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This. The dominant way software teams are managed seems incredibly bonkers and is not the norm in any other industry I know about. In the "real world", you have

by CamTin 8y ago

This. The dominant way software teams are managed seems incredibly bonkers and is not the norm in any other industry I know about. In the "real world", you have a boss, and probably he has a boss and so on. In the software world, everything is "negotiated" and "consensus-driven". Totally different people are responsible for hiring, firing, promotion vs. everyday decisionmaking. No programmer has a single boss, they have many, often implied and nowhere on an official org chart. I think I understand how it got to be this way, and from a long-term professional point of view, it is probably good for programmers since it makes them less "cogs in a machine". It's also somewhat similar to "real" professions like lawyers, engineers (the kind with a title and professional responsibilities and, in Canada, an iron ring), and doctors, which I suspect programmers will ultimately become, thought it make take several hundred years. Still, it can be maddeningly complex and seems like a lot of the time is too much overhead. On the other hand, a team is an engineered thing just like any other, in that there are tradeoffs. Management and capital largely seem to prefer predictably-scheduled software projects with accurate estimates to fast iteration and low overhead. One way to make this tradeoff is to have several clipboard-holders on a team looking at metrics daily, and spending 1 day out of every 10 in "sprint planning".

CamTin 8y ago
I should add that this "overhead" is, IMO, a good bit of the reason why other "professional" industries are so intractable to cost reductions, so long term the "professionalization" of programmers is probably bad for non-programmers (i.e. almost everyone) in the same way that the high cost of lawyer time is a disaster for ordinary people seeking justice (i.e. almost everyone), and the high cost of doctor time is a disaster for sick people (i.e. almost everyone). For example, rarely does a firm just "hire" a lawyer and tell him what to do: they have to at least play along with the fiction that they are "junior partners" in a "partnership". They have professional obligations (to the Bar, for example) that are outside their employment obligations. It's not unreasonably for there to be more "overhead" positions for a practice than there are lawyers, because his time is to incredibly valuable that it makes economic sense for him to hire several paralegals and a secretary, not counting the "junior partners" that are employees in all but name. If lawyers were cheap (i.e. there was no cartel and fewer barriers to practice), the practice of law would look much different, and vice versa.
- Tyrek 8y ago
  In most law firms, there are two classes of lawyers - employees (salaried, with bonuses) and partners (equity profit share). Generally, partnership takes close to a decade to obtain, and generally requires a buy-in into the partnership. The 'fiction', as you refer to it, is real - they are co-owners in the business, and should be treated with some level of respect. Generally, partnership structures are closely associated with the professional services industry as it more closely aligns with the industry structure and how work is delivered - teams are often cobbled together out of the firm's employee resources, and work is overseen by one or more of the partners. As teams may be of varying sizes, it does not make sense to chain individuals to a specific 'boss' that they may or may not be working with.
  - CamTin 8y ago
    Right, and this model is itself monstrously inefficient and a result of 19th century (and earlier) modes of production persisting due to the presence of a guild and the absence any reform in the legal system. This is how furniture making and shipping used to work too, but then we invented factories and wage labor.
    - Tyrek 8y ago
      Any sort of consulting work is effectively a bespoke product - I don't see how you can get to the point where you can 'mass manufacture' professional services.
      - CamTin 8y ago
        But people don't want "professional services" at all: they want justice for the vendor who ripped them off and skipped town. They want a divorce. They want to make sure that, when they die, their daughter gets the house. They want a partnership agreement for their hot dog truck business. Later on, they might want to make sure that their partner doesn't skip town with the truck and stick him with the debts. These things don't necessarily require professional services. They certainly don't require taking time off in the middle of the day to go to an oak-paneled office with potted plants and an anteroom. We could organize our society to give people justice without traditional law practices. We've chosen not to because the benefits accrue to a well-connected minority and the downsides accrue dripwise to the rest of us. Note that LegalZoom and a few others are indeed trying to do this, but even they are forced to equivocate that they're not really lawyers. It's the legal equivalent of making tobacco companies put diseased lungs on their cigarette packaging, except it's not correcting for an externality, but imposing one. Why do I even need LegalZoom for a will? Shouldn't there be a government website where I can register my will for free? Should I need a lawyer and a judge to give me a no-fault divorce?

by CamTin 8y ago

CamTin 8y ago

I should add that this "overhead" is, IMO, a good bit of the reason why other "professional" industries are so intractable to cost reductions, so long term the "professionalization" of programmers is probably bad for non-programmers (i.e. almost everyone) in the same way that the high cost of lawyer time is a disaster for ordinary people seeking justice (i.e. almost everyone), and the high cost of doctor time is a disaster for sick people (i.e. almost everyone). For example, rarely does a firm just "hire" a lawyer and tell him what to do: they have to at least play along with the fiction that they are "junior partners" in a "partnership". They have professional obligations (to the Bar, for example) that are outside their employment obligations. It's not unreasonably for there to be more "overhead" positions for a practice than there are lawyers, because his time is to incredibly valuable that it makes economic sense for him to hire several paralegals and a secretary, not counting the "junior partners" that are employees in all but name. If lawyers were cheap (i.e. there was no cartel and fewer barriers to practice), the practice of law would look much different, and vice versa.

Tyrek 8y ago
In most law firms, there are two classes of lawyers - employees (salaried, with bonuses) and partners (equity profit share). Generally, partnership takes close to a decade to obtain, and generally requires a buy-in into the partnership. The 'fiction', as you refer to it, is real - they are co-owners in the business, and should be treated with some level of respect. Generally, partnership structures are closely associated with the professional services industry as it more closely aligns with the industry structure and how work is delivered - teams are often cobbled together out of the firm's employee resources, and work is overseen by one or more of the partners. As teams may be of varying sizes, it does not make sense to chain individuals to a specific 'boss' that they may or may not be working with.
- CamTin 8y ago
  Right, and this model is itself monstrously inefficient and a result of 19th century (and earlier) modes of production persisting due to the presence of a guild and the absence any reform in the legal system. This is how furniture making and shipping used to work too, but then we invented factories and wage labor.
  - Tyrek 8y ago
    Any sort of consulting work is effectively a bespoke product - I don't see how you can get to the point where you can 'mass manufacture' professional services.
    - CamTin 8y ago
      But people don't want "professional services" at all: they want justice for the vendor who ripped them off and skipped town. They want a divorce. They want to make sure that, when they die, their daughter gets the house. They want a partnership agreement for their hot dog truck business. Later on, they might want to make sure that their partner doesn't skip town with the truck and stick him with the debts. These things don't necessarily require professional services. They certainly don't require taking time off in the middle of the day to go to an oak-paneled office with potted plants and an anteroom. We could organize our society to give people justice without traditional law practices. We've chosen not to because the benefits accrue to a well-connected minority and the downsides accrue dripwise to the rest of us. Note that LegalZoom and a few others are indeed trying to do this, but even they are forced to equivocate that they're not really lawyers. It's the legal equivalent of making tobacco companies put diseased lungs on their cigarette packaging, except it's not correcting for an externality, but imposing one. Why do I even need LegalZoom for a will? Shouldn't there be a government website where I can register my will for free? Should I need a lawyer and a judge to give me a no-fault divorce?