So, let's talk meritocracy.
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So, let's talk meritocracy.
If you are wondering if you might be inside one, look for things like:
- Only the most senior people on the team are involved with planning.
- None of the senior people tell the junior people what they discussed in those meetings.
- Meetings with the senior people for juniors to discuss ideas very easily become murder boards.
- Recognition is not given for glue work that supports interactions, filling in cracks with putty, or building functional connective tissue. In fact, this work is not even ticketed, so there is none to pull from backlogs.
- In fact most of what you find in the backlog is actually failing projects, false-starts, and forgotten initiatives.
- You may hear encouragement like "this will be a big project to get you noticed".
How do we face such things?
I think the thing I do is to identify what needs to get done, and work towards that goal. I may need to be opportunistic, find cross-cutting cleavages that I can capitalize to pull the real work forward.