suggest it.

Better to use guru status and force people to use an objectionable idea (turn objections into goals) until they are invested in it and hence start to find value in it. This is Machiavellism 101. Once you get invested you get emotional and you will defend it, no matter if its shit.

That's a jump to conclusions there.

First, where it's written that they'll "defend it no matter if its shit"? How about empirically proving that that they will do that?

Second, it's merely asking (nobody's "forcing" anybody).

Third, the whole "once they've tried it and are invested in it it's too late for them to see it's not good", is your addition, not some logical deduction. And it's surely not some ...machiavellian plan from the author.

I'd put what the author says thusly:

"yeah, you might find what I say objectionable, but try it and give it a try and you'll see that it has value".

Whether someone will try it, see it doesn't works, and still continue to support it, is not something I expect to happen, unless that someone is stupid to begin with. But then again, the same can be said for any suggestion to try something.

gfs787• 8 years ago

And one can only suppose that the doctor has already proved it in other tries, which is why they suggest it.

Medicine is not coding. It takes almost a decade of formal education to get the specialist title. And at that point they are at the starting point of their career as specialists. And they are not supposed to try ideas with patients. They can get in serious trouble if they pull treatment ideas out of nowhere and push them to their patients.

Third, the whole "once they've tried it and are invested in it it's too late for them to see it's not good", is your addition, not some logical deduction.

This is just plain human nature working. Why do you think our industry is plagued with fads and buzzwords?

beat7• 8 years ago

This is a terrific article. I've used some similar techniques to reduce negativity and reflexive opposition to change (mostly borrowed from sales techniques), but this logical formulation is very clear and easy to use.

edw• 8 years ago

And how do the people you do this to feel about it? The idea of enthusiastically applying sales techniques to interactions with one’s coworkers feels appalling. A group of colleagues is ideally a marketplace of ideas and, yes, one needs to sell ideas from time to time, but who wants to be sold to?

People often oppose something but raise (being uncharitable here) spurious objections, either because they don’t want to share their true feelings — or don’t even know what their true feelings are. It’s worth getting to the bottom of these issues, and worth doing with a great deal of respect for other people’s feelings.

If you’re dealing with an issue that is not emotionally contentious, if you’re trying together with a group to achieve a common goal, using this “objections are goals” approach can help bring a team together and encourage positivity in the face of obstacles. When applied where there is disagreement about the goal, people will feel bulldozed.

beat7• 8 years ago

Who wants to be sold to?

Everyone. Everyone wants to be sold something. Because when someone sells you something, it means they have listened to your problem (and maybe helped you discover/understand it), and offered you a solution using resources you already have. Sales, done right, is one of the best parts of human social behavior. It's mutually beneficial, a win-win.

Sales has a bad reputation due to bad actors, not due to sales itself. Smarmy behavior, dishonesty, and taking advantage of others is not inherently part of sales, and it's definitely not part of good sales.

"Objections are goals" is a sales technique. Overcoming objections is Sales 101, and a big part of that is turning negatives into positives.

coldtea4• 8 years ago

And how do the people you do this to feel about it? The idea of enthusiastically applying sales techniques to interactions with one’s coworkers feels appalling. A group of colleagues is ideally a marketplace of ideas and, yes, one needs to sell ideas from time to time, but who wants to be sold to?

I'd expand this to "if those colleagues work for a company that uses sales techniques to the public" that's appalling too -- why constrain it to using them between colleagues? Because the public is the out-group, and it doesn't matter if they are sold-to?

md224• 8 years ago

Paradigm: Death Based Development (DBD). If the tests fail, the software engineer who wrote the code is executed.

Step 1: I can't do DBD because I don't want to die.

Step 2: I can do DBD if I'm willing to die.

Step 3: When I'm willing to accept death as a natural part of the software development cycle, I can do DBD.

Nice, I like this.

_ea1k• 8 years ago

I'm very confident my tests would be very simple under this system.

antognini• 8 years ago

I'm confident the Volkswagen unit test system would become very popular: https://github.com/auchenberg/volkswagen

seanhunter• 8 years ago

Step 4: Since I'm going to die at some point anyway....

coldtea4• 8 years ago

Stretched-a-proposal-to-absurdity-driven-refutation

Objections are goals

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