At my first real job, around the turn of the millenium, software engineers were graded on a bell curve. On a scale of 1 to 5, most people should get 3s, with a lower number of 4s and 2s and a much lower number of 1s and 5s. The bell curve, also called the normal …
If ya know how to do it, stick with the bureaucracy. If you’re building software, it’s always new — you need a generative org with a resilient structure.
As a manager, I want to tell a team what I need and they make it. Is that too much to ask? It depends what you mean by “tell.” Without the information we need, work is like “Bring me a stone.” In this game, the Boss says to the Worker, “Bring me a stone.” The …
In any large enough company, there are front-line workers, management, and executives. Executives set direction, management sets up the situation for the workers, and workers do the labor. Workers do the company business every day, providing capabilities to external or internal customers. Management gets them the tools and training they need, for today and for …
What’s more valuable, a big old company with assets, or a small nimble company with ideas?
Functional stupidity is: don’t self-reflect, don’t ask why, and only think about what we ask you to think about. This can be good in corporate-land. It is a disaster for software.
With increasing variety, each newly created incentive is weaker.
Yet disincentives get more powerful.
They ask us for quality. What is “quality”? “Well, free of defects.” (Oh it’s a lot more than that.) What is a “defect”? “Well, when it doesn’t work like we expect it to. Like we agreed it should.” Trust me, you didn’t specify how it works. That’s my job, as a developer. To organize all …
If the highways are crowded, and they build more lanes, the highways get more crowded. If development is slow, and you add resources, development gets slower. Adding people to a project increases the capacity for activity. Activity doesn’t translate to outcomes. In these cases, you’re adding capacity to the system for cars, or for work, …
