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even communicating that to developers and making sure they internalize this requirement can be a big helper. what I think happens is that companies try to hire

by slt2021 6y ago

even communicating that to developers and making sure they internalize this requirement can be a big helper. what I think happens is that companies try to hire the best talent they can find for their money and tell fairy tales how they are modern and foward-looking company with the vision that is going to change the world - and of course devs will internalize that and will try to apply craftsmanship to their daily work, and then you will have problem of shipping on time and on budget. if managers told exactly and upfront that the products must be hacked together and asap and the quality is NOT the goal, that the goal is to ship shiny new thing quickly to impress VC suits in next N months, and get their funding check and continue this loop until the company finds its exit in form of IPO/acquisition/etc - everything would be honest, upfront, efficient, and conflict free.

marcosdumay 6y ago
A large part of the problem is about differing time horizons, and the fact that low quality is always slower on the long term. So, it's not ok to just say "we don't need quality, we need speed", because quality will imply on reduced speed sooner or later. On the best places, a lot of the communication problems come from the fact that managers tend to willfully ignore the fact that low quality is a losing proposition at the long term, and developers tend to willfully ignore the fact that short term only gains have value. On the worst places, communication problems tend to come from the fact that management wants to artificially prop the numbers before they get a way to jump ship, defrauding everybody else, so they simply can not be honest.
pjmlp 6y ago
That is exactly what those companies do in domains whose business is not to ship software, all development is driven by external contractors, in many cases hired on per budget basis, e.g. hire contractor XYZ to deliver 5 Jira tickets, by the next budget round another contractor will do another set of Jira tickets.

marcosdumay 6y ago

A large part of the problem is about differing time horizons, and the fact that low quality is always slower on the long term. So, it's not ok to just say "we don't need quality, we need speed", because quality will imply on reduced speed sooner or later. On the best places, a lot of the communication problems come from the fact that managers tend to willfully ignore the fact that low quality is a losing proposition at the long term, and developers tend to willfully ignore the fact that short term only gains have value. On the worst places, communication problems tend to come from the fact that management wants to artificially prop the numbers before they get a way to jump ship, defrauding everybody else, so they simply can not be honest.

pjmlp 6y ago

That is exactly what those companies do in domains whose business is not to ship software, all development is driven by external contractors, in many cases hired on per budget basis, e.g. hire contractor XYZ to deliver 5 Jira tickets, by the next budget round another contractor will do another set of Jira tickets.