Did My Wife Just Experience The Core of Software Engineering?

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, we just headed to CrossFit and going to talk about a conversation with my wife, which is related to software engineering. I know, sounds crazy. That's what we're going to do. Um, I thought it was a a pretty interesting one because it came up organically and uh and it's uh I guess not something I usually talk about with my wife, but I I thought that would actually make it a really good reason to to talk through it on code commute. And so the framing of this is um my what's a good way to like generalize this? My my wife was basically helping organize something and part of organizing uh this and she's like call it like on a committee for something and so everyone has different responsibilities and things like that. So she was in charge of organizing a portion of this overall thing and so she had to go do research.

she had to go collect all this information and uh basically make a case for going down a particular path. Now, you know, when doing this, what she wasn't doing was like, okay, like I'm going to go pick my favorite thing and, you know, um try to force everyone to use or agree to like this thing I pick, but more like let me do some research. let me, you know, she's probably going to form an opinion herself and then present it and then basically giving given some options, work with a group of people to get alignment on on that thing. So she did um but it's not done at this point because there's multiple levels to like approval and um sort of moving like just to move forward like sort of the next step and uh what had happened was and the reason that this kind

of came up organically for me to be involved was we were um having a conversation and I could tell that she was a little I don't know like not stressed out's too strong of a word but um we were driving and she's like oh I have to like, you know, respond to this person. And I said, "Well, what's up?" And she explained, "Well, kind of like I just told all of you, you know, like uh something's getting gotten approved. The group's agreed to it and now this person's kind of questioning it." So, I'm hearing this and I'm going like I even uh like that very last part. I'm like I already see uh a very big parallel to what I do at work like for the last, you know, 10 plus years, which is a group of people have agreed to something and someone else is questioning it.

Or at least that's what it looks like on the surface. So I said hey like happy to talk about this kind of thing especially because it's something that comes up in software engineering but it's not like let me bore you with like you know programming jargon. So, we started talking about this and I thought it was super cool because there are a lot of parallels in situations like this. And the one of the first things that I was kind of telling her was, "Okay, so you have this person who who's sort of questioning your decision on this." I said, "I don't I don't know this person at all." Right? I don't I don't see the message. I don't know this person. I don't know how they communicate. But I said like, you know, do we even know if they're like, are they challenging you on this or are they genuinely just like curious because they weren't part of that decision, right?

And I think this is, you know, part one to all of this is that communication, right? This is something where a lot of us will go through this many times, different parts of our career and things like that where someone sent you a message or email or whatever you've kind of heard from someone else and we we get defensive, right? And sometimes rightfully so cuz someone's maybe being a jerk to you. Um, but other times like did did we invent that part of it? Did is someone being a jerk? Is someone, you know, trying to make you explain every detail or is it just like I wasn't part of that. Catch me up on that because I'm also a decision maker and I need to like I need some amount of being informed. So, we were talking about that to begin with, like maybe let's maybe let's not u bias the framing too much because genuinely maybe this person's just curious.

So, that was part one. Um, and then part two was I think how kind of like how she immediately wanted to react um to the situation and given like we're just having a like a casual conversation in the car when this comes up the when she was kind of automatically defending it to me in the car and I I had like details on on some of the stuff cuz she's been going through it. So, it's not like all news to me. But, um the way that she started defending it was very much like a subjective personal taste kind of thing. So, she's like, you know, like I like this one better. And um I I'm not going to remember exactly what she said, but everything that she was kind of saying to me, she listed off like two or three or four points. Um, and they were all just like highly subjective like I like I like this kind of thing.

And I I kind of stopped her. I said, "Hey, like you know, do you would you like my opinion on this?" Because we can have this conversation go two ways, right? Like I can I can kind of gas you up and be like, "Yeah, like why would she be like that?" Um or or I can say like let's let's talk about this in a way that is maybe how I would try to think through things. This person literally almost drove into a wall. I feel like they closed their eyes or something. Um so she was like, "No, no, like it would be good to get some feedback. Let's talk about it." So I said the I'm not, you know, discrediting um sort of your your opinions on on your selection, right? Or like your choice for going through this. And I said, I think one of the things that you're going to want to be careful about is is your framing and like how you communicate those those things to this person.

I said because what you just did was like said things that were very much subjective personal preference uh and not really grounded in any like in any facts and not really grounded in a way that this person's going to uh care about or relate to. So we started diving into that a little bit more. Um, but I I had also called out to her. I said, "By the way, when we start to talk about this, um, at no point if I'm like telling you that's not how I would say it or I don't think that that's helpful, I'm not I'm not suggesting that how you feel about that is wrong or that your intuition's wrong." Uh I said in fact a lot of the time I I think that when I'm working with engineers this is a very common thing that happens um you might

have I think it's like two common things I see is that you have an intuition about something you have like you formed an opinion but you yourself haven't actually figured out what what data points are the are the thing driving it for you but like you've explored a couple options and you're like, I'm pretty like I feel like it's really like option B is the thing here. But if someone said why option B, you're kind of like I don't I don't know exactly, but like I just I can kind of tell. And it's not that that's wrong to to be forming that like a initial opinion or your intuition's guiding you that way. It's just that you can't stop there because until you can articulate it, you kind of haven't finished. But that leads to the second part, which is when you do know, maybe when you're trying to explain things, um, that communication's falling off a little bit, which is what I said to my wife.

And I'm like, I know that you've kind of done your homework on this. So, I I don't I don't think for you it's like you don't have data to back it up or you don't you don't uh you don't have the data to back up your opinion. I said, I'm pretty sure you do, but in our conversation so far, you haven't listed those things out. So, I said, let repeat to me what you said, right? And so she repeated her couple of points like I like I like it or you know this is just it's better and I was like like why like why do you like it? And she was like well you know and then she started rhyming off like because of this and then it has this functionality and then uh this is easier or whatever and I said okay great like you know let's pick one of those.

When you say this is easier, easier than what? Like what makes it easier? Um, who cares if that part's easy? And I'm I'm not as aggressive when I'm saying this term, but like who cares if that's easier? Like is that even a valuable thing? Like yeah, that that part of the process is easier, but does that process really matter? And so what I did was started talking to her about all these various, you know, data points she brought up and then got her to start saying, why why is this valuable? And we had this conversation for a little bit where she's kind of going through all these things and uh and then I think it started to click around like this point where I'm like cool you know it's not what I just talked to you about is not news to you. It's not like you discovered something in our conversation.

But I said, when you want to communicate this kind of stuff to someone, this is really what you need to be focusing on is like this part of the exercise. It's not because I like this better. Um, I said that might be true and it it might actually be based on real data, but that's not the part that you're going to want to communicate because that person's not going to care. And this is like, if you watch some of my other videos, I've talked about like selling people on things, right? What's going on here? Sorry, my my uh audio receiver has like a really weird thing going on, but I think my audio is working. I'll find out when I go to upload this video. Um yeah, but like when I talk about selling people on things as engineers, it's like who who's your audience?

Because you need to think about now that you have all these data points, which are the data points that are going to be effective to talk to this person about how do you communicate those things? Right? Just to give you an example, one of the things that she was talking about to me was like it's going to save us the people who need to work with this thing. it's going to save us so much time. And I said, "That's great for you." And I said, "Is she going to care about that?" And like in some cases, you know, as a as an engineering manager, like as someone on my team said, "Hey, that's going to save us a lot of time." Like I would really care about that a lot. Um, but like this person, and I'm not saying this in like a rude way, just given um this group of people, I'm like this person probably will not care if that saves you time, right?

Your time is already allotted for. So, if it saves you time, like great for you. But we got to move over some lanes here. There's someone that was going way too slow in the fast lane and then a bus that was blocking me in. So, give me one second. Here we go. Um, yeah. So like out of those things that we discussed like what are what are the points that you're going to articulate to this person based on you know her position your working relationship with her uh what she's responsible for like what are the things that are going to matter and we actually went from like a very large set of like you know beneficial capabilities and reasons for picking this thing down to like a just a small subset of the things that we thought that she would really care about. And I said, "Okay, now now you have those things and you feel like, you know, that would be the focal point of your response.

Now you have to kind of come up with the packaging for it." Because if we go back to one of the first things we said, it's like we don't know where where she's coming from. So instead of responding in defense and being like, "Okay, let me let me blast you with like a list of like a hundred things like I'm going to shut you down right away." I'm like, "That's not and sorry, my wife was not necessarily going down that path, but um instead of going down that path in general, this is for anyone, right? Like take a step back. We don't know if this person is just being curious." So, I would lead with a couple of points that this person you're speculating is probably really going to care about and then kind of open it up to say like, you know, if you'd like more information on that or, you know, other aspects of this, I'm happy to like, you know, provide more details.

But it's really like you're then opening it up like where do you want this conversation to go? because at this point you are very much prepared to kind of talk about all these different angles and I would just say to you as a software engineer if that made sense to you and you're kind of like yeah but what if I'm not what if I'm not prepared then like then you might have more homework to do um andor don't uh maybe don't invite the conversation to go in a that's going to keep you or you know that you're not prepared for, right? But uh I think you know if we're being trying to be objective and unbiased then that's probably an indicator for yourself. If you're like I don't I don't think we could open up this conversation a different directions like I only know a few things I can defend on this.

I would just say like you got you got more work to do. That's that's fine. But if you're thinking like there's gaps or you don't understand something like you know get to work. It's about data collection. It's about comparing contrasting. It's analysis. So at the at the end right this is we take all these things um we go through processes to get people bought in. We have to communicate our ideas effectively. that means understanding different audiences to communicate those things. But um yeah, I thought hopefully that made sense and how it I navigated that with my wife. But um this is the kind of thing where I like I said, it happens all the time and it's whether it's me doing stuff or like people on my team. You'll have people like that agree on, you know, design dock changes and then someone sees it later and they're like, "Well, what about whatever?

what about this thing or why would you ever do this? Right? And from their perspective, they might be missing something or maybe they had information that everyone who was part of the earlier conversation didn't have, right? Like what do we do in these situations? We have to get people on the same page. We have to bring in new information as it makes sense. Um, but it can be really frustrating when you have people kind of coming in later after decisions have been made because it feels like, you know, you have to hit the brakes really hard on any progress and you're like, "Look, we just had all this momentum and now you're you're crushing it because you're, you know, we have to kind of get through you first." Like, that can feel like a pain in the ass. But like I said, in this case, we don't even know if that's true.

It might have just been this person's curious. They're not trying to be a jerk or anything. So, that's the conversation I had with my wife that was I thought very relevant to software engineering. Um, definitely more on like the soft skill side of software engineering, but I have conversations like this all of the time trying to get alignment on decisions and things like that. So, I hope that was helpful. I hope the audio on this video isn't uh completely wrecked, but I will find out, I suppose. See you later.