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The Programmer's Dilemma

raganwald.posterous.com

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Re: The Programmer's Dilemma

#11

Post by raganwald »

Mz wrote: post #6
o1iver wrote: post #2

Sounds a little bit like the prisoner's dilemma...

A little, except in the prisoner's dilemma, if they both agree and don't blame each other, you get the best outcome. That isn't really the case here. And if they both betray each other, they are both screwed.

Check your definition again. In Game Theory, that's a different game, where cooperating outweighs suckering the other guy. That's called a "Stag Hunt:"

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/#StaHunPD

It could be that in some organizations, the rewards are such that a Stag Hunt is a better model.

Re: The Programmer's Dilemma

#12

Post by Mz »

raganwald wrote: post #11
Mz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little, except in the prisoner's dilemma, if they both agree and don't blame each other, you get the best outcome. That isn't really the case here. And if they both betray each other, they are both screwed.

Check your definition again. In Game Theory, that's a different game, where cooperating outweighs suckering the other guy. That's called a "Stag Hunt:" http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/#StaHunPD It could be that in some organizations, the rewards are such that a Stag Hunt is a better model.

No, I mean best outcome for all parties -- ie win-win -- and the story sounds to me like there is no actual good outcome for this tale. I am well aware that in prisoner's dilemma if one person betrays/blames and the other does not, that's when one party gets over.

Sorry for being unclear.

Re: The Programmer's Dilemma

#13

Post by mikebd »

Amen Brother! My new internal customer just had a wonderful surprise as we are adopting Agile. He asked if he needed to work through me to reorganize the backlog for upcoming sprints. No - you own scope and timeline. Reorganize as much as you like on items we have not yet begun as long as you respect the total effort estimates per sprint.

Value working software and healthy collaboration with a process that routinely measures real progress and you'll never have to explain why you slipped 3 months since last week's status report.

Re: The Programmer's Dilemma

#14

Post by ionfish »

wallflower wrote: post #8

A colleague of mine - his wife was a 3rd grade teacher. One day, he mentioned to her the process that we were doing. And she laughed. She showed him the daily progress report. "What I did today? What I want to do tomorrow?" That her 3rd graders had to fill out everyday. Are programmers adults that need to be self-managed + micro-managed like 3rd graders?

> She showed him the daily progress report. "What I did today? What I want to do tomorrow?" That her 3rd graders had to fill out everyday.

To be honest, it sounds just as insane—possibly more—that children have to do this kind of thing. There were fewer assessment exercises of this sort when I was in school, albeit appreciably more than my parents had to contend with. The main lesson I took away from them was to avoid, wherever possible, any job or career where I'd have to waste everyone's time pursuing such ridiculous make-work.

I worry that the more we force this stuff on children from an early age, the more they will take it to be the normal (de jure, not de facto) state of affairs rather than an aberration stemming from the awful tendency to value managerial gestures over productive work.

Re: The Programmer's Dilemma

#15

Post by va_coder »

maeon3 wrote: post #4

The problem here is that managers think that writing good software is like baking a cake, if you have the right ingredients, the right process, the right environment and the right people, then you are 99% likely to end up with a satisfactory cake. This is absolutely not the case with building software. It could very well be the red tape in the office, the politics, maneuvering, posturing, noisy programmer area, the t…

I've been developing software for over 15 years and without question communication and politics are just as important as technical skills. You have to get key people on your side and you have to keep everybody up to date on the status of the project.

Re: The Programmer's Dilemma

#16

Post by cwp »

maeon3 wrote: post #4

The problem here is that managers think that writing good software is like baking a cake, if you have the right ingredients, the right process, the right environment and the right people, then you are 99% likely to end up with a satisfactory cake. This is absolutely not the case with building software. It could very well be the red tape in the office, the politics, maneuvering, posturing, noisy programmer area, the t…

Actually, I think those managers are right. The problem is that the right ingredients to produce a satisfactory cake are not the same as the right ingredients to succeed in a large corporation.

Re: The Programmer's Dilemma

#17

Post by wallflower »

ionfish wrote: post #14
wallflower wrote: post #8

A colleague of mine - his wife was a 3rd grade teacher. One day, he mentioned to her the process that we were doing. And she laughed. She showed him the daily progress report. "What I did today? What I want to do tomorrow?" That her 3rd graders had to fill out everyday. Are programmers adults that need to be self-managed + micro-managed like 3rd graders?

> She showed him the daily progress report. "What I did today? What I want to do tomorrow?" That her 3rd graders had to fill out everyday. To be honest, it sounds just as insane—possibly more—that children have to do this kind of thing. There were fewer assessment exercises of this sort when I was in school, albeit appreciably more than my parents had to contend with. The main lesson I took away from them was to avoi…

Having graduated from grade school many decades before NCLB, I fear that adults are irrevocably changing education for the worse. Test taking isn't learning, yet it the main priority for many schools (especially poor ones).

Re: The Programmer's Dilemma

#18

Post by edw519 »

Was this a failure of process or people?

Neither.

It was a failure of management...

Anyone who conducts a post-mortem with their people would be much better off simply looking in the mirror.

Where were the Vice President of Development and the Vice President of Marketing when things starting going bad? Things simply don't go wrong at the end of the project; there had to have been plenty of warning, if only someone was noticing.

Vice presidents do best by having their finger on the pulse of the things that are important and providing the right resources and leadership to enable both their people and processes to be successful. These two were in a time warp, reacting to failure instead of preparing for success.

The President needs to find a way to get the job done at the Vice President level. He's the one who needs either better people or better processes.

Re: The Programmer's Dilemma

#19

Post by techdmn »

wallflower wrote: post #8

A colleague of mine - his wife was a 3rd grade teacher. One day, he mentioned to her the process that we were doing. And she laughed. She showed him the daily progress report. "What I did today? What I want to do tomorrow?" That her 3rd graders had to fill out everyday. Are programmers adults that need to be self-managed + micro-managed like 3rd graders?

Good thing they didn't ask this when I was in school:

What I did today? -> Went to school. What I want to do tomorrow? -> Stay home and play nintendo.

The second question is not quite honest, more accurately "What BS can I feed my teacher?" I view these questions as a way of attacking integrity, lie or face the consequences. One might argue this teaches a valuable skill. But I find it hard to stomach.

Re: The Programmer's Dilemma

#20

Post by toddh »

Don't play the game with people like these. That was the real problem. Once their nature and character became evident, which it must have quite early, there was no way to win. Leave and find a better game.
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