3 ms·

Sources? Not even anecdotal evidence?

by alecco 18y ago

raganwald 18y ago
Once upon a time I was the development manager for a product that we took from $100K to more than M$10 a year in sales. The President of the company called a big meeting, congratulated everyone on the success, and then explained that to take a company from being "just a product" to a sustainable enterprise rested on farming its cash cows and investing in developing future star products. So... He was forming a product research group to think up new products, starting with looking at the exciting new wireless "space." Cool, I thought, and asked to get in on the new group action. "Why?" he wanted to know, "you're doing a great job where you are." he staffed the new group with managers and developers from other teams with less successful products. Shortly thereafter, I joined a start up.
- raganwald 18y ago
  Re-reading this, I want to emphasize I am only telling this story to as an anecdote in support of the idea that the perception of being tangential is demotivating. The story should not be construed to suggest that the President was making a management mistake. The product continued to make them a lot of money after I left, so it's not like they lost anyone critical :-)
  - jrockway 18y ago
    The product continued to make them a lot of money after I left, so it's not like they lost anyone critical :-) I think what this shows is that products are successful after they become successful. Once everyone has heard of your product and know that it's good, they want it ... regardless of whether or not the competition is "better". If I were Microsoft and one day I replaced Visual Studio with vim, I'm sure people would like it much more than when it was called "vim".
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - ovi256 18y ago
      And that, my friends, is branding.
- alecco 18y ago
  I actually have a very similar situation. Even similar amounts of money. We got two more developers and a manager doing the trendy cool research-y stuff. A year later the whole group closed the working product discontinued, and I ended up leaving the company. Don't get me wrong, I hate the Google wanna-be companies. If wrongly applied creates an environment of primadonnas and self-appointed gurus. Been there, too. Still, it is very hard to find how to have good programmers happy. Perhaps the best thing is start listening to them. In the right amounts. And make whatever is given valued, humans tend only to value what they miss.
gruseom 18y ago
The piece is an anecdote.
alex_c 18y ago
Here's some anecdotal evidence. I'm a programmer, and I agree 100% with this part: Developers hate three things, above all else, in increasing order of painfulness… Working on stuff that is easy Working on stuff that is tangential Working on stuff that no one will use

Sources? Not even anecdotal evidence?

by alecco 18y ago

Sources? Not even anecdotal evidence?

Once upon a time I was the development manager for a product that we took from $100K to more than M$10 a year in sales. The President of the company called a big meeting, congratulated everyone on the success, and then explained that to take a company from being "just a product" to a sustainable enterprise rested on farming its cash cows and investing in developing future star products. So... He was forming a product research group to think up new products, starting with looking at the exciting new wireless "space." Cool, I thought, and asked to get in on the new group action. "Why?" he wanted to know, "you're doing a great job where you are." he staffed the new group with managers and developers from other teams with less successful products. Shortly thereafter, I joined a start up.

raganwald 18y ago
Re-reading this, I want to emphasize I am only telling this story to as an anecdote in support of the idea that the perception of being tangential is demotivating. The story should not be construed to suggest that the President was making a management mistake. The product continued to make them a lot of money after I left, so it's not like they lost anyone critical :-)
- jrockway 18y ago
  The product continued to make them a lot of money after I left, so it's not like they lost anyone critical :-) I think what this shows is that products are successful after they become successful. Once everyone has heard of your product and know that it's good, they want it ... regardless of whether or not the competition is "better". If I were Microsoft and one day I replaced Visual Studio with vim, I'm sure people would like it much more than when it was called "vim".
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - ovi256 18y ago
    And that, my friends, is branding.
alecco 18y ago
I actually have a very similar situation. Even similar amounts of money. We got two more developers and a manager doing the trendy cool research-y stuff. A year later the whole group closed the working product discontinued, and I ended up leaving the company. Don't get me wrong, I hate the Google wanna-be companies. If wrongly applied creates an environment of primadonnas and self-appointed gurus. Been there, too. Still, it is very hard to find how to have good programmers happy. Perhaps the best thing is start listening to them. In the right amounts. And make whatever is given valued, humans tend only to value what they miss.

gruseom 18y ago

The piece is an anecdote.

alex_c 18y ago

Here's some anecdotal evidence. I'm a programmer, and I agree 100% with this part: Developers hate three things, above all else, in increasing order of painfulness… Working on stuff that is easy Working on stuff that is tangential Working on stuff that no one will use