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Building software is always a task of trying to hit a moving target. The complexity keeps growing on every parameter if not managed well. Projects which build softwares that have to talk to each other are often built by different teams under different managements, leaving less scope to find schedule and contract to match for smooth integration. Many times I have observed that there is so much of dependency on each other that the projects look like they are progressing so well until they hit a dead lock on integration.

rocking-horseIn my view such projects are like rocking horses, for a child it gives an illusion that s/he is in control of the horse and its movements but there is no real progress, it is just moving not progressing. The illusion of movement in a project is formed when developers implement the requirements which is neither validated nor integrated but just added to growing source code, followed by an all out big bang effort to integrate and push it to production. The result of rework and last mile dash leaves the teams burnt out and demotivated that there is hardly enough energy to move on to the next work.

Research say that we have two kinds of thinking which I encountered in the book ‘The Pragmatic Programmer’, it says that people who work with the brain (knowledge workers) need to make use of both focussed and diffused modes of thinking which is mentioned as L-mode and R-mode in the book. Procrastination is the key to R-mode as it props up the answers we are looking for, at a moment when we are not thinking about it. It has worked for me very well as I have observed that I get great ideas in shower, while driving, while having coffee staring outside the office window.

Sadly management is trained to look at people furiously typing at their computers for long hours as work and any thinking time saharais deemed as a luxury. This problem gets compounded when management in the guise of agile leaving out all the people aspects behind; which help in looking back, taking stock of situation and plan well but use it solely for micromanagement. People if lost will usually walk in circles, it is a proven fact that people lost in a desert in the night time or an overcast condition without the direction markers will walk in circles, more about it in this link from Nat Geo.

Directionless movement is just a movement for the sake of movement like a rocking horse, there is no real progress.

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Is it easy to get a crash course in football by Pele or Maradona for a week and produce a world cup winning football team?

Answer is NO. Then why do lots of people in the corporate world think of hiring scrum trainers & expert developers to train their team for a week and then expect their team to be undergo a transformation at a magical scale?

Football

German football team made it a point to transform their team and it took them a lots of years before they were able to reach the pinnacle. A quick side by side comparison of what is causing agile transformation to fail.

Vision

Football: Someone was there owning this entire transformation, the German football association spent a lot of time identifying talent in their teens and groomed them.

Office: In the corporate world switching jobs every few years have become common, but there is no passing on of the context, resulting in the new person taking charge, starting from all over again, as well as frustrating existing good performers who have to rebuild the perception.

Infrastructure

Football: Players expecting state of the art training facilities, fitness programs and new shoes are not a luxury, it is a necessity.

Office: Computers have become so cheap compared to the salaries, yet the policy of providing the best tools and good work environment are archaic.

Coach vs Management

Football: Coaches are given their due powers to help the team achieve the goal. It is very easy for anyone to comment on how professionals should play their game, there would be no use adhering to the metrics if the team cannot win. Winning is the only measure for management.

Office: Often coaches are seen as part of the management or management tries to heavily influence coaching which results in a team which will work either for metrics or to please higher ups without the actual result that it had aimed for.

Training

Football: Just the ability to kick the ball does not make a footballer. Training will be introduced to increase physical strength & stamina, better mental wellness, injury prevention, tactics and strategy.  A heavy investment is made in the training facilities.

Office: In the software industry a generation is about 2-3 years. Computer science degrees are nowhere near what is state of the art in the industry. At many places the on boarding process is either very shallow or not up to date with the recent developments, leaving people to learn most of the things hard way. Given too many things to learn and the information overload, this results in inefficient learning and application of knowledge on the job. We need to prepare people to find answers that are not available on Google.

Team composition

Football: Rookies don’t learn by watching greats from the bench, instead they play along with the veterans. Every sports team makes sure to have the right composition with a mix of rookies, emerging players and veterans. That is how they sustain a winning team.

Office: Architects and Leads often do not code or not part of the team every day, this means that most of the time the team just looks up to for advice or waits for reviews. There should be a good mix of people at all experience level so that there are enough people to try new things, enough people who have mastered few things and enough people who challenge change.

Above all – Persistence

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. ~ Calvin Coolidge

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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What does a boom in an industry bring in? It brings in a shortage of talent.

What does shortage of talent bring in? It brings in a great demand for the talent.

What does great demand mean in a shortage of talent? It increases the supply in an inorganic manner and inverse vandalism occurs.

In a country called Noviland, carpentry was an expensive business dictated by undersupply of wood as the wood cutters only had access to axes. This kept carpentry and arts related to wood accessible only to the elite and the academics who studied carpentry. This brought in many skilled and intelligent people to the field who were well respected and well paid, people were committed to workmanship. Even though the forest cover was huge in Noviland, technology of axes led to a limited supply.

A wood cutter’s daughter invents a circular saw that can be driven through the bicycle gears which helps to cut trees at 10 times the pace they were used to. Suddenly the supply of wood increased ten fold and there were not enough carpenters. The demand for carpenters grew way too much that it drove their paychecks very high, prompting people to switch careers. Those who learnt other trades, tools and works now did a simple study of hammer, nails & saw and jumped into the profession.

Maintaining old work was easy as everything was in place and simple maintenance tasks were all required to keep up. New work is were all the hell broke loose. People were now getting furniture that does not last long, wooden bridges collapsed on a few days of exposure to heat and rain. People who wanted to replace their furniture dreaded at the cost of replacement and replacement failures. There were way too many carpenters and finding passionate people was next to impossible. Carpentry became a high paying job where no passion or study was required, all it matters was to know about hammer, nails and saw. Some of them who did exceptionally well were immediately made a manager and given interns to manage thereby killing passionate carpenters in the interest of scale.

Software engineering in a few countries is at this state, merely having a crash course in Java and understanding of few libraries are enough to be called as a programmer. Programming is not just writing code, it is solving a communication problem which involves many aspects. Lots of productivity is lost because of the failure to understand and implement good engineering practices. Some people pick agile as a tool to enhance productivity but do nothing to improve the capability of the developers. There are so many practices which can help us develop and release software in days & weeks but many of us are still stuck at the timescale of months & years because of the ignorance of practices as well as reduced progression on the skill level.

Below is a table which helps us to find where we stand in terms of skills, I can say with confidence that even with 10 years of experience many of us will not rate ourselves proficient. We should let skill and passion dominate engineering fields.

 Table source: http://science.raphael.poss.name/programming-levels.html