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Comment by itsoktocry | Hacker News Reader

>If you are on an assembly line and you have 45 s to do your job you either do it, or don't. If you do it fast and wait for 40 s you don't add any value.

Have you worked on an assembly line? I have.

You may not add value by doing it faster, but you certainly cause problems if you do it slower.

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I think the distinction is the relationship between the median performer and the 90th percentile performer. The two are very different employees for software development but not on an assembly line. As you point out, there is a difference between the median performer and the 10th percentile performer on an assembly line, but that's not the comparison the parent comment introduced.

>As you point out, there is a difference between the median performer

But I didn't say that, and I don't agree.

I think the 90th percentile never causes delays on a particular station, while the median may cause a few per hour, and the 10th percentile might delay every 2nd or 3rd cycle.

There are tangible costs associated with those levels of performance.

Generally you design your cycle times so that the median performer never is late. Remember if each median performer has 1 delay per hour, on a line with 100 workers that mean each cycle there is a delay somewhere and so the line always moves slower than expected. How much slack to add is a complex question, but you have to assume there will be delays. The 10th percentile cannot be allowed to delay the line, so you have to deal with it (training, fire them, give them faster tools, or switch to a station they can do in time come to mind, there may be more)

This is a completely different argument though and irrelevant to the comment chain you replied to. Everyone involved may even agree with you - why did you frame it as an argument against the claim that there is less capacity for 10x performers?

So there’s a cap on the maximum value (always doing it on time), and a cap on the minimum value (never doing it).

The above poster takes the position that the ratio between the maximum value, and minimum employable value is less than 10.

With all due respect, why are you both talking about yourselves as if you were machines? If your job is so mechanical it can be automated, you're screwed. If it's not, but your boss wants to downsize it bc "savings", a union would help you.

> You may not add value by doing it faster, but you certainly cause problems if you do it slower.

This makes his point though. There is no capacity to be 10x more productive.

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