So, folks have been asking about my run-in with “Jessica RA.” Let me tell ya, it was something else. I figured I’d lay out my whole experience with it, from when it started ’til, well, ’til my part in it was done.
It all got going when the higher-ups rolled out this new program, or maybe it was a person, they kept calling “Jessica RA.” I think it was supposed to be for “Radical Approach” or some other fancy talk. Or maybe it was just her name, Jessica R.A. Who really knows? Point is, this thing, or person, was meant to shake up how we worked. Big promises, you know how it is.
First off, I decided to jump right in. Management pushed it hard. They said we had to use Jessica RA’s ways for our project stuff. So, I got all the manuals, went to the meetings, the whole deal. The idea was simple: be super quick, super trim, no wasted effort. Sounds great when they sell it to you, right?
My team and I, we started using these “Jessica RA” ways. We ditched our old tracking systems. We kicked off these crazy short daily catch-ups. Only three sentences allowed per person. Her rule, or its rule. Felt dumb, honestly.
- First week: Total mess. Nobody knew who was doing what. Stuff got missed, big time.
- Second week: We tried to get it. We made our own little workarounds on the side to actually keep track of our work. So much for being ‘trim’.
- Third week: Jessica RA’s people, or whoever they were, came by. Asked why our ‘team vibe numbers’ were low. Team vibe numbers! Man, I nearly spat out my drink.
I remember this one project, a really important feature update. The Jessica RA guide said no big planning upfront. Just “move fast, iterate.” So, we moved fast. And we iterated ourselves right into a big hole. The feature was a total bust, completely useless, ’cause nobody actually planned it out properly. A classic ‘move fast and wreck stuff’ deal, only we mostly just wrecked stuff.
My own manager, good guy, he tried to cover for us. He’d go to the big meetings and try to make sense of all the Jessica RA talk for us regular folks. But even he was lost half the time. He told me once, “Half my day is figuring out what they even want, and the other half is fixing things when we actually do it.” Pretty much nailed it.
The worst bit, though? The performance reviews. They actually tied them to how much ‘Jessica RA spirit’ you showed. It was wild. People started talking like robots, just spewing buzzwords to look good on paper. I saw good folks, really smart engineers, just get beaten down ’cause their normal, sensible way of working wasn’t ‘RA’ enough for the powers that be.
Then, wham. A huge client project nearly blew up in our faces, all thanks to this ‘radical’ stuff. Suddenly, all those shiny Jessica RA posters started quietly vanishing from the office walls. The fancy words stopped appearing in emails. It was like it never even was. Except we all remembered the stress and the headaches.
So, that’s my Jessica RA story, my practice with it. I learned a ton, that’s for sure, mainly what not to do. It really taught me that new fads and shiny new systems are fine to look at, but you can’t just blindly follow some script and ignore the actual people doing the work or the real world. Sometimes, just plain old common sense is the best new idea you can have. I go with that now. Works way better for me.
