Developer-driven development
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Developer-driven development
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Re: Developer-driven development
#2Slides are nice, but a video or a transcript of the talk would be a lot more useful. Does anyone know where this talk was given? The title is too generic for my Google skills.
Re: Developer-driven development
#3I can't help but think this requires that only 'rock star' programmers be on the team. 1 bad apple would start to throw everything off, and a few could derail it.
It also requires that everyone have the same vision, or you end up with a very fragmented product, see as how you allow each developer to decide what to work on.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to work at a company that is succeeding at this... I just can't imagine how to keep it succeeding.
Seeing as how it requires the developers to act like they have a stake in the company, perhaps a better title would have been: Driven Developer-Driven Development
Re: Developer-driven development
#4Slides are nice, but a video or a transcript of the talk would be a lot more useful. Does anyone know where this talk was given? The title is too generic for my Google skills.
This was a lunch keynote at codemash.org on January 14th, 2011, although it may not have been the first time it was given.
For any HN'ers in the midwest, CodeMash is an awesome polygot conference that takes place January every year in Sandusky, Ohio. I've never been at any other conference where you meet experts in Python, Ruby, Haskel, and other languages in the same session.
Re: Developer-driven development
#5I can't help but think this requires that only 'rock star' programmers be on the team. 1 bad apple would start to throw everything off, and a few could derail it. It also requires that everyone have the same vision, or you end up with a very fragmented product, see as how you allow each developer to decide what to work on. Don't get me wrong, I would love to work at a company that is succeeding at this... I just can'…
> I can't help but think this requires that only 'rock star' programmers be on the team.
"Rock star" developer can mean a lot of things.
What's required here (aside from everything listed in the prerequisite section of the slides) is that developers have a sense of ownership of the product. That's it.
You can foster this by literally giving them percentage shares of ownership. Some developers naturally feel this way about everything they ship. Some developers will never feel this way unless they own a majority interest in the software.
Re: Developer-driven development
#6I can't help but think this requires that only 'rock star' programmers be on the team. 1 bad apple would start to throw everything off, and a few could derail it. It also requires that everyone have the same vision, or you end up with a very fragmented product, see as how you allow each developer to decide what to work on. Don't get me wrong, I would love to work at a company that is succeeding at this... I just can'…
I dunno about 'rock star' (although I'm a pretty amazing drummmer…) but yes, the talk centers around hiring the most driven people possible. I don't think any of us act like we have a stake in the company — we do.
I'd highly suggest reading Drive by Daniel Pink. The entire book is about how people are motivated. It would definitely answer almost all the points listed.
Re: Developer-driven development
#7Ah, it's a slideshow without mouse controls. Felt stupid for a good five minutes while testing in various browsers, just trying to get /something/ to work. Not a great experience.
Re: Developer-driven development
#8The reason why there are so many startups is because most people want to work on ideas that they conceive. People love to create something of their own.
If a company allows their workers to choose the features they work on, programmers will automatically take ownership and immerse themselves in the product. Most developers I know are bored out of their mind when working on someone else's idea, although there are a few exceptions.
There's really not much more to be said on this topic imo.
Re: Developer-driven development
#9I think that all the arguments against it assume that management automatically has a better vision for the product than dev. I think dev also recognizes their falliability in choosing which features to develop so hopefully they'd do it according to A/B testing or other more scientifically sound methods for feature selection.
Re: Developer-driven development
#10Ah, it's a slideshow without mouse controls. Felt stupid for a good five minutes while testing in various browsers, just trying to get /something/ to work. Not a great experience.
Couldn't get it to work on iOS.