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Comment by bernardom | Hacker News Reader

You're right: jokes like this only perpetuate bad attitudes- "oh, let's laugh at management/engineering, they think they're so clever."

From my time working in improvement in factories, I'm very confident that the single largest factor that determined whether they would achieve any improvements was the attitude of the team in place. "We've tried it before and it didn't work" is the enemy. Rarely is the enemy "let's spend $8mm on un-necessary consulting help." That's really, really rare. Most people hate spending money on outside help, they see it as a failure (which is also a harmful attitude).

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"Most people hate spending money on outside help"

Managers at large companies love hiring consultants. They look like they're being professional, they don't have to figure it out themselves, and they can shift responsibility onto the consultant. The last works if you hire a reputable consultant (ie. expensive) that no one would object to your having hired. So in fact, hiring a specifically expensive consultant would be desireable.

To try balancing the discussion a bit:

On the upside, due to the $8M contract, lots of people were able to work and earn a living. The story also mentions how the team had a great time, and probably lots of useful connections between people were made, and tacit knowledge exchanged. Neither of those is traditionally accounted for by the engineering mindset.

This sort of reasoning could also justify the TSA.

Your fallacy is: "Glazier's fallacy". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

A little bit of self-doubt is expected from civilised people.

You're wrong in calling my thinking fallacious, because my point was merely to emphasise how reductionistic approaches never give a complete picture, which is why people from a STEM background often benefit from further training in psychology and social sciences. However, Theodores' reply ('A few things:...') does a better job than mine.

Nevertheless, Glazier's fallacy is tangential, so thank you for posting.

> On the upside, due to the $8M contract, lots of people were able to work and earn a living.

Yes but you have to also consider the opportunity cost of that $8M. Were the incidental benefits gained worth the cost?

nooo !! that's why research into the hover-skateboard stopped !!

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