4 ms·

> if you have a skilled set of programmers on your team you probably don't need Agile This. Craft and passion beat any process. These people will organize them

by tablet 11y ago

> if you have a skilled set of programmers on your team you probably don't need Agile This. Craft and passion beat any process. These people will organize themselves into the most efficient process eventually.

matthewmacleod 11y ago
This. Craft and passion beat any process. These people will organize themselves into the most efficient process eventually. My direct experience of working with programmers over the years is that this will generally descend rapidly into an inefficient mess. Yes – maybe it works, sometimes. I'd argue that's the exception, rather than the rule.
- tablet 11y ago
  I'll add that teams should be cross-functional. If every team has product related person, designer, developers and qa — they will do OK.
- shadowmint 11y ago
  http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ If you work with people who dont care, youre screwed. Nothing will ever work to force them to actively engage with the process of creating good software. ..but, surprisingly, when you do work with people who do care, they self organize remarkably well. The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. Thats been my personal experience, over the years. The problem that has to be addressed is convincing people to care, and self improve. Forcing a process on the unwilling is going to fail no matter what you do.
  - zelos 11y ago
    > The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. So where's my Half Life 3, dammit ;-)
  - Anderkent 11y ago
    And often they self-organise by taking an established process and bending it into something that works out for them. Which is fine. But that doesn't mean designing a process is useless - if it's a good base it'll be easier for the team to adapt it into something that is good for them.
  - matthewmacleod 11y ago
    I agree that a group of people who don't care will almost always produce substandard results. I don't agree that people who do care necessarily self-organise well, or that this self-organisation is compatible with other business goals. Sometimes it works, and a group of engineers et al. do a good job of forming a coherent team with minimal process. Valve's maybe an example – I don't know. My experience is that this is the exception, rather than the common case. A good process can provide tools that help good people who care communicate and deliver more effectively. They help us to keep track of how we're performing and analyse pain points, and to make sure that there are methods for dealing with common problems. For example, if my team felt that daily stand-ups were an inconvenience that weren't helpful, then we wouldn't do them. That's the goal; there's no cast-iron set of rules, just a generally applicable set of principles to follow.
    - philippeback 11y ago
      Some kicks in the assets and firing bad apples also go a long way in keeping the team focused. Some people are self motivated and other needs their slap in the morning (for some, that's a couple of times daily).
      - rpcope1 11y ago
        You know, I probably don't know as much as you do, but every time I've ever seen lots of negative reinforcement get applied to teams both in software and outside, it seems to have the opposite effect. Sometimes you have to quietly handle the most toxic people, but on the whole, when you take this sort of approach to managing, I would be very surprised if you only make the situation drastically worse in the long run.
  - chucksmash 11y ago
    > the Valve megacorporation Why is Valve a megacorporation vs. just a corporation?
- notduncansmith 11y ago
  > if you have a skilled set of programmers on your team Emphasis mine. You probably have more experience than I do, but largely I've seen it to be true that skilled (or, in the absence of skill, passionate) programmers tend to self-organize, as long as they all have the same goal (which hopefully is true for the majority of your team - if not, no methodology is going to help you).
- philippeback 11y ago
  Some structure needed indeed. And adjusted to the complexity of the endeavor at hand. Experience needed (read: got fucked before, now can avoid the treacherous waters and apply effort where and when meaningful). Ability to deal with herding cats much needed as well. Add relentless ability to move forward and not hold grudges.
gdulli 11y ago
At several previous jobs I went on and on about how most process was unnecessary and nobody would believe me that you could do with less process. Then I joined a company with better people that has minimal to no process, and we make it work well, and it's the best job I've ever had. All the companies I was at before this one that hid behind process had the usual problems with quality, scheduling, communication, etc. There's no process that's going to pull excellent work out of average people. It's just band-aids that keep people from taking real responsibility because they believe the Process will take care of things.
- julian_t 11y ago
  Absolutely... as others here have said, if you don't have people who want to think, then no amount of process can save you. You only have deal with any official bureaucratic process or government department to see that. From my POV, a minimum amount of process is useful to keep things on the rails when the pressure goes on, so people don't end up doing things wrong. After all, unit tests, git and CI are 'process'...
riffraff 11y ago
which is in fact "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools", in the agile manifesto. Really the manifesto is absolutely sensible.
- philippeback 11y ago
  It is, but tool vendors joined the party and talked to C-level people...
s73v3r 11y ago
Those people also cost money, and most managers are allergic to spending money on good people (ignoring the difficulties in finding those people in the first place).

by tablet 11y ago

matthewmacleod 11y ago

This. Craft and passion beat any process. These people will organize themselves into the most efficient process eventually. My direct experience of working with programmers over the years is that this will generally descend rapidly into an inefficient mess. Yes – maybe it works, sometimes. I'd argue that's the exception, rather than the rule.

tablet 11y ago
I'll add that teams should be cross-functional. If every team has product related person, designer, developers and qa — they will do OK.
shadowmint 11y ago
http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ If you work with people who dont care, youre screwed. Nothing will ever work to force them to actively engage with the process of creating good software. ..but, surprisingly, when you do work with people who do care, they self organize remarkably well. The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. Thats been my personal experience, over the years. The problem that has to be addressed is convincing people to care, and self improve. Forcing a process on the unwilling is going to fail no matter what you do.
- zelos 11y ago
  > The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. So where's my Half Life 3, dammit ;-)
- Anderkent 11y ago
  And often they self-organise by taking an established process and bending it into something that works out for them. Which is fine. But that doesn't mean designing a process is useless - if it's a good base it'll be easier for the team to adapt it into something that is good for them.
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  I agree that a group of people who don't care will almost always produce substandard results. I don't agree that people who do care necessarily self-organise well, or that this self-organisation is compatible with other business goals. Sometimes it works, and a group of engineers et al. do a good job of forming a coherent team with minimal process. Valve's maybe an example – I don't know. My experience is that this is the exception, rather than the common case. A good process can provide tools that help good people who care communicate and deliver more effectively. They help us to keep track of how we're performing and analyse pain points, and to make sure that there are methods for dealing with common problems. For example, if my team felt that daily stand-ups were an inconvenience that weren't helpful, then we wouldn't do them. That's the goal; there's no cast-iron set of rules, just a generally applicable set of principles to follow.
  - philippeback 11y ago
    Some kicks in the assets and firing bad apples also go a long way in keeping the team focused. Some people are self motivated and other needs their slap in the morning (for some, that's a couple of times daily).
    - rpcope1 11y ago
      You know, I probably don't know as much as you do, but every time I've ever seen lots of negative reinforcement get applied to teams both in software and outside, it seems to have the opposite effect. Sometimes you have to quietly handle the most toxic people, but on the whole, when you take this sort of approach to managing, I would be very surprised if you only make the situation drastically worse in the long run.
- chucksmash 11y ago
  > the Valve megacorporation Why is Valve a megacorporation vs. just a corporation?
notduncansmith 11y ago
> if you have a skilled set of programmers on your team Emphasis mine. You probably have more experience than I do, but largely I've seen it to be true that skilled (or, in the absence of skill, passionate) programmers tend to self-organize, as long as they all have the same goal (which hopefully is true for the majority of your team - if not, no methodology is going to help you).
philippeback 11y ago
Some structure needed indeed. And adjusted to the complexity of the endeavor at hand. Experience needed (read: got fucked before, now can avoid the treacherous waters and apply effort where and when meaningful). Ability to deal with herding cats much needed as well. Add relentless ability to move forward and not hold grudges.

gdulli 11y ago

At several previous jobs I went on and on about how most process was unnecessary and nobody would believe me that you could do with less process. Then I joined a company with better people that has minimal to no process, and we make it work well, and it's the best job I've ever had. All the companies I was at before this one that hid behind process had the usual problems with quality, scheduling, communication, etc. There's no process that's going to pull excellent work out of average people. It's just band-aids that keep people from taking real responsibility because they believe the Process will take care of things.

julian_t 11y ago
Absolutely... as others here have said, if you don't have people who want to think, then no amount of process can save you. You only have deal with any official bureaucratic process or government department to see that. From my POV, a minimum amount of process is useful to keep things on the rails when the pressure goes on, so people don't end up doing things wrong. After all, unit tests, git and CI are 'process'...

riffraff 11y ago

which is in fact "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools", in the agile manifesto. Really the manifesto is absolutely sensible.

philippeback 11y ago
It is, but tool vendors joined the party and talked to C-level people...

s73v3r 11y ago

Those people also cost money, and most managers are allergic to spending money on good people (ignoring the difficulties in finding those people in the first place).