Teamwork ground rules – or how naive can us geeks be?

I came across a fairly controversial thread on Hacker News, discussing a post on teamwork ground rules by Kristof Kovacs, but what really surprised me was that these rules aren’t considered just entirely normal basic things by many of the posters on HN.

The rules from Kristof are pretty simple (if worded somewhat sharply):

  • Ask: If a task is not clear, or more information is needed, please ask as soon as possible. Asking is always ok. Doing the wrong thing (or doing nothing) because you didn’t ask is not ok.
  • Debrief: It’s not done until you reported it done. This is often just a one-sentence email to me or to the client, sometimes a “100%” mark in the task list, or a ticket closed. It is done, completed or fixed only when whoever needed it done knows about it.
  • Warn: If a deadline you know is important will likely be missed, warn me soon, as the situation is evolving, and then we can usually figure something out. If I have to learn at the moment of the deadline that it was missed, that’s not ok. (In multi-boss situations that occur frequently in matrix organisations, or if you’re a freelancer, also warn me if your workload is above what you can actually do, instead of not doing certain tasks.)

But to read some of the comments, you’d think Kristof is talking crazy.
As far as I can tell, these 3 rules that everyone in business is told about, from the newspaper delivery boys and girls, checkout operators at a supermarkets (2 jobs I’ve done and been told to follow the rules), right through to financial directors at major corporations, and the fact that they’re controversial in technology departments is somewhat scary.

If you know a deadline is going to be missed, should you stay quiet until your manager asks you explicitly about it, or assume that they know? If you’ve made a requested change, do you assume everyone knows about it, even if you didn’t tell them? And do you prefer working in the dark and having to make guesses, or would you rather have full and clear information?

I might be a million miles off, but I know which situation I prefer – what about you?