Metadata
- Author: third-bit.com
- Full Title: Division of Labor
- Category:#articles
- Document Tags: Management
- Summary: Dividing tasks in a team can lead to unfair work distribution based on social status, often disadvantaging women and people of color. Recommended strategies include feature decomposition, where each member handles the design, coding, testing, and documentation of one feature, promoting fairness and collaboration. Avoid chaotic task assignments, as they can create confusion and lead to unequal contributions among team members.
- URL: https://third-bit.com/2025/01/08/division-of-labor/
Highlights
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Among programmers, writing operating systems or other software that is close to the hardware has higher status than building user interfaces; people doing the former are both paid more and more likely to be male than people doing the latter, regardless of ability or value delivered to the employer. This creates a feedback loop: white and Asian men pursue certain career paths because they have high status (they want to be “real programmers”), and the fact that they are pursuing those careers is what maintains their higher status. It also creates a confirmation loop: since women and people of color get fewer chances to do certain tasks, they are less good at them, which “confirms” the initial bias. (View Highlight)
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Programming was originally considered a female occupation, but as it became more lucrative it came to be viewed as “naturally” male. [Abbate2012] and [Ensmenger2012] describe how this happened, while [Hicks2018] looks at how Britain lost its early dominance in computing by systematically discriminating against its most qualified workers: women. Some men become quite uncomfortable whenever this is brought up, but we need to learn how to discuss our own history if we want to be able to think clearly about how the things we’re doing today might change society tomorrow. (View Highlight)
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I therefore recommend that student teams use feature decomposition: instead of owning an entire subsystem for the life of the project, each team member handles the design, coding, testing, and documentation of one feature. There isn’t as much need for close collaboration between students as there is with the previous two strategies, but feature decomposition is more robust and more equitable. (View Highlight)
📂 Articles | Последнее изменение: 20.01.2025 11:31