About
Exploring Solution Spaces, Keith Ray's blog on Software development and other topics.
Send comments to:
keithray@mac.com
| For Agile Training, eLearning, or Coaching contact: |
| Industrial Logic, Inc. |
| 866-540-8336 (toll free) |
| 510-540-8336 (Berkeley, California) |
| Links |
| xpminifaq |
| Résumé |
| “Adopting XP” Article 2002 (pdf) |
| “ Refactoring” Article 2006 |
| AYE Conference |
| Lucien W. Dupont |
| Elisabeth Hendrickson |
| Johanna Rothman's Managing Product Development |
| Brian Marick's Exploration Through Example |
| Esther Derby's Insights You Can Use |
| Laurent Bossavit's Incipient(thoughts) |
| Dale Emery's Conversations with Dale |
| Martin Fowler's Bliki |
| Creating Passionate Users |
Archives
Subscribe
RSS Exploring Solution Spaces XML
2004.Nov.09 Tue
More advice for dealing software people: if you offer an idea or suggestion to "debaters" (see previous blog entry), and they poke a dozen holes in it, that means that they're interested in it. Try to imagine that they are trying to help you, because many times this is their way of doing that.
To move from debate into dialog, ask them to how to resolve one of the problems they just brought up. This will (if they are interested) switch their mode to "problem-solver", which is one of their favorite modes.
Many people in the software biz respond to an attempt at conversation with a rebuttal. This isn't dialog, it's debate. It's one of the reasons software developers have developed a reputation for poor social skills. Do you do this? Here's a symptom: your replies to someone else often start with the word "but". Examples:
Dialogger: "It was raining this morning."
Debater: "But it's not raining now."
Dialogger: "We could have found this bug a long time ago if we had written a unit test for [some condition]."
Debater: "But unit tests can't find all bugs."
By starting with "but", you don't give credit to the other person for their idea, even if you agree with it. Try restating their ideas before responding with your ideas or disagreements.