Ask HN: Why are some people in tech afraid of change? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why are some people in tech afraid of change?

1 pointllama0526 comments

I think it comes back to Parkinson's law of triviality (something we call "bike shed"). People get extremely hung up on the menial or irrelevant aspects of a taks or project - processes are something everyone can weigh in on, making the scope of chaning processes nearly impossible especially if the company already has a consensus against change, or requires entire consensus to ever actually apply changes. Sometimes, this is the case because processes are successfully concealing how little work is being done.

I like this, is there any good reads on this topic that you'd recommend?

Started at a new position at my company and noticed lack of organization and processes.

I've gotten pushback on a few things that simply don't make sense to me.

1. Refuse to document, or documentation is in a flat file SVN directory with minimal organization. When I offer to sort/organize into a wiki page I'm told that it's a waste of time.

2. No ticket system, entire department uses email-all, when mentioning ticket system, I'm told that is a bad idea because it could lead to "tracking of tasks."

3. The idiom of "We've always done it this way" is something that is a day to day response.

I'm not the guy who comes in and wants to change everything, but I'm here to improve myself and the company.

Is this a culture thing? What do you do when you find yourself in this situation.

Organizing documentation won't make people document things. Ticket systems don't necessarily make anything better either. "We've always done it this way" just means your ideas are not convincing enough for them. It's hard to find good arguments for organizational changes though. Maybe start with the smallest changes that you can convince other people of. Let them see that your changes make things better for them, earn some trust.

All people are afraid of change. The only question is how much.

HBO's superlative Deadwood had some insight into why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfS66XnUcLo

> DAN DORITY: I'm older, and I'm much less friendly to fuckin' change.

> AL SWEARENGEN: Change ain't looking for friends. Change calls the tune we dance to.

I can see that I guess, the thing that bewilders me is when you get stuck into doing something a harder way and refuse to refactor or improve, even if it makes your work easier.

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