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Burnout due to value conflict – MPJ’s Musings – Fun Fun Function


good Monday morning today I want to make

a little video talking about how value

conflict can lead to burnout I think

it’s safe to say that our most software

teams today realize that burnout is a

very real threat to your software team

but I think that the general view is

that burnout is caused by working too

much

when in reality that is just one of the

reasons why burnout happens and one of

the other big ones is value conflict

that is what we’re going to explore

today I and npj and you are watching fun

fun function and value conflict in the

workplace is when you value something

highly but your team doesn’t for example

it might be that you think that unit

tests are very important but your team

they’re just not convinced of their

value it might be that you are you’re a

person that prefers software that is

focused on being bug free and fast and

instead of having a lot of features but

you find yourself in a team that is

basically a feature Factory or might be

that you perhaps you’re the lone

designer on a team and you have to

constantly fight for getting time to do

user research basically you believe in

something but the team doesn’t now not

all value conflicts are destructive

value conflicts happen all the time

because we are humans we value different

things and it’s actually through

discussion and these these conflicts

that we have that great insights happen

and we create new and innovative

solutions at these value conflicts and

and you know pull between people that’s

how we create great things and it’s part

of the fabric of being human however

there is a limit to how much you can

take some of the values that you have

they are extra strong they are

your core values so you hold a lot of

values but these values they are they’re

closer to

your identity as a software developer

for example one light one of my core

values is I have to build stuff with

care so for me

yes building something that works for

the end-user that that is great that

it’s important but it’s not quite enough

for me I also have the need to build

something that is maintainable in the

long run and not to tell you that some

teams have for example imagine that

you’re a product company and you only

have one product in that software team

it’s likely that they value

maintainability very high but that is

not the reality of all teams some teams

might be it might be an ad agency for

example that mostly built contain sites

the campaign sites they are launched one

and they have a very high probability of

never being changed again I think like

that they don’t value maintainability

and nor should they but working in such

a team would for me be very draining and

that is because I would have to

constantly suppress something inside of

me that is very important to me I would

basically be spending my days in a place

where I could not believe so to speak in

order to function in such a team I would

I would have to play the role of someone

else and I would have to do that all day

all year long and it would be even worse

if I was in a situation where I would

not even think that it was appropriate

to suppress that value for example let’s

say that I’m working in this ad agency

that puts out campaign site let’s say

that they they the agency has been hired

to create create an application like the

actual application on our campaign site

but something that will actually live on

for a couple of years so this new

application that we’re hired to do it

would definitely

benefit from being built in a

maintainable way so I start pushing for

that but the team they are just not

there value-wise

they are they’re used to building

campaign sites and they just don’t hold

my values so I find myself in a

situation where I argue and I argue but

I I don’t get hurt the people around me

they just don’t buy it

and that wears me down now wears me down

so bad so I think that it is very

important that you sit down in your team

and discuss what what are our values

what do we agree about and what do we

disagree about and here’s the most

important part are we okay with those

disagreement again some disagreement is

perfectly okay even good but there’s

also some values that we just can’t

afford to disagree on some values are

your more important to get people in

Silicon or people will you start burning

out and that’s it that is what I had on

my mind today you have just watched an

episode on fun fun function I release

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selected for your viewing pleasure

I am mpj until next Monday morning stay curious

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