In such a situation, I would probably suspect a bug in the production line, rather than a systemic fault targeting me personally.
Such a bug only gets fixed if I really love some other colour of M&Ms enough to complain about it, but all the while, I have to accept that the bug is probably affecting other people, in other ways (you might only get yellow ones, etc).
But perhaps that's just my "M&M privilege", choosing to see it as a hiccup, rather than a targeted campaign.
If dev & design are about creating solutions, the lack of representation of marginalized communities means that the problems of these communities face are not addressed. It means that the scope of identifying problems and ideating their solutions will always fall short of being truly effective.
I can't speak for everyone, but dev & design rarely create any solution in isolation. In our case, there's BA and stakeholder reviews (fun fact: stakeholders never know what they want until they see it, and then they want something different).
Customers identify problems (mostly) and BA identify improvements. The acceptance criteria is set in stone. To put it in simple terms, if BA want to carry some amount of rocks from A to B, I can give them a pickaxe or explosives, and a horse or a truck. Stakeholders will tell you they want a truck and explosives, until they start blowing themselves up or having to pay repair bills on the truck (and give them a horse, they won't like paying a vet).
When the whole organisation is defining the desired outcome (the acceptance criteria), it really doesn't matter how many minorities are in your dev team. What matters, is how many are in your organisation and ultimately, how many are in your customer base (happy customers = successful business).
My problem is that minorities don't show up to interview, they don't send their resume. Well, they do, but in minorities - I think I interviewed one woman over the last 18 months.
If people aren't approaching me, when I have a job opening, I can't legally go to a local minority group hang out with "Hey, anyone want a job?" - because I'd also be discriminating some other group that way.
My problem is that minorities don't show up to interview, they don't send their resume. Well, they do, but in minorities - I think I interviewed one woman over the last 18 months.
Right. This mirrors what I wrote in the article - that it's unusual for me to receive even 5% minority applicants. That's why I think the issue is so complex - because it's not nearly so simple as pointing at any given employer or industry and saying, "You just need to hire more minorities!"
Lots of people will tell you that though, but if you look at the people saying it, it's people that don't have the job roles you & I do (and therefore haven't, for a variety of reasons, walked a mile in our shoes).
There's some that say the problem is with the education system - but even there, how can you teach someone if they don't apply to the course, regardless of the reasons why that individual doesn't apply?
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In such a situation, I would probably suspect a bug in the production line, rather than a systemic fault targeting me personally.
Such a bug only gets fixed if I really love some other colour of M&Ms enough to complain about it, but all the while, I have to accept that the bug is probably affecting other people, in other ways (you might only get yellow ones, etc).
But perhaps that's just my "M&M privilege", choosing to see it as a hiccup, rather than a targeted campaign.
If dev & design are about creating solutions, the lack of representation of marginalized communities means that the problems of these communities face are not addressed. It means that the scope of identifying problems and ideating their solutions will always fall short of being truly effective.
I can't speak for everyone, but dev & design rarely create any solution in isolation. In our case, there's BA and stakeholder reviews (fun fact: stakeholders never know what they want until they see it, and then they want something different).
Customers identify problems (mostly) and BA identify improvements. The acceptance criteria is set in stone. To put it in simple terms, if BA want to carry some amount of rocks from A to B, I can give them a pickaxe or explosives, and a horse or a truck. Stakeholders will tell you they want a truck and explosives, until they start blowing themselves up or having to pay repair bills on the truck (and give them a horse, they won't like paying a vet).
When the whole organisation is defining the desired outcome (the acceptance criteria), it really doesn't matter how many minorities are in your dev team. What matters, is how many are in your organisation and ultimately, how many are in your customer base (happy customers = successful business).
My problem is that minorities don't show up to interview, they don't send their resume. Well, they do, but in minorities - I think I interviewed one woman over the last 18 months.
If people aren't approaching me, when I have a job opening, I can't legally go to a local minority group hang out with "Hey, anyone want a job?" - because I'd also be discriminating some other group that way.
Right. This mirrors what I wrote in the article - that it's unusual for me to receive even 5% minority applicants. That's why I think the issue is so complex - because it's not nearly so simple as pointing at any given employer or industry and saying, "You just need to hire more minorities!"
Lots of people will tell you that though, but if you look at the people saying it, it's people that don't have the job roles you & I do (and therefore haven't, for a variety of reasons, walked a mile in our shoes).
There's some that say the problem is with the education system - but even there, how can you teach someone if they don't apply to the course, regardless of the reasons why that individual doesn't apply?