Ask HN: Why are some people in tech afraid of change? - llama052
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bloopbleep
I think it comes back to Parkinson's law of triviality (something we call
"bike shed"). People get extremely hung up on the menial or irrelevant aspects
of a taks or project - processes are something everyone can weigh in on,
making the scope of chaning processes nearly impossible especially if the
company already has a consensus against change, or requires entire consensus
to ever actually apply changes. Sometimes, this is the case because processes
are successfully concealing how little work is being done.

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llama052
I like this, is there any good reads on this topic that you'd recommend?

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llama052
Started at a new position at my company and noticed lack of organization and
processes.

I've gotten pushback on a few things that simply don't make sense to me.

1\. Refuse to document, or documentation is in a flat file SVN directory with
minimal organization. When I offer to sort/organize into a wiki page I'm told
that it's a waste of time.

2\. No ticket system, entire department uses email-all, when mentioning ticket
system, I'm told that is a bad idea because it could lead to "tracking of
tasks."

3\. The idiom of "We've always done it this way" is something that is a day to
day response.

I'm not the guy who comes in and wants to change everything, but I'm here to
improve myself and the company.

Is this a culture thing? What do you do when you find yourself in this
situation.

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zzzcpan
Organizing documentation won't make people document things. Ticket systems
don't necessarily make anything better either. "We've always done it this way"
just means your ideas are not convincing enough for them. It's hard to find
good arguments for organizational changes though. Maybe start with the
smallest changes that you can convince other people of. Let them see that your
changes make things better for them, earn some trust.

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smacktoward
_All_ people are afraid of change. The only question is how much.

HBO's superlative _Deadwood_ had some insight into why:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfS66XnUcLo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfS66XnUcLo)

 _> DAN DORITY: I'm older, and I'm much less friendly to fuckin' change._

 _> AL SWEARENGEN: Change ain't looking for friends. Change calls the tune we
dance to._

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llama052
I can see that I guess, the thing that bewilders me is when you get stuck into
doing something a harder way and refuse to refactor or improve, even if it
makes your work easier.

