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Software development requires servant leaders

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Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#61

Post by mywittyname »

brlewis wrote: post #35
eggie wrote: post #2

In my experience it is rarely enough to just "lead" more thoughtfully, which seems to be what the author here is promoting. Software development does not just require servant leaders in the helping sense, but in the working sense. The best leaders in software and technical domains are also those who can write (either code or ideas) better than anyone else. They have the power to move the project forward on their own,…

The best leaders in software and technical domains are also those who can write (either code or ideas) better than anyone else. Do you really believe that? When you're interviewing someone to be your manager, is that what you look for? I don't. I look for communication skills, career development ideas, and evidence that they stay cool under pressure. Software development experience is definitely a plus, but I don't l…

I don't consider managers to be the leader of software teams.

The best managers I've worked for knew how to navigate the bureaucracy and politics of a large company and had next to no technical talent.

The best leaders I've worked for knew how to get shit done. If anyone dropped the ball, they could pick it up and score the points.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#62

Post by javierluraschi »

I think the difference in software engineering is that the cost and time of digging a tunnel is almost zero. When you write code that "digs a tunnel", writing the design and code are the hard part, distributing the compiled code is usually predictable and simple. So I think software engineering is closer to the planning phase in civil engineering, where you need to go research the mountain, plan multiple routes, deal with regulation, etc. I bet it is also hard to estimate in civil engineering how long it's going to take to complete the plan to build a tunnel.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#63

Post by bena »

gregoriol wrote: post #26

While overall the article is interesting, I'm really disgusted by two sentences: "In software it’s common to have something estimated at a day take a week instead." and "The inherent inaccuracy of software estimates creates extra tension that you don’t find in other industries." Oh, poor thing, you feel so special by being a software engineer? Have you never heard of construction projects taking many times the estima…

You think software developers are unique in making claims that their field is unique in some regard?

A lot of us have the issue of perspective. We believe we have problems no one else has and fail to consider that others may have problems we can't perceive. Out of sight, out of mind.

Also, millennia is already a plural.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#64

Post by humanrebar »

phakding wrote: post #32

Why does software industry keep coming up with this sort of thing all the time? I worked as structural engineer before becoming software engineer and we never had to invent different kind of leadership and procedures or change office floor plans or hire outsider non-engineers as our (scrum) masters, or talk about the client as stake holders etc. Sorry about hurting your agile feelings!

Software is incredibly open ended. Maybe even more open ended than writing in English because software can be written in several languages or even in brand new ones.

The lack of natural structure in the work means communication and collaboration among the development team(s) is all that more important.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#65

Post by D3vMn9r »

All good theories go out the door when your dev team is offshore. Read good detective stories for an inspiration: how to uncover lies, separate truth from bluff, trust no one. Considering how many projects are done by offshore teams - this article reads like a ballade to sunshine in the midst of a hurricane

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#66

Post by pjc50 »

gregoriol wrote: post #26

While overall the article is interesting, I'm really disgusted by two sentences: "In software it’s common to have something estimated at a day take a week instead." and "The inherent inaccuracy of software estimates creates extra tension that you don’t find in other industries." Oh, poor thing, you feel so special by being a software engineer? Have you never heard of construction projects taking many times the estima…

You can combine these effects by having a construction effort that's also heavily dependent on software - see Berlin Airport for an example.

The unique problems with software I think are:

a) some things are genuinely novel: how long will it take to make a self-driving car? Nobody really knows.

b) big business projects may have incoherent or incompatible requirements, but the interactions between these appear late in development and the effort to clear them up is huge and fundamentally sociological - it has to feed back into changing the business process.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#67

Post by ptero »

This is an interesting article, but I do not agree with a number of its points. On the main one: servant leaders are not required; they work on some teams, and this is great. But other teams need a strong leader who knows what he wants and directs the execution. And team members are often OK with it when probed -- "he is an asshole, but sharp and gets things done. We rarely work long hours and are respected by senior management for delivering. I am not changing teams".

Many topics follow a theme: leave us developers alone, we are working. Do not negotiate with our estimates, etc.. This may not work in the real world. When a project involves several teams (one builds hardware, second UI, third computation, fourth preps algorithms and tools for analysis, etc.), there are common test events and mid-course corrections. Blowing past schedule affects others -- canceling a test event for a geographically distributed team is expensive.

In such cases when the developer says that they need an extra 2 months do X, "what can you do in 2 weeks" is a reasonable counter question. It may be an unreliable junk and those 2 weeks of work will have to be tossed and redone, but this may still be the best option in the grand scheme of things. Here developers often dig in and start throwing articles and links on technical debt; making them finally write a quick, limited capability prototype is a MAJOR effort. My 2c.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#68

Post by brlewis »

mywittyname wrote: post #61
brlewis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best leaders in software and technical domains are also those who can write (either code or ideas) better than anyone else. Do you really believe that? When you're interviewing someone to be your manager, is that what you look for? I don't. I look for communication skills, career development ideas, and evidence that they stay cool under pressure. Software development experience is definitely a plus, but I don't l…

I don't consider managers to be the leader of software teams. The best managers I've worked for knew how to navigate the bureaucracy and politics of a large company and had next to no technical talent. The best leaders I've worked for knew how to get shit done. If anyone dropped the ball, they could pick it up and score the points.

Definitely there's a need for leadership outside the scope of management, but the paragraph just above the heading "What Servant Leadership Means for Software" gave me the impression that this article is about engineering managers.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#69

Post by alex_anglin »

douglaswlance wrote: post #48
gregoriol wrote: post #26

While overall the article is interesting, I'm really disgusted by two sentences: "In software it’s common to have something estimated at a day take a week instead." and "The inherent inaccuracy of software estimates creates extra tension that you don’t find in other industries." Oh, poor thing, you feel so special by being a software engineer? Have you never heard of construction projects taking many times the estima…

Software is the only discipline that exclusively creates practical results via ideas. In excavation, you can see the dirt and rocks, and say "This terrain is different than we expected." and someone else can see the same terrain and say, "You are correct. Our assumptions were wrong." In software, you can't show anyone that the situation is different than your assumptions, because the assumptions themselves are the ma…

>>Software is the only discipline that exclusively creates practical results via ideas.

You're going a bit far there. How about writing, design, art, etc...? There are plenty of creative industries out there.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#70

Post by gregoriol »

chli wrote: post #53
gregoriol wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are referring to non-engineering managers, which will also happen in other industries, this depends more on the size of the company I'd say. Also, if you are really the only one to understand (if you are the only tech in a startup for example), then part of your job is actually to explain. Problems hit by developers are imho the same kinds that you describe with rocks: something unexpected has happened, we didn't…

Nobody will die if your webpage doesn't render but software is used in safety critical environments too.

I meant those who make the project don't die in software
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