Always start with the least malleable whenever you’re onboarding to a new job, switching careers, or just joining a new project.
Resources you’re going to encounter in your career, from least malleable to most malleable:
- People
- Process
- Code
Always start with the people. People are shaped by their life. It’s impossible to rapidly change a person without some crazy stuff happen.
Run if people make you feel uncomfortable. Since It’s not worthy to spend your life to change some other people just to have an okay career.
Processes can be changed. But processes are tied to incentives.
Work on incentives if you find working with these people fun and energize you. Because a good incentive can multiple the outcome and happiness for the same group of people.
Work on the code last.
Codes are always malleable. They can be easily changed to fit pretty much any requirement.
Find right people, give them good processes, then, figure out whatever code you need to deliver value.