Pragmatism

pragmatism

noun [ U ]

UK 

 /ˈpræɡ.mə.tɪ.zəm/ US 

 /ˈpræɡ.mə.tɪ.zəm/

the quality of dealing with a problem in a sensible way that suits the conditions that really exist, rather than following fixed theories, ideas, or rules:

The council has operated much more effectively since pragmatism replaced political dogma.

(Source: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pragmatism)

Pragmatism is simply dealing with things as they are, rather than as we wish they were. As well as being a key problem solving skill, it's a core part of working in a consultancy context.  We can equate it pretty closely with being practical about things. On the face of it, it's a pretty simple idea.

Here are a few examples of what I'd call being pragmatic:

We're working on an existing codebase. It badly needs refactoring, but we only have budget for a fixed set of feature implementations and we have really tight deadlines.

Yes, the 'right' thing to do is probably to refactor, and in the long run it'll speed up development and reduce defect overhead. But we're not actually working on the project for the long run. The most pragmatic thing we can do is make sure the client understands that they're storing up problems for the future, but get on with our statement of work, as long as that is going to be quicker than doing the refactoring first.

The client uses a communication product we really don’t like.
Devs love Slack, generally. And there is a certain IM product, widely implemented in the corporate world, that we love a lot less. I think you know which one I mean…
In this situation we just have to use the tools we have. Realistically we’re not going to be able to influence those choices as third parties. Certainly if you’re a permie that’s a conversation to have: “This IM tool is awful, can we have a better one please?”, but as a consultant it’s just not in our area of responsibility. Even just joking about it beyond a certain point is going to get stale and irritating. With a bit of luck your next assignment will use something nicer.

We are working on a project to implement a backend service. It's not performance sensitive, it will only have a few internal users at any given time.

Language choice very often is "whichever language I like working in". A more pragmatic approach can be "how much effort does this warrant?" and "what can people here support?". Writing the same backend service in Typescript, Java or C++ could take widely varying amounts of time, and hence use up different amounts of budget. We don't need to build something that will serve thousands of simultaneous hits, and we want it to be maintainable by the people who will own it without them having to learn new tech stacks.

Temporary car repairs to get you home...

The exhaust fell off my car way out on the moors one night (true story). The friend I was travelling with fastened the exhaust back on with some wire that was kicking around in the boot. That kept us going long enough to get home and take it to a garage the next day.

Whether it's choosing a job that is one step on the way to your end goal; persuading the public to recycle the easy things even if the tougher environmental steps seem impossible right now; or negotiating a compromise between the asking price and the price we can afford to pay on a house or car; pragmatism is always about accepting and dealing with reality.

There are three main steps in being pragmatic:

• distinguish "how things are" from "how we'd like them to be"
• identify a solution to the problem that gives us the best outcome available
• identify what we can learn for future situations

For example

• The breakdown service say they can't get to me for 3 hours.
• I can either wait for them to arrive (and they'll patch up my car long enough to get to a garage), or I can patch the car up myself long enough to get to a garage. If I do it myself, I gain 3 hours at home. 
• I need to make sure I have some wire in the car in case this ever happens again.

Your decision is context specific - if it's really cold or late at night, or you really need to be home you might choose to risk a temporary fix yourself. If you're wearing your best clothes, you're not in a hurry and you have a good book to read, you might wait for the breakdown service.

Pragmatism is also a key part of seeing the wider picture:

• Sometimes we work with a partner rather than trying to resource the whole project ourself. We make a bit less profit, but we give the client what they need when they need it and avoid the reputational damage of under-delivering.
• Sometimes we might choose to not bid for a lucrative project, because we don't have the resources to fulfil it and the reputational damage of screwing it up would harm future bids.
• Sometimes we'll take a hit on rates in order to secure a long term contract or to fill a gap when no other work is available.
• Sometimes clients act in ways we don't understand, because they have other things going on in the background we don't get to hear about. We can only work on the basis of the information that we have available.

In practice, always being willing and able to grasp what's in our control and look at the wider situation to see what's going to gain the best outcome isn't necessarily easy. We can get caught up in the 'right' ways of doing things, and the level of compromise can sometimes be hard to get right. As a principle it's worth pursuing though, it's the basis of much of what we do.

I'll come back to the topic of pragmatism again in the future. It's a valuable mindset in everyday life, and crucial to good consulting.

Related topics:

• Stoicism
• Resilience
• Problem Solving