We used to have an issue of deployments breaking in production, and one of the reasons was that we did not have some kind of smoke test in the post deployment (in our case we only had a rolling update as a strategy).
The rational solution was only create that post-deployment step. The solution that our German managers demanded: cut access to deployment for the entire team, “on-call” to check the deployments, and a deployment spreadsheet to track it.
It leads to situations where you need a certificate from your landlord that you take to the certified locksmith that your landlord contracted and show a piece of ID to order a key double that arrives 3 business days later at a cost of 60€. A smart German knows that there’s a locksmith in the basement of a nearby shopping mall that will gladly duplicate any key without a fuss, but even then the price is inflated by the authorised locksmiths.
I document German bureaucracy for immigrants. Everything is like this. Every time I think “it can’t really be this ridiculous, I’m being uncharitable”, a colleague has a story that confirms that the truth is even more absurd.
It’s funny until you realise the cost it has for society at large. All the wasted labour, all the bottlenecks, and little to show for it.
I'm going to strongly disagree with this (when it's done well, not bureaucratically).
We review what can be improved due to problems and we incorporate it into our basic understanding of everything we do, it's the gaining of experience and muscle memory to execute fast while also accounting for things proactively.
It's a long term process but the payoff is great. Reduced time+effort on problems after the fact ends up long term increasing amount of valuable work produced.
The key is to balance this process pragmatically.
When Grandpa was 20 years old he left the house and forgot to take his keys, so every time he left the house he checked his pockets for his keys.
When he was 24 he left the house and left the stove on. He learned to check the stove before leaving the house.
When he was 28 he left his wallet at home. He learned to check for his wallet.
...
Now Grandpa is 80. His leaving home routine includes: checks for his keys, his phone, his wallet. He ensures the lights are off, the stove is off, the microwave door is closed, the iron is off, the windows are closed in case it rains...
Grandpa has learned from his mistakes so well that it now takes him roughly an hour to leave the house. Also, he finds he doesn't tend to look forward to going out as much as he once did...
> We then need to lean on data and experience of what the trade offs of those changes would be.
As engineering leaders, this is a key part of our job. We don't just blindly add processes to prevent every issue. I should add that we also need to analyse our existing processes to see what should change or is not needed any more.
However, you say you're agreeing with scott_w, and scott_w is criticizing the article. So this is confusing.