Comments on: The Invisible Hand of Motivation http://thestrandedstarfish.com/the-invisible-hand-of-motivation/ Looking for ways to make a difference. Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:05:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Andrew Fuqua http://thestrandedstarfish.com/the-invisible-hand-of-motivation/comment-page-1/#comment-493 Andrew Fuqua Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:24:41 +0000 http://thestrandedstarfish.com/?p=461#comment-493 In this particular case, the company had only one real client for this product line. They were unable to capture the market opportunity that they thought would be there. Early on, management and the client suspended disbelief (that is, they trusted the team to build things the way they thought best and they would wait to see if the high quality would pay off). After some number of years, with only one client to carry the full cost of development, management and the client began to grow impatient. The client was impatient with the cost and with the speed with which new features could be added to the product. The extent of this dissatisfaction wasn't discussed, at least not with me or the developers, but I can infer it from management's actions. Everyone certainly enjoyed the great quality though. Was the development slow? I really don't think so. This was a large enterprise-wide software product with lots of distributed parts. Most features of significance would cross the corporate, the backoffice, and POS tiers and thus involve data flows among them and backwards compatibility since each tear could at times need to be a version ahead of the lower tears. I also did some analysis comparing this to some industry average data and believe the speed was average (again, but with very high quality). You can get a short boost of speed at the expense of incurring more technical debt than normal. But to do that, you've got to paint a good picture of the problem to development. You've got to get them to understand the seriousness of the situation and give them a vision of how long or how much or how many of what is needed so that they can buy-in to changing their habits and their preferred, ingrained and natural method of working. You want them to work-differently. That's difficult to achieve. In this particular case, the company had only one real client for this product line. They were unable to capture the market opportunity that they thought would be there. Early on, management and the client suspended disbelief (that is, they trusted the team to build things the way they thought best and they would wait to see if the high quality would pay off). After some number of years, with only one client to carry the full cost of development, management and the client began to grow impatient. The client was impatient with the cost and with the speed with which new features could be added to the product. The extent of this dissatisfaction wasn’t discussed, at least not with me or the developers, but I can infer it from management’s actions. Everyone certainly enjoyed the great quality though.

Was the development slow? I really don’t think so. This was a large enterprise-wide software product with lots of distributed parts. Most features of significance would cross the corporate, the backoffice, and POS tiers and thus involve data flows among them and backwards compatibility since each tear could at times need to be a version ahead of the lower tears. I also did some analysis comparing this to some industry average data and believe the speed was average (again, but with very high quality).

You can get a short boost of speed at the expense of incurring more technical debt than normal. But to do that, you’ve got to paint a good picture of the problem to development. You’ve got to get them to understand the seriousness of the situation and give them a vision of how long or how much or how many of what is needed so that they can buy-in to changing their habits and their preferred, ingrained and natural method of working. You want them to work-differently. That’s difficult to achieve.

]]> By: joe http://thestrandedstarfish.com/the-invisible-hand-of-motivation/comment-page-1/#comment-492 joe Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:45:58 +0000 http://thestrandedstarfish.com/?p=461#comment-492 Why does it seem most companies do that when they "grow up"? We've all seen that happen time and again. How is it possible that "business needs" can ever be justified that reduce inherent quality design? Why does it seem most companies do that when they “grow up”? We’ve all seen that happen time and again.

How is it possible that “business needs” can ever be justified that reduce inherent quality design?

]]> By: Andrew Fuqua http://thestrandedstarfish.com/the-invisible-hand-of-motivation/comment-page-1/#comment-488 Andrew Fuqua Mon, 05 Jul 2010 22:10:28 +0000 http://thestrandedstarfish.com/?p=461#comment-488 I once managed a handful of programmers whose primary interest was to be part of a small self-organizing team producing high-quality software (internal and external quality) using eXtreme Programming. They were motivated by the opportunity to practice their craft with as little interference from management as possible. From a selfish team-centric point of view, I successfully did steps 1-4. When I first joined the team, I communicated (demonstrated, actually) my understanding and support of XP and the team. There was little to communicate after than other than continued support and involvement. That was demonstrated well with our hiring practices (step 2). I was rewarded with very low turnover and a very high quality product. The difficulty came years later when the business' needs shifted from "long-term productivity through quality" to "more features delivered right now" and a belief that our quality was too expensive. The self-interests of the team no longer matched the needs of the business. I once managed a handful of programmers whose primary interest was to be part of a small self-organizing team producing high-quality software (internal and external quality) using eXtreme Programming. They were motivated by the opportunity to practice their craft with as little interference from management as possible. From a selfish team-centric point of view, I successfully did steps 1-4. When I first joined the team, I communicated (demonstrated, actually) my understanding and support of XP and the team. There was little to communicate after than other than continued support and involvement. That was demonstrated well with our hiring practices (step 2). I was rewarded with very low turnover and a very high quality product.

The difficulty came years later when the business’ needs shifted from “long-term productivity through quality” to “more features delivered right now” and a belief that our quality was too expensive. The self-interests of the team no longer matched the needs of the business.

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