Comic relief

I’m assuming that everyone who reads here is familiar with Dilbert, and that I don’t really need to present the characters in it, so you canstart by reading the above comic-strip (or you can read it here). Usually, Dilbert is amusing for a short moment, and sometimes I get a feeling of “I see that all the time at work!”, but that’s pretty much it. This time, the strip made me think – The main theme is quite clear, and frankly – not new. Wally is demonstrating again his incredible skill of doing absolutely nothing, and the poor character against him has no chance of changing that (or, in the case of PHB, no clue it should change). Up until this point – business as usual. But, if we look closely at the third panel, we see the ace pulled out of the sleeve when the guy in the blue shirt (I assume he’s a product owner of a sort – either a PM or a customer) asks about “a tiny change”. This always works, right? Well, not this time. The response is actually reversing the usual scenario and turns it against the poor PO.  Every change, no matter how small, will cause tardiness, and we both know there will be some changes…
Wally’s laziness wins again, right?
Well, technically, yes. It does match the usual trope. This time, and unlike previous strips (such as this one), I found myself almost agreeing with Wally’s approach, or at least with the non-caricature version of it. The words “tiny change” often hint for a major pile of work hiding behind what seems, on the product side, as something small and trivial. It appears to me that this dynamic is embedded in the way we communicate – most of the time we work under some tight schedule constraints (or at least, we have more work to do than time to complete all of it), and within this environment comes the product owner and asks for a change. This is the cue for everyone around to say their equivalent of “no” (usually it’s “next sprint”, or “next release”), and then the PO comes with “but it’s a really small change”, and we all engage in a negotiation in which we will discuss the feature’s value, urgency, cost and possible trade-offs that can be made. Usually we all leave this discussion more or less content.
Wally’s response determines the nature of this conversation in a way that pulls the rug under the communication form that we (and especially the PO) are all accustomed to, so there is no real opening for a discussion or a negotiation. Maybe that’s why the guy in the blue shirt looks so lost.

I must admit though that I don’t really have a deep insight into this situation – my mind mainly wanders around toying with some ideas. In the meantime, the strongest link I have is to an idea I heard Matt Heusser mention about “Frame control“. Wally is projecting his frame very strongly. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing Wally’s frame challenged (not to mention seeing him enter someone else’s frame). Each and every time he’s talking with someone, he does so under his own terms. And, while the specific frame t
hat he projects is a destructive one (as it is based on the sole idea of wally being useless), holding a frame can be done in a productive manner as well.

Chances are that deeper insights won’t be coming along – after all, it’s just a funny comics.