Human ego and aspirations are the driving forces of engineering solutions

Do you think you are choosing technology because it suits the requirements? You could be wrong.

Let’s start with an example that might be inspired by a real-world situation. The team needs to find an event broker. There are two contenders – Kafka and Pulsar.

Developer A has significant experience with Kafka in real life situations. The complexity of scaling Kafka is mentioned and is entrusted to Pulsar. Developer B is a supporter of Kafka as the technology has become an industry standard and has strong support in general. But the team has little experience with her. Both agree that there are no workload changes for the foreseeable future and that these two solutions are in compliance. But the rest of the team are not so self-confident.

After spending hours in the meeting and comparing it with a grid of technical criteria point by point, the team chose Kafka. Everyone agreed that this decision was justified, the rationale was documented, and the team proceeded to implement.

But have the true motives of the choice been revealed?

Man is difficult

In fact, individuals are behind engineering rationality. Man is a complex machine with a familiar but completely uncontrollable operating system.

We think decisions are made (or should be made) by rationality, but in reality, decision making is clouded by immediate or anticipated emotion. For example, in marketing it is a well-known fact that people buy on emotion, then logically justify the purchase.

Some people argue that irrational arguments are a source of unwanted bias and need to be properly regulated. Others insist that feelings play an adaptive role in decision making and in the interests of personal well-being. What is certain is that sometimes we first decide with emotions and then justify the decision with logical reasons. Moreover, we are masters of convincing ourselves of the absolute objectivity of our choice.

It is the duty of every team member to acknowledge these emotional or psychological biases as they are and to turn them into something useful. Let’s take a closer look at our introductory example.

Review of the decision-making process

Developer A is a talented general practitioner. Such specialists prefer the breadth of knowledge over its depth – a jack of all trades is not a master at all. Such people quickly get bored with working on one subject. Naturally, when it comes to choosing technology, such people tend to prefer everything new.

Developer B is more conservative. Such people are really passionate about certain technologies and want to master them. They tend to choose the familiar. They are also not very assertive, and while they may be addicted to technology, they find it difficult to speak and share thoughts.

Both of them are also pursuing their careers, one as a generalist and the other as a specialist. Mastering a technology or a new approach to business is a small boost in your career.

All of these factors are important in decision making, but are usually not named or recognized when decisions are made.

So what should we do?

Making the invisible visible

Simply put, you must consider these irrational criteria when choosing technologies. While you cannot expect everyone to be able to express their feelings, you should encourage disclosure of preferences by introducing new criteria in decision making.

It all started with a simple grid of technology criteria, each with a maximum rating according to our constraints and priorities:

Criteria	Max rating	Technology 1	Technology 2
Functions	one hundred	–	–
Safety	one hundred	–	–
Ecosystem	fifty	–	–
Installation cost	thirty	–	–
Maintenance cost	150	–	–
License cost	150	–	–
Compatibility	fifty	–	–

These are the main things. Then we add subjective elements. You should suggest and discuss new items with the team.

Criteria	Max rating	Technology 1	Technology 2
Career interest	thirty	–	–
Popularity	fifty	–	–
Acquaintance	thirty	–	–

Of course, this is just an example. You need to match the aspirations of the team. These criteria can be understood as follows:

Career interest is self-explanatory; it is a yardstick for how technology fits into career plans.
Popularity of technology: craving for novelty, time to understand the cloud technology that everyone talks about in meetings.
The comfort of being familiar with a technology that I may not be familiar with.

Then you evaluate your possible solutions with the added bonus to better understand everyone’s motivations. Each team member must complete the grid himself before sharing it with everyone.
Let me be clear: the criteria may not be the best. Some of them may seem funny to you or very different from the views of most, but that is not the point. I would like to convey what people think, what can influence their choice.

The right to disagree

Obviously, the final choice may not correspond to cold arithmetic truth, especially if the estimates are equal. In such situations, the group leader usually makes the final choice of direction. It is only natural that a person on a team may have a strong belief in other choices and be discouraged. You must admit this disagreement. In fact, it is the duty of a leader to encourage disagreement. Classic story from Peter Drucker sums it up well:

Dissent is needed to stimulate the imagination (Peter Drucker)

Encouraging disagreement is the only way to avoid the consensus trap. But in the end people must disagree and make commitments… This phrase became famous thanks to Jeff Bezos in one of his letters to investors:

“Use the phrase” You can disagree, but do ”. This phrase will save you tons of time. If you have confidence in a certain direction, but there is no consensus on it, it is helpful to say, “Look, I know we don’t agree on this, but could you take the risk? Disagree and do? Nobody knows the right answer. “

But why would people make a decision that they initially disagree with? Simply because everyone had the opportunity to express their opinion and be heard. It is important that the team had the opportunity to express not only their logical arguments, but also their aspirations. Thus, the final decision is well formulated and easier for everyone to make.

Conclusion

Look at the human factors structure of technology selection. For the cold rationale behind engineering, you must take human psychology and aspirations into account. Their recognition makes everyone happier and creates a strong focus on common goals.