You Do Not Get A Painter to Fix Another's Art

The Value of Vindication

Vindication comes in different ways, not to gloat or to point fingers, even if, after all is said, the concern you raised has been proven true. Good communication, alongside the ability to articulate one's thoughts even in the heat of the moment, remains the most critical skill every time.

In a long-running saga of urgency and wits, from which workplace stress can be the damaging consequence for motivation and wellbeing, withstanding authority and office in the quest to improve a proposed solution, so that it works as intended and engenders confidence, is not a battle for the fainthearted.

There are so many ways to express oneself, and the power of persuasion comes in the form of words that walk people down a reasonable lane of acknowledgement, misgiving, challenge, and requirement, before acquiescing to the notion of a willingness to engage and always help.

A Question of Ownership

In this instance, after a solution did not work as intended, a project manager had the bright idea that it was now the job of the implementor to fix the problem with a complex set of orchestration scripts; scripts that the implementor had long before determined would not deploy cleanly, for various reasons previously given but seemingly ignored.

The truth was that collaboration had never quite been on offer. What passed for it at the outset was minimal, closer to an imposition than an invitation, and it was only our steady, well-argued pushbacks that drew out any real interaction. Even then, we were working with architects whose confidence outpaced their familiarity with the environment in which their solution was meant to run.

The first line of my response was that his reading of the situation was wrong, and I then went on to make the case for why, starting with a simple analogy. Because scripts and programming are an individual's way of thinking and a style of expression for what they want to achieve, and without the full immersion of others in the coding process, "You do not get a painter to fix another artist's work of art."

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

I appreciate that there was something I could do, but what was requested was input; it could not be interpreted as taking ownership of the solution. The fundamentals of the intended solution were sound, but its enterprise deployment, so that it consistently works once rolled out, requires the inside knowledge of the implementor to point out why certain constructs will fail, so that the developer takes those ideas seriously when modifying elements of the proposed solution.

Back to the Canvas

The response of the project manager was at first patronising and then emotional, but the artist, the developer, understood the import of my message and got back to work fixing their solution, which is now in its fourth iteration and possibly still a work in progress nine days on.

As far as I was concerned, what I intended was achieved: to draw out the work of the implementor, before the solution was complete, and to inform of the essential changes and improvements needed to make it deployable.

Invariably, I believe the result would not only be fit for purpose; once fully done, all sides of development, through implementation, to the end-users would see the intended benefits the solution would offer.

The whole trajectory now sits in the slipstream of practical engagement with the implementation process, rather than in acquiring accolades from promising the client outcomes that, from the onset, would never have worked, back when the first ideas were put to us over two months ago.

Authority and Consent

One higher management person did interject in the email chain, suggesting we were involved in verbose communication; the same person who used the lexicon of grief to explain the effects of change some months ago. None of these replies required a response once the artist was back to fixing their work of art, rather than hoping another might attempt a dash of graffiti to improve it.

The authority to propose still requires the consent to implement. Badly designed systems tend to be a symptom of the same thing: responsibility placed in the wrong hands, and too little respectful engagement with those who must carry a complex solution through deployment.

Had the environment been understood from the start, much of this could have been avoided. In the workplace, this is the challenge faced by many who need the kind of articulation that ensures a solution has the best set of inputs to work.

We are not seeking perfection, just something good enough to understand, implement, manage, and hand over cleanly, when the time comes.

Related blogs

Blog - Badly Designed Systems Are Just That

Blog - Authority Without Consent

Blog - When Change Borrows the Lexicon of Grief

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Authority Without Consent

The Weight of Fallibility

Hubris is one of those traits anyone should do well to avoid. Regardless of one's expertise, ability, and confidence, we are prone to error, mistakes, failings, or just the slightest miscomprehension of a situation.

This is not to second-guess the premise; rather, it is simply that an awareness that we may not be entirely correct, and hence fallible, can be a humbling realisation. It shows us the extent of what we intend in our self-belief, and how reality challenges it.

A Rollout Not Ready

Recently, I met the weight of imposition from on high: a process I was neither confident in nor happy to deploy. Developments within the last week have now brought into stark relief that what appeared to work on a single device, with a different kind of user profile, was neither ripe nor ready for a global rollout.

One could snidely suggest that this was a fact posited many times before but ignored because the proposer's office implied an all-knowing mien that would brook no questioning.

Well, it all returned to the drawing board as we identified the kinks in the solution. A new solution has since been proposed that is radically different from the original and contains elements that give one the jitters.

Consequently, we are back to the original arguments of fanciful ideas that appear to work in isolation but require a different mindset when set for a global deployment.

Authority Without Consent

What this episode really lays bare is a simple truth: technical authority without social consent produces brittle solutions. A design may be elegant on paper and hold together in isolation, yet the moment it meets the messy reality of many hands and many machines, it fractures, not for want of cleverness, but for want of ownership.

There is, of course, a counter-argument that imposition is sometimes necessary, and that endless consensus can stall a decision indefinitely. I would not dismiss it. But there is a world of difference between the people who run the environment, who understand its issues and problems intimately, and an architect parachuted into a situation who consults no one, believing they already know everything necessary to fix things.

We appreciate that things need to improve, and we would welcome ideas, insight, inspiration, and implementations to put matters right. The question is whether there is a better way for this to go forward without proper engagement. I would suggest there is not.

What an Architect Should Be

An architect should not be like a bull let loose in a china shop, nor should they be a cowboy riding a three-legged horse. My view of an architect is someone who listens and observes intently, appreciates and understands, then suggests rather than imposes, carrying people along rather than rubbing them up the wrong way.

When you break the social element of engagement that helps take ideas to implementation, whatever concept is in the plan is likely to fail. This is not because people have refused to do it, but because the prospect is not owned by the people who would eventually manage it.

If you are an architect, ensure that this is not one of your flaws. Get the builders onside before you take your grand scheme to town, selling castles in the air that no one can reach, even if they could fly.

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Handling Internet Intimidation

Networks of similar interests

Belonging to a number of networking sites, some social, others professional, one leaves a footprint almost irremovable from the Internet.

Where the networking sites are of special interest lifestyles there is opportunity to be more particular about your interests and the kind of people you want to interact with.

One would hope that the more detail provided, the more discerning people seeking similar companionship and interests would be and maybe one can naively assume that all that is through informed consent, personal prerogative and genuine awareness of what engagement one is undertaking.

Indeed, we have heard that certain social networking sites have become havens for bullies and harassment – cyberbullying is the new word for that – these matters are becoming an area of crime investigation that is receiving the scrutiny of social protection agencies and law enforcement - the playground bully has moved to cyberspace.

There are sites that cater for adults and hopefully the membership is made up of law-abiding ones who should not be embarrassed for doing what as adults they choose to do within the law.

Informed and mutual consent

The operative phrase being mutual consent; this is however not a fixed quantity, what some people mutually consent to do having informed each other of their intentions and desires might as well be morally reprehensible to others and excite passionate negative emotions.

One cannot refuse those who find these things abhorrent their right to have those emotions, convictions or feelings – it is part of our humanity.

If one has racist, xenophobic or homophobic sympathies, they have their issues but hopefully they are abstract; to take those sympathies and target them at an object, personality or group for vitriolic abuse, threats of denigration or bodily harm has that person crossing the boundaries of civility to criminality, which can be prosecuted.

Handling abuse

I have tolerated a lot of abuse on the Internet and in social networking sites I have helped some people keep within the bounds of the law by not responding and hence not aggravating the situation.

Where the site has clear guidelines about abuse, I have matched the clauses in their documents against the claims I make of abuse and given administrators of those sites the opportunity to address these matters – in two cases the sources of abuse were bumped off the site.

In other cases, I have used the blocking facilities to prevent those people from contacting me and in one case I completely removed myself from the site to avoid harassment.

I would NOT be intimidated

But I would not be intimidated on the Internet by faceless, anonymous cretins who can pen unspeakable abuse and hatred but are too cowardly to leave a calling card which bears a name and a proper reply slip.

What they forget is that every action taken on the Internet leaves footprints and the tenacious would find those tracks and trace them back to the originator, nobody is really anonymous on the Internet.

In two instances, I engaged the service of private detectives, employed computer & Internet forensics in which I have professional qualifications, gathered all the evidence, got the police involved and obtained with the force of the law, records of transactions on a social networking site to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law in court, death threats on the Internet – I secured convictions for what the perpetrator thought was his right to menace and harass with impunity – they chose the wrong guy.

Your rights - my rights

Recently, I have been menaced by someone who by rights has a right to feel abhorrence about me if he deems fit, but we live in a free society where everyone has a personal responsibility when engaging in any liaisons with informed consent; that responsibility should and must not be passed on to others once one has come of age as an adult.

One studied situation deals with sexual conduct when people expect others to watch out for them when they should be alert and aware of what they personally engage in – this includes the moderate use of alcohol and drugs so that they are not taken advantage of and cajoled into acts they would not engage in when sober and of clear mind.

Informed consent must be the prime mover in any liaison, it is the responsibility of each person engaged in that liaison to exercise that prerogative and hopefully where either cannot exercise that prerogative the more alert party would desist and refrain.

Arguing with the fool

This sounds like a reasonable argument that any sane person can appreciate and understand, it is however difficult to engage a menace in such reasoning – a saying infers arguing with a fool would make both of you fools.

In fact, these Internet bullies if one were to confer any status of their cowardice are snipers, assassins, assailants – no better than terrorists – even hecklers in their anti-social garb are recognisable; they, the terrorists, have a time of menace but each attack creates a pattern, a patchwork and a developing case towards nabbing them with compelling evidence.

One saying this menace would very well understand is this – Everyday is for the thief and one day is for the catcher.

You have already crossed the line between personal expression through abuse which can be tolerated to criminal conduct through threatening my physical well-being which would be investigated – think about the consequences before your reprehension grows beyond your ability to control the events around you.