"A ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay."

We are a software development company and my reply to this was basically that pot making hasn't changed in a long time, it's basically shaping and firing clay. Software development is comparatively new and has a vastly more dynamic landscape.

Also, the comparison is stupid because we don't write code, realize it was shit and write a new one. If we did business like that, we wouldn't be in business.

[–] TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

Why can't you be a team player? /s

Also, if you break the spirits of upper management, does that count?

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 7 points 7 hours ago

...and then add a sticky note below it:

"And then Einstein and Obama and Jobs were there and everybody clapped they were so shocked!"

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 10 hours ago

Also, the comparison is stupid because we don’t write code, realize it was shit and write a new one.

I mean, you shouldn't, but it sounds like the quote-poster is asking for that kind of boondoggle of a project.

[–] How_do_I_computah@lemmy.world 32 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

That's a really terrible anecdote. Real life quantity group would find ways to do less and less for the same reward. You would end up with fifty pounds of clay with a fist shape indention. Call it a pot and be done.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 10 hours ago

Yeah, I highly doubt it happened.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 10 points 11 hours ago

That quote sounds like an excuse for mass production worship a la brave new world, lol.

[–] BrokenGlepnir@lemmy.world 7 points 12 hours ago

It seems like such a little story that it would probably have an origin. It doesn't seem like the ceramics class, the people who created the story mentioned, ever existed. When asked, they said it was actually a photography class (from the professor Jerry Uelsman). I'd also argue that while that may hold true for learning skills (if it does) it doesn't necessarily hold true for performing skills. Also I'd say the main reason it could work, is that it got them to actually do something.